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Now You Can Trace Where a Video Leak Came From! MediaLive Adds A/B Forensic Watermarking

AWS What's New ★★★★ View Markdown
#aws#security#infrastructure

Hi, it's me, Shiichan! Today's news is about fighting unauthorized redistribution of live streams.

AWS What's New aws.amazon.com

What was announced?

AWS What's New announced that AWS Elemental MediaLive now supports A/B forensic watermarking, letting content owners trace the source of unauthorized redistribution of live video content.

The story so far

Up to now, when a live stream got illegally recorded or redistributed, it was hard to pin down exactly which session or viewer it leaked from. Even where watermarks existed, they tended to disappear after re-encoding or screen capture.

What changes

With A/B forensic watermarking, a single MediaLive channel produces two synchronized output variants, each carrying a distinct, visually transparent watermark. Crucially, these watermarks persist through re-encoding and screen capture. Downstream packaging and CDN infrastructure combines the two variants into a unique per-session sequence, which identifies the origin of any leaked content.

Dive Deep

This follows the DASH Industry Forum's (DASH-IF) A/B watermarking specification (ETSI TS 104 002), ensuring interoperability with standards-compliant packagers and CDN infrastructure. It's configured on Common Media Application Format (CMAF) Ingest output groups through the MediaLive API or console. The watermarked A and B variants are delivered via CMAF ingest to AWS Elemental MediaPackage or third-party packagers, and compatible CDN infrastructure — including Amazon CloudFront — handles the per-session watermark assembly downstream. It's available in every AWS region where AWS Elemental MediaLive is available.

Wrap-up

  • AWS Elemental MediaLive now supports A/B forensic watermarking to trace the source of unauthorized redistribution.
  • The two watermarked variants from a single channel survive re-encoding and screen capture.
  • It follows the DASH-IF A/B watermarking spec (ETSI TS 104 002) for interoperability with existing CDN infrastructure.
  • It's configured via MediaLive's CMAF Ingest output groups through the API or console.
  • A solid addition for content owners worried about leaks of premium live content.

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