Los Angeles, California—Oct 20, 2006
Philips Anti-Piracy Solution ‘CineFence’ on general release...and already in 1300 theaters
Christie/AIX incorporates Philips watermarking technology for digital cinema
Philips has started the rollout of its CineFence anti-piracy technology with Christie/AIX a subsidiary of Access Integrated Technologies (AccessIT) NASDAQ: AIXD). This world leader in turnkey digital cinema systems has already equipped over 1300 cinemas in the last year. All theatrical releases shown at these cinemas will automatically be protected by a Philips CineFence watermark embedded in the projected content. The movie industry is able to trace camcorder-captured copies back to the cinema in which the illegal copying took place. The specific location, time and date are indicated in the watermark that can be detected in pirated content.
The movie industry faces an increasing problem of video piracy, and illegal camcorder copying has been identified as an important source. In response to this, the movie industry, united in the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), decided to make forensic marking a mandatory requirement in the Digital Cinema System Specification. This should act as a severe disincentive to those engaged in this illegal activity.
In keeping with the Digital Cinema System Specification V1.0, the CineFence watermarks used are imperceptible to cinema audiences and yet maintain their integrity in the copied material. Philips watermarks remain detectable even when camcorder recordings are compressed into formats such as VCD, DivX, and MPEG4.
“There is an increasing transition to Digital Cinema in cinemas around the world,” says Chuck Goldwater, President of Christie/AIX and AccessIT’s Media Services Group. “In our products we use Philips CineFence, based on the proven Philips watermarking technology, to protect the movies that are shown with our digital projection systems. AccessIT’s Media Services Group also provides Watermark Detection Services using Philips CineFence watermark reading technology.”
“Philips CineFence is the first and only forensic watermarking solution that is actively used in digital cinema today,” says Ronald Maandonks, General Manager of Philips Content Identification. “We will continue to develop anti-piracy solutions for the content industry, including watermarking for client-playout devices and peer-to-peer filtering solutions.”
Philips CineFence is part of an array of anti-piracy watermarking and fingerprinting solutions commercially available from Philips Content Identification.
