What is the UltraViolet Common File Format?
DECE members developed a common file format (CFF) designed to play in all UltraViolet players and work with all DECE-approved DRMs. The format is based on existing standards from MPEG, SMPTE, and others, and was originally derived from the Microsoft Protected Interoperable File Format (PIFF) specification. The goal was to avoid the problem of different file formats for different players and to make it possible to copy files from player and player. There are three profiles for files and players: portable definition (PD), standard definition (SD), and high definition (HD). A PD player will only play PD files, but an SD player will play PD and SD files, and an HD player will play all three. See 3.2.4 for details. Much of the work done by DECE is being adopted by MPEG in updates to the MPEG-4 container format and as part of the MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) format. Therefore, the common file format can be used in other systems and is expected to become broadly deployed.
