2021-05-31, 00:48
Earlier this year, we introduced secureOSMC in our 4.9 testing builds. This is a proprietary real-time operating system running on a dedicated CPU on Vero 4K/4K+ devices. This will be released as a stable update with the release of Kodi v19. If you are using these test builds, you are already running secureOSMC.
secureOSMC is a secure operating system which handles the storage of secrets and allows us to run tasks in a secure world. This is already used for some tasks on Vero 4K/4K+. secureOSMC supports and implements a trusted video pathway which supports hardware acceleration. In October 2020, we successfully managed to decode Widevine L1 streams with hardware acceleration with provisioned Widevine and HDCP2.2 keys burned to a Vero 4K + box. This was with our own Widevine libraries -- no changes were necessary to Inputstream Adaptive.
Unfortunately we don’t have keys burned on current devices out there and we can’t provision them over the air, otherwise anyone could burn a key to any device. However, we can get access to 1080p streams and decode them in hardware on existing devices. This would be L3 support, but with hardware acceleration instead of using the armhf Chromebook Widevine libraries which do software decode only. There are some contractual issues to work out however. Widevine L1 on new hardware doesn’t give us access to 4K streams (Netflix have their own agreement), but there is a chance. It also increases our chance of getting access to higher quality streams with other streaming providers. In short: L1, HDCP2.2 which we are aiming for in the next model and have verified still caps us at 1080p for Netflix unless we go for certification.
secureOSMC is a secure operating system which handles the storage of secrets and allows us to run tasks in a secure world. This is already used for some tasks on Vero 4K/4K+. secureOSMC supports and implements a trusted video pathway which supports hardware acceleration. In October 2020, we successfully managed to decode Widevine L1 streams with hardware acceleration with provisioned Widevine and HDCP2.2 keys burned to a Vero 4K + box. This was with our own Widevine libraries -- no changes were necessary to Inputstream Adaptive.
Unfortunately we don’t have keys burned on current devices out there and we can’t provision them over the air, otherwise anyone could burn a key to any device. However, we can get access to 1080p streams and decode them in hardware on existing devices. This would be L3 support, but with hardware acceleration instead of using the armhf Chromebook Widevine libraries which do software decode only. There are some contractual issues to work out however. Widevine L1 on new hardware doesn’t give us access to 4K streams (Netflix have their own agreement), but there is a chance. It also increases our chance of getting access to higher quality streams with other streaming providers. In short: L1, HDCP2.2 which we are aiming for in the next model and have verified still caps us at 1080p for Netflix unless we go for certification.
