Technologies of the Digital Content : from Production to Protection

Since the mid-2000s, the boundaries between media groups, public audiovisual service operators, telecom network operators, software publishers, Internet service providers and electronic equipment manufacturers have partly lost their watertightness, historically linked to the "non-convergent" distribution and broadcasting of digital content (one type of content was associated with one distribution and broadcasting mode, and one consumption mode). The widespread introduction of the Internet and the IP protocol in content transmission architectures has led to "convergent" distribution and broadcasting of digital content (with one set of content associated with one distribution and broadcasting mode, using the IP protocol, and a multitude of consumption modes), forcing incumbent players in the transmission chain to reposition their activities.

This article looks at the technologies needed to transmit digital content from the production studio to the end consumer, successively detailing the stages and techniques involved in production (recording, editing, mixing, post-production, etc.), compression standards (digital text, Web pages, still images, digital audio and video content, etc.), preparing content for distribution and broadcast (editing, metadata, container formats, etc.) and protecting digital content (CAS, DRM, etc.).

The appendices provide examples of digital audio interfaces, digital interfaces dedicated to video signals, delivery formats, compression formats, specific templates or descriptive metadata sets, identification codes, syndication protocols, computer storage container formats, exchange formats and protection systems (distributed or broadcast stream, video streaming stream, digital output, distributed file or distributed physical medium).