Systems and methods for protecting elementary bitstreams incorporating independently encoded tiles

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium containing processor instructions, where execution of the instructions by a processor causes the processor to perform a process comprising:

receiving a video bitstream comprising a plurality of frames, each frame comprising a plurality of independently encoded compression units within the frame;

partially encrypting a plurality of frames in the video bitstream by encrypting a portion of each of a plurality of independently encoded compression units in the plurality of frames; and

generating an output bitstream comprising the plurality of independently encoded compression units including the encrypted portions of the compression units;

wherein the independently encoded compression units are tiles within the video bitstream; and

wherein encrypting the portion of each of the plurality of independently encoded compression units in the plurality of frames comprises:

parsing the encoded bitstream to identify a tile structure; and

encrypting a portion of each of a plurality of tiles, where a portion of a tile is selected for encryption based upon the identified tile structure.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein a compression unit is an independently decodable portion of a particular frame of video such that it does not depend upon another compression unit within the particular frame in order to be decoded.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising:

parsing a metadata header to identify locations of compression units within a frame of video; and

encrypting a portion of the video bitstream based on the locations of the compression units.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein encrypting the portion of each of the plurality of compression units comprises determining that compression units are enabled based on information within a header associated with the video bitstream.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising encrypting a portion of each compression unit in a frame of video.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5 , wherein the portion is selected from the group consisting of i) a first N bytes of the compression unit, ii) a last N bytes of the compression unit, iii) a middle portion of N bytes within the compression unit and iv) a pattern of N bytes within the compression unit.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the compression units are tiles within a High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard and the video bitstream is encoded based on the HEVC standard.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 7 , further comprising:

parsing a Picture Parameter Set (PPS) of the HEVC video bitstream to identify the structure of the tiles within the video bitstream; and

encrypt portions of the tiles based on the structure.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein encrypting the portion of each of the plurality of compression units comprises using a common encryption format (CENC) to encrypt the portions.

10. A content encoder comprising:

a hardware processor configured to communicate with a memory that stores instructions for execution by the processor, where the memory contains an encoder application;

wherein the encoder application directs the processor to:

receive a video bitstream comprising a plurality of frames, each frame comprising a plurality of independently encoded compression units within the frame;

partially encrypt a plurality of frames in the video bitstream by encrypting a portion of each of a plurality of independently encoded compression units in the plurality of frames; and

generate an output bitstream comprising the plurality of independently encoded compression units including the encrypted portions of the compression units;

wherein the independently encoded compression units are tiles within the video bitstream; and

wherein encrypting the portion of each of the plurality of independently encoded compression units in the plurality of frames comprises:

parsing the encoded bitstream to identify a tile structure; and

encrypting a portion of each of a plurality of tiles, where a portion of a tile is selected for encryption based upon the identified tile structure.

11. The content encoder of claim 10 , wherein a compression unit is an independently decodable portion of a particular frame of video such that it does not depend upon another compression unit within the particular frame in order to be decoded.

12. The content encoder of claim 10 , wherein the encoder application further directs the processor to:

parse a metadata header to identify locations of compression units within a frame of video; and

encrypt a portion of the video bitstream based on the locations of the compression units.

13. The content encoder claim 10 , wherein encrypting the portion of each of the plurality of compression units comprises determining that compression units are enabled based on information within a header associated with the video bitstream.

14. The content encoder claim 10 , wherein the encoder application further directs the processor to encrypt a portion of each compression unit in a frame of video.

15. The content encoder of claim 14 , wherein the portion is selected from the group consisting of i) a first N bytes of the compression unit, ii) a last N bytes of the compression unit, iii) a middle portion of N bytes within the compression unit and iv) a pattern of N bytes within the compression unit.

16. The content encoder of claim 10 , wherein the compression units are tiles within a High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard and the video bitstream is encoded based on the HEVC standard.

17. The content encoder of claim 16 , wherein the encoder application further directs the processor to:

pare a Picture Parameter Set (PPS) of the HEVC video bitstream to identify the structure of the tiles within the video bitstream; and

encrypt portions of the tiles based on the structure.

18. The content encoder of claim 10 , wherein encrypting the portion of each of the plurality of compression units comprises using a common encryption format (CENC) to encrypt the portions.

19. A content decoder comprising:

a hardware processor configured to communicate with a memory that stores instructions for execution by the processor, where the memory contains a decoder application;

wherein the decoder application directs the processor to:

receive a video bitstream comprising a plurality of frames, each frame comprising a plurality of independently encoded compression units within the frame;

partially decrypt a plurality of frames in the video bitstream by decrypt decrypting a portion of each of a plurality of independently encoded compression units in the plurality of frames; and

generate an output decoded video for playback;

wherein the independently encoded compression units are tiles within the video bitstream; and

wherein decrypting the portion of each of the plurality of independently encoded compression units in the plurality of frames comprises:

parsing the encoded bitstream to identify a tile structure; and

decrypt a portion of each of a plurality of tiles, where a portion of a tile is selected for decrypting based upon the identified tile structure.

20. The content decoder claim 19 , wherein a compression unit is an independently decodable portion of a particular frame of video such that it does not depend upon another compression unit within the particular frame in order to be decoded.

21. The content decoder of claim 19 , wherein the decoder application further directs the processor to:

parse a metadata header to identify locations of compression units within a frame of video; and

decrypt a portion of the video bitstream based on the locations of the compression units.

22. The content decoder of claim 19 , wherein decrypting the portion of each of the plurality of compression units comprises determining that compression units are enabled based on information within a header associated with the video bitstream.

23. The content decoder of claim 19 , wherein the decoder application further directs the processor to decrypt a portion of each compression unit in a frame of video.

24. The content decoder of claim 23 , wherein the portion is selected from the group consisting of i) a first N bytes of the compression unit, ii) a last N bytes of the compression unit, iii) a middle portion of N bytes within the compression unit and iv) a pattern of N bytes within the compression unit.

25. The content decoder of claim 19 , wherein the compression units are tiles within a High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard and the video bitstream is decoded based on the HEVC standard.

26. The content decoder of claim 25 , wherein the decoder application further directs the processor to:

parse a Picture Parameter Set (PPS) of the HEVC video bitstream to identify the structure of the tiles within the video bitstream; and

decrypt portions of the tiles based on the structure.

27. The content decoder of claim 19 , wherein decrypting the portion of each of the plurality of compression units comprises using a common encryption format (CENC) to decrypt the portions.