Forensic video watermarking for digital content that is pre-released can be a deterrent against content theft, and provides a forensic analysis tool in the event piracy does occur. Civolution’s NexGuard watermarking applications for pre-release content are deployed in content production and post-production facilities worldwide and add imperceptible video watermarks – on a per content copy basis – which are resilient to analog/digital conversion, format change, recompression and various other forms of content manipulation. The process adds a unique imperceptible serial number to each copy of a given piece of content and for any output format. NexGuard offers enhanced content security, whether copies of content go to post-production houses for dubbing, circulate for review or are delivered to distributors.
RadiantGrid will be providing a Watermark Management service within the RadiantGrid Platform, which will support the insertion of watermarks into content during the transcode phase using Civolution’s NexGuard solution. This service offered by RadiantGrid is based on a central watermark identifier repository.
“Users will benefit from the combined solution to deliver mezzanine files with identification of each distribution channel,’’ says Jean-Michel Masson, senior vice president, Watermarking Solutions, Civolution. “By offering the NexGuard forensic watermarking with one of the most efficient transcoding platforms available today, we can ensure that movie and television content right owners have an advanced protection solution for pre-release content.’’
“Securing content prior to release is critical for the broadcast and film industries, especially with content being distributed in many different formats to various outlets where it can be hard to protect,’’ says Kirk Marple, president and chief software architect, RadiantGrid Technologies. “Civolution’s NexGuard watermarking solution offers state-of-the-art protection for premium content. We are pleased that we can offer this functionality for up to 10-bit depth images in all the output formats the RadiantGrid Platform supports, including JPEG2000 and AVC-Intra.”
These new watermarking capabilities by Civolution help RadiantGrid to further its goal to provide users with an end-to-end media workflow. Currently the company offers a fully-automated workflow from SDI signal ingestion through content preparation, quality control, and the company’s grid-enabled transcoding, which can offer faster than real-time speeds, out to digital distributors like iTunes or VOD including metadata publishing.