MSI BluMark Frame Based Forensic Video Watermarking Technology Supports OTT Server Side Ad Insertion
Media Science International’s frame based video watermarking technology BluMark is now available for integration to support OTT server side and broadcast dynamic ad insertion triggering. Leveraging MSI’s real-time* automated forensic payload insertion and detection, BluMark empowers broadcasters of all sizes to integrate flexible session and carrier based watermark embedding and decode triggered ad insertion workflows in to existing broadcast traffic systems with ease.
The Challenge:
Traditional ad insertion was left to major broadcasters with complicated custom software and hardware and considerable integration effort of which many still required a manual component should the system’s automated capabilities cease to properly trigger. As such, audio and video watermarking was commonly looked at to aide in filling this void with a reliable, automated solution, however this is not always the case as modern forensic technologies required a considerable length of time to insert, and several seconds to minutes to decode and are limited to reading a complete pass from the head end of a watermark in order to detect.
The Solution:
Media Science, recognizing the limitations in forensic video watermarking developed BluMark frame based forensic video watermarking system. A light weight, simple to integrate, cost effective ad insertion triggering solution suitable for nearly any new and existing workflow. BluMark’s patented frame based watermarking engine provides 2D Intelligent Payloads insertion allowing for session or carrier based forensic watermarking in real-time* making it suitable for Live / Sports, Streaming, OTT, and OnDemand advertisement insertion and monitoring. BluMark’s real-time decoder SDK enables frame by frame payload decode with programmatic access to nearly any ad insertion solution, supporting customizable targeted and personalized workflows.
BluMark Real-Time, Forensic Video Watermarking and Detection:
• Unrivaled payload detection, automated blind decode detectable < 1 second.
• 2D Intelligent Payloads insertion supporting real-time session and carrier based
forensic video watermarking.
• Customizable payload options enable broadcasters to trigger complex, custom ad
insertion workflows.
• Robust and Reliable, imperceptible payloads distributed across each frame to
assure payload survival after text, cropping, transcoding, and overlays.
• Support for all content lengths and types, including short form animated content.
• Ultra light-weight API, SDK, and Docker applications allow seamless integration in
to nearly any existing workflow without a massive deployment effort and specialized
hardware.
* < 7ms / frame
For more information or to setup a demonstration please contact Michael Gamble mgamble@m23l.com / 818-444-4763 / BluMark Watermarking
Media Science International Adds Secure HLS Streaming to Its Server Side Forensic Watermarking Services
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Michael A. Gamble
Media Science International
(818) 444-4763
mgamble@m23l.com
Media Science International Adds Secure HLS Streaming to Its Server Side Forensic Watermarking Services
Los Angeles, Calif., April 17, 2017 — Media Science International (“MSI”), a leader in secure watermarked digital media delivery, anti-piracy, and business intelligence solutions adds secure HLS streaming to Its server side forensic watermarking services in its flagship application, StudioCDN. After extensive research, MSI chose to integrate Hybrik’s cloud transcoding and media workflow system into its StudioCDN solution allowing scalable watermarked deliveries of HLS streams.
“Hybrik’s cloud transcoding system allows us to rapidly respond to customer demand while fulfilling the stringent secure distribution requirements imposed by the forensic services we offer,” said Graham Oakes, CEO, Media Sciences International. “The features, performance, and cost-effectiveness of Hybrik made this an easy choice.”
The StudioCDN digital delivery system is used to deliver more than 2 million individually watermarked media assets per-month on behalf of major global content creators and distributors; the authorized, safe, secure access and usage of which are continuously tracked by MSI’s Web-Capio anti-piracy and business intelligence monitoring services.
Representatives from Media Science International will be in available during NAB SHOW 2017, at the Digital Watermarking Alliance booth # C3630CS located in the Cyber Security Pavilion. Please contact Michael Gamble mgamble@m23l.com to schedule a meeting.
About Media Science International:
MSI’s detailed anti-piracy forensics solutions offer 360-degree content protection and business intelligence. Specializing in Digital Watermarking along with Anti-Piracy Monitoring and Takedown services, MSI’s innovative secure digital delivery and asset tracking technologies are used by numerous multi-national media corporations. MSI’s StudioCDN and WebCapio products can be quickly and efficiently integrated into our clients’ digital asset management and content distribution workflows.
Learn more at: http://mediascienceinternational.com | http://StudioCDN.com
About Hybrik:
Based in Mountain View, Calif., Hybrik is the new standard in cloud-based, large-scale media workflow management. Our comprehensive service cost-effectively delivers video optimized for every screen with integrated transcoding, quality control, accelerated file transfer, large-scale storage, and streaming.
Learn more at: http://www.hybrik.com.
Media Science Incorporated: 21550 Oxnard St, Ste. 990Woodland Hills, CA 91367
www.MediaScienceInternational.com
Digital Watermarking Plays Exciting Role in Enhancing Entertainment Experiences for Consumers through Television, Magazines and Mobile Devices
San Jose, Calif. — July 10, 2012 — The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) today announced that several of its members have seen increased adoption and commercialization of their digital watermarking technology and solutions in the first half of 2012. Members of the DWA continue to innovate with digital watermarking to help create new digital entertainment experiences for consumers around the globe and a more secured, manageable and viable media ecosystem for rights holders.
Every day billions of people read magazines, listen to music, watch television, purchase movies on demand and use portable devices. The use of digital watermarking technology is making these entertainment experiences more secure, interactive and fulfilling than ever before.
“It is exciting to see digital watermarking technology blossom over the last few years into such a wide variety of applications,” said Bill Rosenblatt, president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies. “It is now used routinely as a complement to encryption for protecting high-value content. But it’s also used in various ways to enrich content’s value, both to users and to content distributors.”
Magazines Create Exciting & Popular Print-to-Mobile Experiences for Readers
This year the 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue became the first top 100 U.S. magazine to use the Digimarc® Discover platform from Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC) to digitally watermark the issue’s stunning photos and bring them to life with complementary videos. Behind-the-scenes videos of the 19 different swimsuit model photo shoots can be launched by scanning the magazine’s cover and pages using the new mobile Swimsuit Viewer App for the iPhone, iPad and Android.
The only thing that might be more popular than a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover-model is Pinterest, which boasted 18.7 million unique users in March, 20121. Digimarc has introduced a Print-to-Pin℠ solution that lets the readers of the June 2012 issue of House Beautiful pin images directly from the “Kitchen of the Month” feature in the magazine to their Pinterest boards, using digital watermarks as the enabling technology. Several more popular magazines are set to become Pinterest-enabled in the coming months.
Television + Mobile Device + Digital Watermarks = Second-Screen Entertainment
The media industry is undoubtedly experiencing a period of unprecedented change with a clear shift in consumer viewing habits. A recent report from Nielsen2 found that 88 percent of people who own tablets and 86 percent of those with smartphones in the US have used their devices at least once while watching television in the month of May, 2012.
Civolution®, through its state-of-the-art SyncNow™ Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), brings second-screen experiences to a whole new level. Using audio digital watermarking the SyncNow – 2nd screen solution enables identification and synchronization between (live) broadcast, on-demand or recorded television content. It allows for exciting interactive applications on companion devices (tablets, smart phones, laptops) to present compelling synchronized user experiences such as polling, voting, targeted advertising, direct purchases, etc., and has been deployed to sync apps to several international show formats.
Digital Watermarks Make Early-Release Videos-On-Demand Accessible
According to recent data from Infonetics, the global video infrastructure market grew 6% in 2011 to $803 million U.S.3 Additional research from the NPD Group shows that the current video-on-demand (VOD) market is ruled by Pay-TV services with revenues reaching $1.3 billion in 2011; in fact, 15 percent of U.S. consumers ages 13 and older used pay-TV VOD movie services from a cable, satellite, or fiber-optic provider in the twelve months ending August 2011, which translates to 40 million users.
As mandated by Hollywood studios for offering movies in an early-release window, operators need to integrate transactional digital watermarking protection into their VOD workflow and network infrastructure, which allows for forensic tracking to the source of potentially illegal copies. Contributors to growth in this market are Verimatrix and Civolution.
Verimatrix’s StreamMark™ server-side forensic watermarking solution has been fully integrated with video-on-demand (VOD) server equipment from leading vendors ready for commercial real-time stream by stream payload insertion.
The end-to-end StreamMark solution has been deployed with several major US cable operators for early-release VOD trials, which are part of a trend that will open up new revenue opportunities and provide key service differentiation in the market. StreamMark can be deployed as a standalone component to an existing cable network infrastructure or as an integrated part of a complete Verimatrix revenue security solution.
SeaChange and Civolution recently announced they have created a joint solution that — for the first time — enables cable operators to offer premium VOD content to their subscribers. In order to do this, SeaChange integrated Civolution’s newest NexGuard watermark preprocessor and smart-embedder software into its intelligent video software platform. The solution has been deployed by a large North American cable operator.
About Digital Watermarking
Digital watermarking is the process by which identifying data is woven into media content, giving it a unique, digital identity. Imperceptible to the human senses yet easily recognized by special software detectors, a digital watermark remains constant even through recording, manipulation and editing, compression and decompression, encryption, decryption and broadcast — without affecting the quality of the content. Digital watermarks can identify copyrighted content and associated rights, during and after distribution, to determine copyright ownership and enable rights management policy while enabling innovative new content distribution and usage models. Today, 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.
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 Civolution, Datamark Technologies, Digimarc, ISAN International Agency, MarkAny, Media Science International, Technicolor, Université catholique de Louvain and Verimatrix. For more information, please visitwww.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org
Follow the DWA on Twitter
To keep up-to-date with the latest news from the DWA and about digital watermarking, follow the DWA on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DWA_Org
Contact
For media inquiries, please contact Gina Giachetti of About Communications, Tel: 510-858-8111, E-mail: ginag@aboutcomms.com
Disclaimer
Digimarc Corporation is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Pinterest, Inc.
1From ComScore, as reported by The New York Times on April 17, 2012
2Global Online Consumers and Multi-Screen Media: Today and Tomorrow
3Video on Demand (VOD) and Encoder Equipment and Video Subscribers
Graham Oakes is Featured Speaker At Cloud Computing Conference at NAB
We’re very pleased to share with you, in advance of its public announcement, the agenda and speakers for the inaugural CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE being presented by the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) at the 2012 NAB Show on April 16th.
This event will include Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) Chairman Graham Oakes as a featured speaker. The full-day conference will demonstrate how software developers are addressing two major concerns with respect to cloud-based solutions for video delivery — reliability and security.
Experts will provide a senior management overview of how cloud-based solutions positively impact each stage of the content distribution chain. From collaboration and post-production to storage, delivery, and analytics, decision makers responsible for accomplishing their content-related missions will find this a must-attend event.
The opening keynote will feature Bill Kallman, CEO, Scayl, who will introduce “The Latest Trends in Cloud Computing Solutions for the Audio/Video (A/V) Ecosystem.” How are innovative cloud-based technology developers impacting A/V content creation and distribution with a host of new strategies, products, and services?
The first panel will continue this top-line overview of “Advanced Capabilities, New Features, Cost Advantages of Cloud Computing Solutions.” What are the very latest ways that cloud computing is being applied throughout the creation and distribution chain for television and radio programming, motion pictures, corporate A/V production, and user-generated content (UGC)?
Panelists will include Mike Alexenko, Senior Director of Market Development, Cloud & Mobility, G-Technology; Scott Campbell, Principal, Media, Entertainment, and Telecoms, SAP; David Frerichs, Strategic Consultant, Pioneer Corporation; David Hassoun, Founder, RealEyes Media; AJ McGowan, CTO, Unicorn Media; Samir Mittal, CTO, Rimage; Michelle Munson, CEO, President, and Co-founder, Aspera; and Robert Stevenson, EVP, Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, Gaikai.
Jim Burger, Member, Dow Lohnes, will step back from the exuberance of such trends in the next keynote to examine “The Key Pitfalls Associated with Cloud Computing in High-Value Content Implementations.” How are safety and predictability considerations as well as related liability factors affecting cloud adoption for A/V by content creators, rights-holders, and distributors?
The follow-on panel will further explore “Privacy Issues, Reliability Questions, Security Concerns in the Cloud Computing.” What are the different but inter-related hurdles to overcome for consumers, content companies, software providers, broadband network operators, and related cloud services vendors in migrating to the cloud, and what steps is the distributed computing industry taking to address these problems?
Panelists will include David Cook, SVP, RES Sales and Content Licensing, Rovi Corporation; Dave Asprey, VP, Cloud Security, Trend Micro; Tom Mulally, Consultant, Numagic Consulting; Graham Oakes, Chairman, Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA); Dan Schnapp, Partner & Chairman of New Media, Entertainment & Technology, Hughes, Hubbard & Reed; Yangbin Wang, CEO, Vobile; Marvin Wheeler, Chairman, Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA); and Vic Winkler, Author, “Securing the Cloud.”
The next keynote by Jonathan King, SVP, Joyent, will outline “Various Ways that Cloud Computing Is Being Applied to the Content Creation Process — from Pre- to Post-Production.” How are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and even Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions strategically being brought to bear to improve key aspects of file-based workflow for A/V content?
The subsequent panel will delve further into “Audio/Video Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production Clouds.” What are leading examples and key case studies of ways that cloud-computing solutions are accelerating processes, improving quality, and/or reducing costs of such functions as collaboration, editing, animation, applying metadata, formatting, and transcoding?
Panelists will include Jim Cady, President & CEO, Slacker; Tony Cahill, Chief Engineer, CET Universe; Guillermo Chialvo, Gerente de TecnologÃa, Radio Mitre; Kirk Punches, VP, Business Development, Sorenson Media; Chris Kantrowitz, CEO, Gobbler; Ajay Malhotra, EVP, North America, Prime Focus Technologies; Jason Roks, Digital Alchemist, TV Asia USA; and Jostein Svendsen, CEO, WeVideo.
Shahi Ghanem, SVP, Strategy & Marketing, BitTorrent, will present the next keynote on “Alternative Approaches for Implementing Cloud Storage of Content Catalogs and Libraries and Leveraging Cloud-Based Distribution.” How is this most publicized area in the implementation of cloud computing for A/V — storage and delivery — progressing? What are the technology policy/rights considerations and economics behind such concepts as “cloud media lockers” and the newest peer-assisted hybrid solutions in “quantum computing?”
Exploring this more deeply will be the “The Cloud Media Storage & Delivery” panel. What are leading examples and key case studies of ways that cloud-computing solutions are accelerating processes, improving quality, and/or reducing costs of such functions as managing fungible inventories of high-value A/V content, including at the edge of the Internet, and delivering it to listeners and viewers?
Panelists will include Kris Alexander, Chief Strategist, Connected Devices & Gaming, Akamai; Saul Berman, Lead Partner, IBM Global Business Services; Bang Chang, VP, Server and Storage, SeaChange International; Stephen Condon, VP, Global Marketing Communications, Limelight Networks; Stephen Ehrlich, Dir. Media & Ent., Verizon Digital Services; Gianluca Ferremi, VP Sales & Marketing, Motive Television; Kshitij Kumar, SVP, Mobile Video, Concurrent; and Monica Ricci, Dir. of Product Marketing, CSG Systems.
The following keynote, “New Levels of Media Performance Data Enabled by Cloud Computing &mdash and Impact on Other Sectors,” will be presented by Scott Brown, GM & SVP Strategic Partnerships, Octoshape. How will marketers, sponsors, and advertisers respond to the ability to access “dashboards” that provide anonymized listener and viewer behavior in an unprecedented level of detail in real-time? How will this affect programming, scheduling, and sell-through services, as well as related industries?
The panel that succeeds Scott, “Cloud Measurement, Analytics, Implications,” will cover this topic in greater depth. What are leading examples and key case studies of ways that cloud-computing solutions are accelerating processes, improving quality, and/or reducing costs of such functions as aggregating demographic and psychographic data, audience flow trends, and additional behavior information? What are the implications of cloud computing deployments in the A/V ecosystem on the consumer electronics (CE) and telecommunications industries?
Panelists will include Thomas Coughlin, President, Coughlin Associates; Dick Csaplar, Senior Research Analyst, Virtualization and Storage, Aberdeen Group; Steve Hawley, Principal Analyst & Consultant, TVStrategies; Jonathan Hurd, Director, Altman Vilandrie & Co.; Jeff Kim, COO, US & EMEA, CDNetworks; John Schiela, President, Phoenix Marketing International (PMI); Nick Strauss, Director of Sales, Verizon Digital Media Services; and Mike West, CTO, GenosTV.
The final keynote, presented by Ashish Gupta, Strategist, Cloud Infrastructure, Huawei, will provide an overview of the ways that the “Disruptive Effects of Cloud Computing Will Continue.” How will cloud computing technology continue to disrupt the A/V ecosystem, and where and when will we see the most profound changes to current business models and operations?
And the closing panel. “Years Ahead for Cloud Computing,” will more thoroughly examine this provocative topic. What do the most credible forecasts and projections indicate about the ways that cloud-computing solutions will continue to impact the A/V ecosystem over the long term, and what will this mean for the underlying businesses that are based on content production and distribution?
Panelists will include Ian Donahue, President, RedThorne Media; Chris Haddad, VP, Technology Evangelism, WSO2; Wayne Josel, Counsel, Media & Entertainment, Hughes, Hubbard & Reed; Steve Mannel, Senior Director, Media & Communications, Salesforce.com; James Mitchell, CEO & Founder, Strategic Blue; Michael Smith, Professor of IT and Marketing, Carnegie Mellon University; David Sterling, Partner, i3m3 Solutions; and Chuck Stormon, CEO, Attend.
Please register early for the 2012 NAB Show and the CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE to take advantage of discounts. This promises to be the DCIA’s most valuable and stimulating conference to date.
Media Advisory: Digital Watermarking on the Rise with New Product Integration and Licensing Agreements
San Jose, Calif. — June 14, 2010 — The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) today announced that its members have seen a surge of activity in the licensing, commercialization and adoption of digital watermarking technology and solutions in the first half of 2010.
In the movie industry alone there is an estimated piracy loss of $3 billion annually due to the illegal distribution of committee screeners and other pre-release movies on DVD or over the internet. When one also considers losses related to the piracy of music, images and other media content, the total impact on various industries and brands can be daunting.
With the need to ensure digital content of all kinds can be easily tracked and monetized, the market and applications enabled by digital watermarking technology is expected to continue to grow. Members of the DWA continue to innovate and contribute to this market growth.
- Arbitron, AlpVision and AWT System all recently licensed a variety of patents from Digimarc Corporation, which is recognized for the quality and depth of its patent portfolio related to digital watermarking and other content identification technologies by The Wall Street Journal, IEEE Spectrum, and MDB Capital Group. These agreements allow the licensees to deliver digital watermarking enabled solutions across a range of industries including music, packaging, publishing, and advertising and marketing.
- Civolution has signed several agreements in which its unique watermarking as well as fingerprinting-based technologies will be integrated with many well-known names in media and entertainment, such as BBC Worldwide, Vizrt’s Viz Ardome media asset management software and Nagravision‘s Conditional Access system for Video on Demand service. It also expanded its relationship with Gracenote to launch Mediahedge a next generation content identification and monetization platform.
- aquaMobile continues to see the healthy adoption of its CLIC2C solution in Spain. The solution is now being used by Antonio Banderas’ wine brand, Anta Banderas, for its wine labels and packaging, and has helped LUIKE Publishing Group increase its readership by 38%. In addition, the use of CLICL2C is expanding across the European market, as aquaMobile recently signed agreements with Meiller Direct in Germany and Digital Space in the United Kingdom to offer the CLIC2C solution to publishers, brands and other marketers.
- Digimarc announced three new editions of its popular Digimarc for Images product, all of which are included in the Adobe Creative Suite 5. Digimarc for Images features advanced “Chroma” technology, which enables highly robust, pervasive, and imperceptible digital watermarks to be embedded into images such as digital photographs, illustrations and other artwork. Digital watermarks are easily embedded and read using Adobe® PhotoShop® and Photoshop Elements.
- On Monday, June 7, the Digital Watermarking Alliance held a free, hour-long webcast titled “The Case for Content Identification: Supporting New Business Models and Effectively Managing Key Business Assets” which showcased a forward-thinking discussion about how digital watermarking can address this issue as well as enhance consumer media experiences. The whitepaper discussed during the call can be downloaded here on the DWA site.
About Digital Watermarking
A MultiMedia Intelligence study identified digital watermarking and fingerprinting as a key growth market that could surpass $500 million by 20121. Digital watermarking is the process by which identifying data is woven into media content, giving it a unique, digital identity. Imperceptible to the human senses yet easily recognized by special software detectors, a digital watermark remains constant even through recording, manipulation and editing, compression and decompression, encryption, decryption and broadcast – without affecting the quality of the content. Digital watermarks can identify copyrighted content and associated rights, during and after distribution, to determine copyright ownership and enable rights management policy while enabling innovative new content distribution and usage models. Today, 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.
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 aquaMobile, Civolution Digimarc, ISAN, MarkAny, MSI, Université catholique de Louvain, Verance and Verimatrix. For more information, please visit www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org
CONTACT: For media inquiries, please contact Gina Giachetti of About Communications, Tel: 510-858-8111, E-mail: about.communications@gmail.com
Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) Announces Winner of Best Paper Award
San Francisco, Calif. — January 31, 2011 — The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA), the international alliance of industry leading organizations delivering valuable digital watermarking solutions, today announced that last week at the IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging Conference, it granted an award to a team of researchers for a paper that demonstrates originality, creativity, clarity and potential impact on the field of watermarking. The 2010 Best Paper award was presented by Adnan Alattar, co-chair of the SPIE Media Watermarking, Security, and Forensics XIII conference.
“Once again we applaud the efforts of the research community for its advanced research and innovation in digital watermarking technology,” said Graham Oakes, Chairman of the DWA. “Year after year we continue to see the development of a wide range of successful commercial applications of digital watermarking technology that address real challenges and power valuable applications for a variety of industries.”
The award was granted to Tomas Filler, Jan Judas and Jessica Fridrich, from the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Binghamton University, New York. The winning team received a cash prize of $1,500, and their paper will be publicized in this year’s proceedings of the conference. Filler and Fridrich were also members of the award-winning team that took the first-place award for the 2009 Best Paper.
The winning paper, entitled “Minimizing Embedding Impact in Steganography using Trellis-Coded Quantization,” proposed and developed a practical algorithm to minimizing the average embedding distortion in steganography based on syndrome coding and trellis-coded quantization. This algorithm can achieve performance arbitrarily close to the theoretical bound.”
“I like to call this work a “Swiss-Army Knife” for steganographers — practitioners,” said Jessica Fridrich, a Professor at SUNY Binghamton and one of the winning paper’s authors. “It is a very general and elegant framework that allows one to build steganographic algorithms that operate close to their theoretical optimum and with low complexity.”
In order to be nominated for the award, the chair of each watermarking session at SPIE’10’s Media Forensics and Security XII conference was requested to nominate excellent papers from his/her session. Six excellent papers were nominated for these prizes. The Best Paper Selection Committee then reviewed these papers, from which they selected the winner. The Selection Committee consisted of Prof. Nasir Memon, Polytechnic Institute of NYU; Prof. Edward Delp, Purdue University; and Dr. Adnan Alattar, Digimarc Corporation.
The DWA will sponsor the DWA Best Paper Award again in 2011. Nominations for this award will take place during this year’s 2011 Electronic Imaging Conference.
About the Digital Watermarking
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 aquaMobile, Civolution, DataMark, Digimarc, ISAN, MarkAny, MSI, Université Catholique de Louvain, and Verimatrix. For more information, please visit www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org
CONTACT: For media inquiries, please contact Gina Giachetti of About Communications, Tel: 510-858-8111, E-mail: ginag@aboutcomms.com
MEDIA ADVISORY: White Paper Demonstrates How Digital Watermarking can Enable Parent-Controlled Viewing of Television Programming on Any Device
October 14, 2009 — The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) has released a new white paper, “Ensuring Child Safety in a Digital World / A Comprehensive Solution to Parental Controlled Viewing Across Devices and Platforms.”
While the ubiquity of readily available content in a variety of contexts provides consumers with unprecedented opportunities and benefits, it also has the potential to compromise the safety of children and undermine the efforts of parents to monitor and control the kinds of material their children are able to access. So far, dedicated technologies for ensuring child-safe consumption of media, like the V-Chip, have proven inadequate, often because they are device-specific or platform-specific.
Because digital watermarks are content-persistent, rather than channel — or platform — or device-specific, the technology is uniquely positioned to provide a comprehensive and lasting blocking solution for parents.
The white paper outlines five key characteristics of a successful advanced content-blocking solution and highlights the many existing applications of digital watermarking in entertainment and other industries today.
The paper can be downloaded directly from the Digital Watermarking Alliance web site at: www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org.
About Digital Watermarking
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 aquaMobile, Civolution, DataMark Technologies, Digimarc, ISAN, MarkAny, MSI, Streamburst, Université catholique de Louvain, Verance, Verimatrix, and others. For more information, please visit www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org
CONTACT: For media inquiries, please contact Michael Thomas of RH Strategic Tel: (206) 264-0246; E-mail: mthomas@rhstrategic.com
MEDIA ADVISORY: White Paper Demonstrates Value of Digital Watermarking in Copyright Communication and Image Search
September 23, 2009 — The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) has released a new white paper, “Managing Valuable Digital Assets / Using Digital Watermarking for Copyright Communication and Image Search.”
The paper is intended for marketers, advertisers, attorneys, and anyone who tracks digital images like photos and logos — images that are uploaded, dispersed, viewed, downloaded, modified, and repurposed with breathtaking speed.
Not knowing where, when, how, and by whom digital assets are being used can mean direct and indirect revenue losses for image and brand owners. However when embedded with digital watermarking, these images can be tracked across the Internet and mobile devices.
The paper can be downloaded directly from the Digital Watermarking Alliance web site at: www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org.
About Digital Watermarking
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 aquaMobile, Civolution, DataMark Technologies, Digimarc, ISAN, MarkAny, MSI, Streamburst, Université catholique de Louvain, Verance, Verimatrix, and Widevine. For more information, please visit www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org
CONTACT: For media inquiries, please contact Michael Thomas of RH Strategic Tel: (206) 264-0246; E-mail: mthomas@rhstrategic.com
MEDIA ADVISORY: Digital Watermarking Finding Traction in Multiple Industries and Applications
Amsterdam, September 10, 2009 — The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) announced that 2009 has so far been a banner year in the commercialization and adoption of digital watermarking solutions:
DSNs represent a new way to track media content by digitally watermarking audio or video content such as music, movies or TV programming with unique, imperceptible digital identification numbers. Unlike Digital Rights Management, DSNs allow consumers to freely access content and make multiple copies for backup use or for different playing devices. Should the content be used illegally, however, the DSN can be associated back to the original buyer.
- aquaMobile announced that readers of the Autofácil magazine (Madrid, Spain) can now view videos, listen to statements or expanded access to related information with one click of their mobile phones. This revolution is made possible by CLIC2C, the application that can recognize digital watermarking in printed materials and link to multimedia content via any mobile phone. Autofácil’s use of this technology marks a new era and offers its readers a new reading experience beyond words and pictures.
- Diario Libre, the leading newspaper in the Dominican Republic, is now the first newspaper in that country to commercialize CLIC2C and TEXT2C technologies by aquaMobile. Omnimedia, the newspaper’s publisher, will implement it on all its products. CLIC2C will be used on advertisements, articles, photos, contests, promotions and other company products, in addition to the newspaper.
- For IBC 2009, Verimatrix unveiled the profile of its next generation Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS™) 3.0 core architecture featuring revenue-generating security enhancements. VideoMark™, the company’s user-specific forensic watermarking solution, comes as a standard feature and supports all configurations of its VCAS 3.x server to serve as an additional layer of security that extends beyond the digital delivery domain. On Sept. 7, Verimatrix announced that Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Corporation (VNPT) is the latest customer to include VideoMark as part of its overall VCAS security deployment. Download its latest whitepaper on watermarking as a revenue generating tool at www.verimatrix.com/wm
- On July 21st, Civolution announced that it acquired Thomson Software and Technology Solutions (STS) watermarking business from Thomson S.A. With this acquisition Civolution is able to offer an even broader and richer portfolio of content identification and tracking technologies to enhance its current technologies, products and services portfolio. The combination of the two businesses gave birth to a unique technology and service solutions provider that will benefit media content owners and distributors in the fast growing market for audio and video content tracking, management and monetization. As a result of this amalgamation, Thomson became a shareholder in Civolution.
- Quinta Industries, a leading European provider of content postproduction and distribution services, and Studiocanal a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canal+, announced the launch of a system for secure transfer of film files using Civolution’s NexGuard Content Protection solution introduced by Thomson STS now part of Civolution. The launch follows a successful introduction of the system at Cannes’ 2009 Film Market.
- Mexican broadcaster Televisa, the world’s leading Spanish language media corporation, working in tandem with leading Spanish systems integrator Tedial, selected Civolution’sbroadcast intelligence service Teletrax, to provide broadcast advertising verification services. Tedial has integrated Civolution’s watermarking technology into its broadcast process management system known as Ficus, automatically watermarking advertising content ensuring that all selected media assets are protected before distribution.
- Eurovision signed an agreement with Civolution to integrate the Teletrax video watermarking based monitoring solution into its world feed distribution services. Using Teletrax’s unique global television monitoring network of over 1,500 channels and its web-based reporting tool, Eurovision will report back to its clients with precise broadcast information about the reach and performance of their content.
- ADB, a leading supplier of technology to the global digital television industry, has integrated Civolution’s PayTV watermarking technology into its digital TV set-top boxes. The PayTV solution will embed a unique watermark into video material each time an on-demand program is distributed, enabling content owners to identify the source of any potential copies. The watermark will survive camcorder-capture and subsequent degradation of the content through Internet usage.
- MarkAny announced that its MAO™ and MAVI™ audio and video watermarking technology has been selected to be implemented by one of the largest global music labels, for both pre-release and commercial distribution of music and music video content. Working in cooperation with Media Science International, a leading music industry solution provider and fellow DWA member, MarkAny’s watermarking technology will be used to implement the RIAA watermarking specification.
- Digimarc Corporation announced it entered into an agreement with The Nielsen Company to jointly launch two new companies that will leverage the intellectual property assets of Digimarc and the wealth of consumer and business data amassed by Nielsen. Through the creation of these joint ventures, Digimarc and Nielsen will expand and extend their existing relationship to enhance television viewing, facilitate mobile commerce, and create valuable other new opportunities for television networks and consumer brands to more deeply engage with audiences.
- In May the DWA released key findings from a new survey on piracy deterrence. The study, conducted by Interpret, aimed to determine whether the inclusion of Digital Serial Numbers (DSNs) in online content would deter illegal file sharing. The results showed that DSNs would deter illegal downloading among 33 percent of the 994-person sample and deter illegal uploading among 52 percent. Unlike Digital Rights Management, DSNs allow consumers to freely access content and make multiple copies for backup use or for different playing devices. Should the content be used illegally, however, the DSN can be associated back to the original buyer. The LA Times covered the study in “Watermarks, a friendlier DRM?“
- In March the DWA submitted comments to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in response to its notice of inquiry on the Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007. This Act directed the FCC to initiate a proceeding to examine “the existence and availability of advanced blocking technologies that are compatible with various communications devices or platforms.” The DWA outlined ways in which digital watermarking is an ideal technology for content identification in the context of parental control of content.
- In the Spring the DWA released a new white paper to aid the mobile industry in distinguishing between the various technologies available to identify the content of printed media and seamlessly link to related resources in the digital world. Enabling New Mobile Applications: A Comparison of Technologies,” educates the reader on the three main technologies currently used in applications for mobile phones to enable interactive printed materials: digital watermarking, digital fingerprinting and barcodes. The paper is available for download at www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org
About Digital Watermarking
A MultiMedia Intelligence study identified digital watermarking and fingerprinting as a key growth market that could surpass $500 million by 20121. Digital watermarking is the process by which identifying data is woven into media content, giving it a unique, digital identity. Imperceptible to the human senses yet easily recognized by special software detectors, a digital watermark remains constant even through recording, manipulation and editing, compression and decompression, encryption, decryption and broadcast — without affecting the quality of the content. Digital watermarks can identify copyrighted content and associated rights, during and after distribution, to determine copyright ownership and enable rights management policy while enabling innovative new content distribution and usage models. Today, 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.
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 aquaMobile, Civolution, DataMark Technologies, Digimarc, ISAN, MarkAny, MSI, Streamburst, Université catholique de Louvain, Verance, Verimatrix, and Widevine. For more information, please visit www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org
CONTACT: For media inquiries, please contact Michael Thomas of RH Strategic Tel: (206) 264-0246; E-mail: mthomas@rhstrategic.com