Cinea's Running Marks Watermarking Technology Integrated With STMicroelectronics Chipsets

STMicroelectronics to Showcase Chipset Integrating Running Marks Video Watermarking Technology Delivering Greater Flexibility and Efficiency at IBC 2007

RESTON, Va. — Cinea, Inc., a subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB), announced today that STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies and a leader in set-top box chips, has integrated Cinea’s Running Marks™ solution into its STi7109 System-on-Chip (SoC) HDTV decoder platform. The integrated solution is available to all set-top box vendors, conditional access vendors, and cable, Telco, and satellite system operators.

The Running Marks replacement-based architecture offers a number of compelling advantages and efficiencies, including extensive flexibility to mark compressed content anywhere during the content distribution path and on delivery to a home media gateway. With Running Marks’ “ultra-lite” message inserter, very few of the SoC compute resources are consumed, freeing these resources for other customer uses. Additionally, system renewability on the backend, with no need for field upgrades, results in a cost savings when millions of devices have already been deployed.

“Session-based watermarking is increasingly important to our customers and a highly valuable addition to the capabilities of ST’s industry-leading STi7109 single-chip HDTV decoder,” said Stefano Groppetti, General Manager of the Cable and IP Business Unit, Home Video Division, STMicroelectronics. “The Running Marks approach of adding watermarks to the compressed video stream is a unique feature that we believe will be of significant interest to our customers.”

“Running Marks, with its compressed domain marking and ultra-light inserter, was designed from day one to enable decoder vendors and set-top manufacturers to easily add session-based watermarking capabilities to their products,” said Robert Schumann, General Manager of Cinea. “We’re very pleased to be working with STMicroelectronics to provide its set-top customers with this watermarking solution.”

Forensic watermarking, also known as serialization watermarking, enables a unique, session-specific ID or serial number to be placed in every video stream sent from a system operator into a home. By watermarking individual streams, the natural flow of distributed content remains untouched and uninterrupted, yet any source of illegally redistributed content can be traced back to the source. Forensic marks also provide a proactive “deterrent” value by removing the anonymity usually associated with the downloading and sharing of content. The forensic mark is present on all STB video outputs: standard definition, digital high-definition multimedia interfaces (HDMI); Digital Transmission Content Protection Interface (DTCP); and all analog connections.

Links: Cinea; STMicroelectronics