MORRISTOWN, N.J.—Feb 21, 2006
AccessIT Launches Industry’s First Digital Cinema Content Anti-Piracy Identification Service
Forensic Watermarking Technology Incorporated into On-Going 4,000-Screen Digital Cinema Rollout
Access Integrated Technologies, Inc.
(“AccessIT”) (AMEX: AIX) today announced the launch of a groundbreaking digital
cinema anti-piracy initiative involving the first-of-their-kind deployments of
forensic watermarking technology and the creation of a detection and recovery
service created for studios and other owners of digital content.
Christie/AIX, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, will immediately
incorporate anti-piracy watermarking technology into the digital cinema systems
deployed with exhibitors participating in its on-going 4,000 screen digital
cinema deployment plan. AccessIT’s watermark detection/content identification
service will be headquartered in the company’s Chatsworth, CA. satellite
operations center providing forensic recovery services for content owners on a
24x7x365 basis.
World-wide piracy of Hollywood films – illegal off-the-screen recording of
movies with handheld camcorders now costs the industry an estimated $3.5 billon
annually. To curtail this activity, the Hollywood Studio consortium created to
define the industry standards for digital cinema, Digital Cinema Initiatives
(“DCI”), mandated the development and use of forensic anti-piracy technology.
Among the standards set by DCI was the use of technology enabling the insertion
of “invisible” watermarks into both the audio and video portions of movies
during exhibition playback. These watermarks can be detected and decoded to
provide detailed identifying information regarding the source of the recorded
content including its time, date and original projection location.
The content identification service is the first such commercial detection
service offered to content owners for analyzing pirated content in an effort to
trace it to its source release point. AccessIT’s use of the related watermarking
technology is the largest deployment of this technology to date. This
anti-piracy initiative incorporates advanced DCI-compliant CineFence forensic
watermarking and anti-piracy detection capabilities developed and licensed from
Royal Philips Electronics (“Philips”). CineFence was created by Philips as a
rights protection, tracking and monitoring solution for digital content, an
integral part of the digital cinema technical specifications released by DCI.
The CineFence watermarking system is the first DCI-compliant embedding and
detection system for use with both video (in 2K and 4K resolutions) and audio to
be adopted in a wide-scale digital cinema deployment.
“This agreement is further evidence of our commitment to providing our studio
and exhibitor customers with not only the best-of-breed technology, but
practical solutions that conform to DCI specifications,” commented Bud Mayo,
chairman and chief executive officer of AccessIT. “We are pleased to again play
a role in yet another important digital cinema technical milestone.”
Philips CineFence is the first step to help content owners in their fight
against illegally copied movies with a handheld camcorder in theatres”, says
Ronald Maandonks, CEO of Philips Content Identification. “By giving active
support to the movie industry, AccessIT can play an important role in helping to
control this problem.”
Russell Wintner, President and Chief Operating Officer of AccessIT’s Digital
Media Division, added, “CineFence is a remarkably useful and robust technology,
yet one that remains completely hidden from viewers. It has the potential to
dramatically curtail camcorder-based piracy, easing one of the main concerns of
all content owners in the digital era while providing them with a comprehensive
forensic content management and tracking capability, as envisioned by DCI.”
AccessIT's Christie/AIX unit serves as the funding vehicle and administrator for
the company's 4,000-screen digital cinema rollout plan expanded significantly
from the total originally announced in June 2005. Christie/AIX will act as the
financing intermediary between content-owners -- major studios and independent
distributors, among others -- and exhibitors who will receive turnkey Digital
Cinema systems that conform with the DCI Technical Specification, including
Christie DLP Cinema® projectors and related hardware and software.
Access Integrated Technologies, Inc. (AccessIT) is the industry leader in
offering a fully managed storage and electronic delivery service for owners and
distributors of digital content to movie theaters and other venues. Its
studio-backed 4,000 screen ongoing deployment of digital systems is the first
and the largest of its kind in the world. Supported by a robust platform of
fail-safe Internet data centers, AccessIT is able to leverage the market-leading
role of its Theatrical Distribution System (TDS) with its innovative digital
delivery capabilities and in-theatre software systems to provide the highest
level of technology available to enable the emerging Digital Cinema industry to
transition from film without changing workflows. For more information on
AccessIT, visit www.accessitx.com.
More information and press release about Philips CineFence can be found at:
www.philips.com/ci.