Philips and Sunniwell Pay TV set-top boxes select Philips VTrack to deter piracy

Friday, September 7th, 2007

IBC, Amsterdam – Philips Content Identification today announced that their advanced VTrack watermarking technology has been integrated into the set top boxes of leading manufacturers Sunniwell and Philips. VTrack, a state of the art forensic watermarking solution, was implemented by Philips Content Identification earlier this year and is supported by major chipset vendors including Broadcom, STMicroelectronics (ST) and Texas Instruments.

With the integration of VTrack, both Sunniwell – with their latest IPTV product based on the Broadcom 7401 chipset, and Philips – with their satellite/cable set-top box featuring the ST 7109 chip, will allow operators to extend content security. As a result, content providers can confidently make more high definition and early release material available, which is typically vulnerable material for piracy.

With the increased availability of HD devices and content, illegal camcorder capture and distribution of high quality copies has become a significant problem for the content industry. Philips developed VTrack specifically in response to this threat. VTrack has been designed as a consumer friendly solution, not restricting personal use or sharing of digital entertainment, while embedding an imperceptible and indelible unique identifier into the video signal. Should illegal broadcast or mass copying of content be detected, VTrack enables digital content to be traced back to a specific subscriber, increasing the risks for content pirates.

Designed specifically for consumer devices, such as set-top boxes and digital TVs, VTrack supports HD and SD content and is format independent and therefore transparent for current and next generation codecs. In addition to format compatibility, Philips VTrack digital watermarks cannot be separated from content and survives even after severe quality degradation. Nor does camcorder copying, an analog piracy loophole often exploited by content pirates, evade the VTrack digital watermark.

“The integrations with Sunniwell and Philips show VTrack’s flexibility in integrating with different platforms ranging from Cable, Satellite to IPTV. VTrack is a robust and easy to integrate solution. Because it is a dedicated and complete receiver-end solution, VTrack scales with the growth of the operation and supports both VOD as well as broadcasted content,” said Alex Terpstra, CEO of Philips Content Identification. “We are delighted to add Philips and Sunniwell to our growing list of set-top vendors that integrate our robust forensic watermarking technology.”

Philips watermarking and fingerprinting technology is part of the broad Philips Content Identification product portfolio which is made up of state-of-the-art solutions and services to optimally sell, share and distribute audio and video content with respect to copy rights. Philips Content Identification products are used for content monitoring, forensic tracking, rights clearing and interactive applications. Philips technology is being used by major Hollywood studios and Music labels for protecting their content assets and offers the only widely deployed Digital Cinema forensic watermarking product.

VTrack will be shown at the IBC 2007 in Amsterdam , September 7-11, at the Philips booth, 1.181 and at the Irdeto booth 1.451.

For further product information please visit – http://www.philips.com/ci