The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and CBC/Radio-Canada have been awarded the prestigious NAB Technology Innovation Award for the open-source C2PA-enabled video player, a project that addresses one of the media industry’s most pressing challenges: how to make content authenticity both verifiable and understandable in real-world scenarios.
CBC/Radio-Canada has played a dual role in the project, both testing and actively integrating the player in its workflows. The collaboration demonstrates how the technology can be embedded into newsroom operations, allowing journalists and production teams to work with provenance data.
Combined with its standards-based architecture and practical usability, the project provides a valuable stepping stone to the deployment of authenticity infrastructure at scale, a contribution recognized by the NAB Technology Innovation Award.
On show at NAB
An exhibit at the 2026 NAB Show (booth C4449-A, Futures Park in Central Hall) showcases the end-to-end interoperability that is key to the project’s underlying proposition.
In the demonstration at NAB, the player verifies a complete media chain: from acquisition on a C2PA-enabled Sony camcorder, through editing in Adobe Premiere, to publication and endorsement by a trusted broadcaster such as CBC/Radio-Canada. The system proves that Content Credentials can persist across tools, organizations, and production stages, and deliver value to human audiences consuming the content.
An online demo of the player is also available.
Maintained by Security4Media, and open source
The player is available on Github under open source Apache 2.0 License, making further development and adoption straight-forward.
In future, the EBU player will be maintained under the umbrella of the Security4Media association, providing a structured path for ongoing development and governance. Companies across the media and technology ecosystem are invited to join S4M and contribute, reinforcing the project’s collaborative, industry-wide ambition.
What the player does
At its core, the player validates Content Credentials based on the C2PA specifications in real time and converts complex provenance data into clear signals that are easy to interpret by viewers. While many initiatives focus on signing and tracking media, the EBU’s focus was also on making verification usable and appreciable, including at earlier steps in the value chain, such as in newsrooms.
The EBU player also goes beyond basic signature validation. By integrating both the C2PA Trust List and the IPTC Origin Verified News Publisher framework, it adds a layer of organizational identity verification. This means users are not only assured that content has not been tampered with, but also that it originates from a credible and verified publisher. In a media landscape increasingly shaped by synthetic and manipulated content, that’s a valuable distinction.