Viaccess integrates Thomson’s NexGuard Forensic Marking with Viaccess CA

[BGonaSTICK]

Viaccess is proud to unveil at NAB 2007, with support from Thomson, a fully integrated content protection solution using Thomson’s NexGuard Forensic Marking and Viaccess’ conditionalaccess system (CAS).

The combined solution based on Thomson’s NexGuard Forensic Marking and Viaccess Conditional Access System has been ported into the STx7100 family of System-on- Chips (SoC) manufactured by leading semiconductor supplier STMicroelectronics. It will be available to all STB suppliers using the STx7100 SoC, Video-on-Demand (VOD) and push-VOD operators by the end of 2007.

The NexGuard video watermarking technology is the first to work with standard and next generation compression codecs: MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, (H.264) and VC-1. Associated with latest generation Viaccess ACS 3.0 library and Viaccess PC 3.0 Smart Cards, it brings to digital TV operators, Telcos and STB suppliers a combination of all cutting edge technologies for content protection, deterring content piracy and tracking illicit redistribution which is especially important for HD VoD services on cable and IPTV or push-VoD on satellite services.

“We anticipate earlier VoD release window for feature films and it is essential to dissuade recipients of premium HD content from illicitly redistributing it. Viaccess considers a great opportunity for its customers to add a video watermarking capability from widely adopted technology provider Thomson Software and Technology Solutions” said Mathias Hautefort, Viaccess CEO.

“Thomson Technology division provides the media and entertainment industry with forensic marking solutions for pre-release, d-cinema and online distribution; and our customers now expect to expand the scope to content delivery by network operators. We are excited to offer our technology along with Viaccess CAS, a European leader for satellite, cable and IPTV.” said Jean-Luc Moullet, Vice President, Thomson Software & Technology Solutions business unit within Technology division .

NexGuard’s robust and invisible watermark deters illegal copying and distribution of all forms of broadcast content delivered via IPTV, satellite, cable or traditional broadcast and viewed with digital STBs. It is the only solution that supports next generation compression in any digital STB without an extra preprocessing operation, because all processing is performed within the STB. NexGuard’s watermarking technology embeds unique identification information into the STB video stream upon play-out that specifies the operator distributing the content as well as the individual STB or smartcard. The investigation of a pirate copy is done by analysing the video sample using Thomson NexGuard’s detection and recovery system to retrieve the watermark data and then query the Viaccess CMS database to get the details regarding the source of the leak.