Ateme and castLabs Deploy Secure, Cost-Efficient IPTV/OTT Headend for Leading European Operator
Ateme, a global leader in video compression, delivery, and streaming solutions, has successfully deployed a robust and secure IPTV/OTT converged headend solution for a major European telecommunications provider, leveraging its TITAN Live and TITAN Mux pla
Paris and Berlin(29 Jul 2025)
Ateme, a global leader in video compression, delivery, and streaming solutions, has successfully deployed a robust and secure IPTV/OTT converged headend solution for a major European telecommunications provider, leveraging its TITAN Live and TITAN Mux platforms. In partnership, castLabs – a global pioneer in premium digital video technology – provides its DRMtoday for Widevine CAS solution to support the operator’s IPTV service, delivering enhanced content protection and scalability at reduced cost.
The operator’s live OTT/IPTV platform delivers approximately 350 channels, supported by Ateme’s TITAN and castLabs’ DRMtoday for Widevine CAS solutions. The deployment spans two geographically redundant sites, ensuring high availability and operational resilience.
This new headend solution delivers several key benefits to the operator:
- Lower content protection costs through Widevine CAS, eliminating royalties and costly middleware.
- High availability and resilience enabled by the dual-site deployment.
- Enhanced security, with encrypted Control Words and secure transmission over TCP/TLS.
- Simplified migration path to a unified, IP-based OTT and IPTV delivery model.
A key innovation in this deployment is the integration of TITAN Mux with castLabs’ Widevine CAS over a secure TCP/TLS connection, an enhancement specifically developed for this project. This ensures that no Control Words (CW) are transmitted in the clear over the public internet, significantly strengthening content protection.
TITAN Mux also incorporates the AES-128 ECB scrambling algorithm, delivering 128-bit CW encryption for enhanced security. Furthermore, the solution’s DVB SimulCrypt compliance enables interoperability with multiple Conditional Access (CA) systems.
On top of this, the operator benefits from a fully managed service for their deployment of Widevine CAS with the same SLAs and uptime they would previously expect from traditional CAS. This, coupled with Widevine CAS removing the need for royalty fees & expensive middleware, means the end user has the same viewing experience all while the operator is able to drastically reduce their content protection costs.
“This collaboration with castLabs shows how partnerships can enable secure and scalable video delivery,” saidRemi Beaudouin, Chief Strategy Officer at Ateme. “By combining Ateme’s OTT/IPTV infrastructure with castLabs’ DRMtoday technology, operators can confidently deliver premium content to any device.“
“Partnering with Ateme has allowed us to demonstrate the strength of combining cloud-native security with on-premise infrastructure,” saidMichael Stattmann, co-founder of castLabs. “Together, we’re enabling operators to deliver secure, high-quality OTT services in parallel with their IPTV offerings, without compromise. And with our responsive, expert customer support for Widevine CAS, operators can rely on us every step of the way.”
This deployment marks a major milestone in converged video delivery, setting new standards for security, scalability, and performance. The collaboration between Ateme and castLabs demonstrates the power of innovation and partnership, enhancing viewer experiences globally.
Moving forward, castLabs and Ateme will introduce an enhanced multicast DRM solution that extends Widevine L1 security to both Android TV and legacy Linux-based IPTV STBs. By leveraging existing DRMtoday servers, the same platform used for unicast OTT- this approach unifies all content protection under a single, proven DRM framework with minimal integration effort. The result is a dramatic reduction in operational and licensing costs for hybrid deployments and a streamlined migration path toward an all-IP, MPEG-DASH/HLS-based distribution model.
Learn how Ateme and castLabs can help you deliver secure, scalable video experiences – visit ateme.com and castlabs.com today.
About Ateme
Ateme is a global leader of video compression and delivery solutions, helping tier-one content providers, service providers and streaming platforms boost their viewership and subscriber numbers.
Leveraging an R&D task force that is unique in the video industry, Ateme’s solutions power sustainable TV services, improve end-users’ quality of experience, optimize the total cost of ownership of TV/VOD services, and generate new revenue streams based on personalization and ad insertion. Beyond offering technological agility, Ateme partners with its customers, offering flexible business models that match their financial priorities.
Find out more: www.ateme.com
About castLabs
castLabs is a leading pioneer of software and cloud services for digital video markets worldwide to easily enable premium content streaming. Their range of applications and services are designed to help businesses deliver high-quality video experiences through protected content playback over a large selection of devices and platforms. castLabs solutions include DRMtoday multi-DRM and CAS licensing, feature-rich PRESTOplay cross-platform players, Video Toolkit cloud encoding, STARDUSTmark single-frame forensic watermarking, Widevine device and app certification, secure WebRTC end-to-end delivery, as well as expert technical consulting. Learn more at castlabs.com.