Digital Watermarking Alliance Announces Industry Demand for Piracy Deterrence, Broadcast Monitoring and Intelligence Solutions Continues to Grow

1 January 1970

The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA), an international group of industry leading companies, today announced growing momentum and interest in digital watermarking solutions that are helping to deter the piracy of movies, monitor and verify the airing of broadcast programming and advertising, and more effectively identify and manage image-based intelligence assets.

Members of the Digital Watermarking Alliance are industry-leading companies that are leading the commercialization and delivery of real-world digital watermarking applications to help media and entertainment customers better identify, track and manage movies, music, TV content, images, identity documents and other media content.

Recent industry developments and news demonstrating growing momentum and interest in digital watermarking solutions include:

* Cinea has announced the launch of its expanded forensic watermarking

technology that allows device specific content tracking across a wide

range of consumer electronics devices. The technology, already

successfully employed in the professional entertainment marketplace,

also allows for high output, session based watermarking in a head end

device such as a "download and burn" server. Widevine plans to deploy

Cinea technology to all 1.5 million users of its current installed base

of IPTV set-top boxes later this year.

http://www.cinea.com/press/71706_SV510.pdf and

http://www.cinea.com/press/RMConsumerLaunch_83006.pdf and

http://www.widevine.com/pr/081_watermarking_consumer_devices.html

* Digimarc and GCS Research are working together on the second phase of a

project that uses digital watermarking for more effective identification

and management of image-based military intelligence. The U.S. Department

of Defense FY07 appropriations bill included $2.6 million for the U.S.

Army Night Vision Electronic Sensor Directorate to embark on the second

phase of the project.

http://www.digimarc.com/media/release.asp?home=news&newsID=510

* Philips announced that their CineFence Anti-Piracy solution has been

generally released and has already been deployed to 1,300 theaters.

Philips has started the rollout of its CineFence anti-piracy technology

watermarking with Christie AIX. This world leader in turnkey digital

cinema systems has already equipped over 1,300 cinemas in the last year

and provides watermark detection services using the Philips CineFence

watermark reading technology. http://www.business-

sites.philips.com/contentidentification/about/index.html

* Teletrax reports that Fox Broadcasting Company, the United Nations TV,

Direct Impact Group, Direct Response Media, and ITN Networks are among

the latest television broadcasters and advertisers to use Teletrax

digital watermarking solutions to monitor and verify airings of

affiliate stations' use of promotional video materials, direct response

advertisements and other broadcast programming. In addition, Teletrax

announced its entrance into the sports marketing industry with an

agreement to monitor A1GP's live global broadcasts of its motorsports

events. http://www.teletrax.tv/

* Telestream, a provider of multi-format workflow solutions, recently

announced that it is incorporating Philips forensic watermarking into

its video production solution, enabling content owners to better protect

content as it is distributed throughout the production chain.

http://www.telestream.net/news/06_09_05.htm

* Thomson, provider of technology, services, and systems to the Media and

Entertainment industries, announced that major digital cinema server

manufacturers, including Doremi, GDC, QuVis and Time Tamedia, are using

its NexGuard digital watermarking solution to embed the date, time and

place of projection into a digital motion picture's image and soundtrack

during play-out in movie theaters. When this information is extracted

from pirated materials, it pinpoints the exact source of the leakage.

http://www.thomson.net/EN/Home/NewsSearchResults.htm?Keyword=NexGuard

* Kodak Digital Cinema announced it is licensing Thomson's NexGuard

digital cinema watermarking solution for inclusion in its CineServer, a

key component in Kodak's networked system for full digital cinema

presentations. http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/pr.aspx?newsID=606

* Verimatrix has profiled the growing range of partners that have

committed to the commercial availability of VideoMarkTM-enhanced set-top

boxes (STBs). Tilgin, WEGENER, Entone, Softier and Setabox are

integrating VideoMark, Verimatrix's patent-pending forensic watermarking

technology, and Video Content Authority System (VCAS) with their leading

IPTV boxes in response to new content owner and system requirements.

http://www.verimatrix.com/press/news_2006_Aug_31.php

The Digital Watermarking Alliance was launched in September 2006 to build awareness of the value of digital watermarking to content owners, industry, policy makers and consumers (http://www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org).

Digital watermarks can identify copyrighted content and associated rights, during and after distribution, to determine copyright ownership and facilitate rights management policy while enabling innovative new content distribution and usage models. Digital watermarks are broadly deployed with billions of watermarked objects and hundreds of millions of watermark detectors in the market, supporting various commercial and government applications. (http://www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org/casestudies.asp)

For more information about the Digital Watermarking Alliance, please visit: http://www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org

About the Digital Watermarking Alliance

The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) is an international alliance of industry leading companies that deliver valuable digital watermarking technology and solutions to a broad range of customers and markets around the world. Member companies include Cinea, Inc., a Dolby company (NYSE: DLB), Digimarc (Nasdaq: DMRC), GCS Research, Jura, MediaGrid, Media Sciences International, Philips Electronics, Signum, Teletrax, Thomson (Euronext 18453; NYSE: TMS), Verance, and Verimatrix. For more information, please visit http://www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org

Source: prnewswire

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