Cinea and Viaccess Unveil an Integrated Security Offering With Forensic Watermarking Running on TI DaVinci Technology

Viaccess to Showcase Integrated Conditional Access and Running Marks Video Watermarking Technology on Texas Instruments’ DaVinci Technology at IBC2007

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Cinea, Inc., a subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB), and Viaccess, the European leader in conditional access for pay television and protection of digital content over broadband networks, today announced they will jointly offer an integrated forensic watermarking solution to broadcast (satellite, cable, terrestrial, MMDS) and broadband (DSL, mobile) networks, encompassing Cinea’s Running Marks™ watermarking technology, Texas Instruments’ DaVinci™ chipsets, and Viaccess’ Conditional Access solutions.

Viaccess is demonstrating the combined solution on the Texas Instruments™ DaVinci digital media system-on-a-chip (SoC) platform, used for media servers and IP set-top boxes. Running Marks’ unique ability to watermark compressed video content enables the watermarking of content on receipt into the home so that the digital distribution within home networks is protected and any illegally redistributed content can be traced back to the source. In addition, the security solution includes Conditional Access and security features at the Digital Transmission Content Protection over IP (DTCP-IP) level, ensuring a state-of the-art security products suite to OEMs.

“Customers of our world-class content-protection products have expressed a strong desire to add forensic watermarking to their systems,” said François Moreau de Saint Martin, CEO, Viaccess. “We needed a solution that could be integrated within our Conditional Access solutions, and Running Marks’ patented architecture makes it easy to do so. This integration with Cinea Running Marks watermarking and Texas Instruments further expands the range of end-to-end content protection solutions offered to our customers.”

“For content owners, watermarking is becoming an essential requirement for the distribution of premium content,” said Robert Schumann, General Manager, Cinea. “Partnering with world-class organizations like Viaccess ensures that our solution is available to a broad spectrum of the marketplace.”

“By leveraging the TI DaVinci flexible DSP-based SoC, developers will be able to integrate a high number of security feature sets including watermarking technology in their designs,” said Charlie Gonsalves, Business Development Manager, Digital Video, TI. “In addition, TI’s flexible processors are able to easily handle most widely used video codecs as well as some additional software for set-top boxes.”

Demonstrations of Running Marks applications will be on display at Dolby’s IBC stand, 2.218, and Viaccess’ IBC stand, 1.151.

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 out of the set-top box (STB), 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 (DTCP) interfaces, and all analog connections.

Links: Cinea; Viaccess; TI