How to stop visitors from downloading online videos?

I don't want users to download my online videos to their computer?

Videos on internet can be effortlessly downloaded to your local drive using readily available tools. Several people however want to upload a protected video, something that they would like to sell to internet. Instances of such queries can be found on the first page of Google such as this and this and this . As several video hosting companies point out, videos hosted anywhere on internet can be downloaded. A suggested rule of thumb is that if you plan to protect a video of monetary value, the best you can do is keep it away from internet. But what good is a monetary value if the commodity itself is taken away from its market. Businesses and film makers urgently need a channel that protects their content from the time of uploading to the time when the video is streamed on viewer's device.

Stop video download to prevent piracy

The web is brimming with websites offering free download of any movie or TV series. The most video creators can do is take recourse to legal action, which is in itself ineffective when there are so many website mushrooming. You can not go on tracking and suing each one of them. Movie "Pirate bay Away from keyboard" laments this affairs of copyrights versus content-sharing. It points to the need for a technology of content broadcast which is secure in itself and does not need to fall back on any legal backing.

Some solutions for stopping video download

1. RTMP 

This is one solution that some video creators go for. Basic difference is RTMP protocol which is a different method of data transfer than conventional HTTP/HTTPS methods on regular web. Acronym for Real-time media playback, this requires a real-time streaming of media data. With a little obfuscation, you can even hide RTMP server and path so as to further prevent video leeches.
Pros: One-up security over regular HTTP methods
Cons 1: Real-time playback does not provide any buffer and slightly slower internet can give broken playback resulting in poor user experience.
Cons 2 : "RTMP Explorer", a simple, small software which you can simply download, run and play RTMP video, this software will download the video straightaway.
Cons 3: Incompatible with mobiles. This protocol can not be played on mobile browsers because of lack of flash player. Best you can do is create an app for mobile platforms or fallback to HTML5 which makes your video quite vulnerable.

2. HTTP Live/Dynamic Streaming(HLS/HDS)

Apple and Adobe have both their own versions of this protocol. Set up requires a dedicated media server and also some technical know how so that you can configure adaptive bit rates. It gives some option to include elements of encryption keys to protect media headers. 
However, even this is not so difficult to download. Somebody who can see what is happening can grab the video easily. Download-helper somehow failed to download as it is just an add-on with no file system access. There is also a PHP script to download and combine fragments of a HLS/HDS into a complete offline video file. Apart from this, there are some device compatibility issues with video playback. It is not able to run without a flash player or a dedicated app.

How VdoCipher tries to provide an easy to use DRM on videos?

Considering such need of premium video creators, we have built VdoCipher as a solution to streaming protected content on internet. An online video hosting service where premium videos can be streamed while keeping video immune to downloaders. The system ensures that every single video playback requires an authentication from back-end. There are libraries to be used with different languages such as PHP or ASP or you can always use API directly. For providing mobile compatibility, there is an easy to use interface where one can create custom apps with minimal knowledge of HTML. App can be compiled and exported for both Android and iOS stores.

Website is in early beta stage and there are some features such as App-Maker which are still not online. If anybody wants to try out, I suggest check out website www.vdocipher.com and contact via contact page. If you have any queries, please ask them in comments below.

I shall cover more on features of VdoCipher and its usage in a subsequent blog post.