NAGRA launches NexGuard QuickMark watermarking to combat piracy of live sports

NAGRA Launches NexGuard QuickMark Watermarking Solution To Combat Piracy Of Premium Live Sports

CHESEAUX, Switzerland, and PHOENIX, AZ — NAGRA, a Kudelski Group (SIX:KUD.S) company and the world’s leading independent provider of content protection and multiscreen television solutions, today announced the launch of NexGuard QuickMark, a subscriber-level watermarking solution to fight piracy of premium live sports on open devices.

While premium live sports are a key growth driver for legitimate pay-TV service providers, they are also a fast-growing target for pirates who are starting to use open client devices, such as laptops and tablets, as a video source for their pirate services. In this new and growing piracy environment, legitimate service providers require effective anti-piracy solutions and tools, and subscriber-level watermarking is recognized as highly effective, when combined with a secure player.

“The key to combatting OTT piracy of live sport events is to identify its source and shut it down quickly,” said Harrie Tholen, VP of Sales, NAGRA Anti-Piracy & NexGuard. “NexGuard QuickMark is a watermarking solution for open client devices, that, when combined with a secure player, gives service providers and content owners the ability to detect which subscriber is re-streaming their live sports event and put a stop to it in real-time. It’s a must-have in their anti-piracy toolset.”

NexGuard QuickMark complements the existing NexGuard watermarking solution for set-top-boxes and is part of NAGRA’s suite of anti-piracy services. Its detection capabilities enable near real-time identification of the subscriber at the source of the piracy and the appropriate action to stop it. Using state-of-the-art content identification technologies such as real-time fingerprinting, NAGRA can capture pirate streams from the internet, social media and illicit streaming devices, and feed them into the QuickMark detection platform via an automated interface. As a dynamic client-side solution, NexGuard QuickMark does not require any modifications to the encoding, DRM or CDN systems.

NexGuard QuickMark enables a highly secure and robust implementation. It is integrated with the NAGRA OpenTV Player, a secure player for the delivery of premium content services on open client devices, and other third-party players. NexGuard QuickMark will be available to premium sports service providers in late 2018.

NAGRA Anti-Piracy Services, NexGuard watermarking and content value protection solutions will be on display on NAGRA stand, 1.C81, at IBC 2018 in Amsterdam, from September 14-18, 2018.