VideoMark Forensic Watermarking

Worldwide loss of business for the motion picture industry and other content owners presents significant challenges to established distribution channels. According the MPAA, worldwide loss of business for the motion picture industry was more than $18 billion in 2005. In response, a variety of techniques are being deployed to help address content piracy. One of the most promising techniques is forensic watermarking.

Digital watermarking is a technology that seeks to securely, robustly and imperceptibly hide serialization information within media content. In particular, forensic watermarking can help establish a virtual "chain of custody" for content that accurately identifies the source of unauthorized copies and that provides a valuable tool in legal actions against the source of such copies.

Verimatrix offers a key tool in the fight against piracy with its VideoMark user-specific forensic watermarking technology. VideoMark is an integrated component of ViewRight client solutions but can also be deployed as a complementary security technology in existing satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasting systems.

Unlike encryption, which creates an envelope around content that can effectively secure delivery from point to point, a watermark is embedded in the content itself and remains even if it has been decrypted, decoded and possibly re-encoded to another file. The most robust watermarks will survive the transition from digital to analog and back. The approach of re-recording an analog playback is called the "analog hole." Robust watermarking can survive the passage through the analog hole, enabling identification of unauthorized copies of, for example, camcorder captured material.

Digitally distributed movies and other high value entertainment content can be protected particularly well by digital watermarking. Digital video is a composition of many individual images and corresponding audio information, with a much larger amount of data than any other common media file and with more scope to robustly embed information. With advanced methods that make use of the density of information to insert watermarking payloads, video can be secured very effectively.

The Verimatrix solution to content security offers unique value through:

• Software-based content security for cost effective deployment and flexible response to attacks
• Unquestioned content security for IPTV – independently audited – 0 Exposures
• Best security perimeter for IPTV and hybrid networks
• Industry leader in user-specific watermarking
• Broad range of STB and PC client choices
• Flexibility in HW and SW system partners
• Widest deployed system in Tier 1 operators globally

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