Philips excited about its video watermarking technology
Fighting piracy has become somewhat of an industry of its
own in the last several years. At the forefront of everything stands Philips, a
hardware manufacturing house that boasts some of the most widely supported
technology anywhere. This week, Philips launches what it calls the VTrack, a
visual-based watermarking technology that will help analysts and law
enforcements trace back stolen or illegally distributed material.
The goal for Philips is to help publishers protect content that is played over
PayTV. VTrack utilizes watermarking technology in an unobtrusive manner,
allowing users to fully enjoy their movies but at the same time providing a
mechanism for piracy tracing.
Andrew G. Setos, president of engineering at Fox Group, stated that his company
as well as others was excited to hear that Philips had delivered a promising
technology for broadcasters. "We are thrilled that Philips has entered the
market with a session based, forensic watermark system. Forensic watermarks
have already shown their merit in PayTV applications and help our premium
content from unauthorized redistribution by counterfeiters and others,"
said Setos.
According to Philips, VTrack watermarks cannot be separated from the content or
modified. Philips is very confident with VTrack, indicating that even after
quality reduction, scaling, cropping or compression the watermark will still be
intact.
Protecting video content is not new to Philips. The company
last launched a controversial technology that it said will prevent TV
watchers from skipping commercials. After an uproar by the online
community, Philips responded by saying that the technology can be
disabled or enabled by the consumer -- making the feature rather pointless
to begin with.
"If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else." -- Microsoft Business Group President Jeff Raikes
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