Sony Licenses Civolution’s NexGuard

Eindhoven, The Netherlands, November 9th 2010 – Civolution, the leading provider of technology and services for identifying, managing and monetizing media content, today announced that it has signed an exclusive agreement with Sony’s Digital Cinema Solutions Group to integrate Civolution’s NexGuard – Digital Cinema watermarking into Sony 4K SXRD digital cinema systems for 3D stereoscopic and 4K resolution projections on a global scale.

“Civolution’s NexGuard watermarking offers state of the art security throughout our digital cinema servers worldwide and complies with the DCI specifications for persistent content protection, including traceable forensic evidence in case of content theft,’’ said Rich Reames, Director of Technology, Digital Cinema Solutions Group at Sony Electronics.
 
In this multi-year agreement, Sony’s Digital Cinema Solutions group will integrate Civolution’s watermarking technologies to market DCI compliant servers and projectors with audio and image forensic marking capabilities. Forensic marking is intended to make illegal recordings of digital cinema content traceable, and is today a requirement under the Digital Cinema Initiative (www.dcimovies.com), a joint venture of major motion picture studios, formed to establish a standard architecture for digital cinema systems. The NexGuard – Digital Cinema watermark can survive in-theatre camcording and subsequent compression to low bitrates.
 
“The DCI compliant and camcorder proofed NexGuard solution helps to protect assets and creates a more secure digital cinema environment,’’ said Jean-Michel Masson, Senior Vice President, Watermarking Operations, Civolution. “We are very pleased to roll-out the NexGuard forensic marking with one of the leading D-Cinema system manufacturers and offer the studios a security solution for all digital cinema screens, including 3D and 4K theaters.’’

The NexGuard – Digital Cinema watermarking technology has been in operation in tens of thousands of theatres since the worldwide introduction of digital technology in 2006, and is compatible with 2K, 4K, 2D and 3D systems. Watermarking upon projection enables the identification of the theatre screen and the time of projection, a condition made mandatory by the movie studios that were instrumental in establishing DCI specifications. DCI specifications ensure a uniform, high level of technical performance, along with reliability and quality control. The content theft is potentially organized based on illicit camcording of movie pictures during the in-theater projection, and then pirate copies circulate on the Internet or are sold on the black market as DVDs. Such content theft impacts the whole movie industry economics. Forensic Marking helps to locate the source of such content theft.