Zee, Sony and Disney tech providers collaborate to ensure distributors beat pirates

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NexGuard and Colorfront have released key updates to their joint solution, adding support for multi-layer watermarking workflows and enhanced scalability and automation of forensic watermarking.

NexGuard’s Emmy award-winning solutions are used by content producers, broadcasters, Pay TV operators and OTT providers around the world, including all major Hollywood studios; AMC Networks in the US; iQiyi, the largest Internet and mobile video service provider in China; ZEE TV in India and sports leagues.

NexGuard MD Harrie Tholen will also be speaking at the IBC panel discussion "Protecting media assets and countering cyber threats in the OTT world” on 18 September at Content Everywhere Hub.

NexGuard, a Kudelski company and provider of forensic watermarking technology and solutions, and Colorfront, the Academy and Emmy Award-winning developer of high-performance, on-set dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, high-end episodic TV and commercials, released the updates to their joint solution launched in 2016.

NexGuard also works with the majority of the members of the newly founded Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a new global coalition dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal market for creative content and reducing online piracy.

The joint Colorfront-NexGuard solution protects digital content assets, particularly 4K/UHDTV and High Dynamic Range (HDR), in digital cinema, broadcast, Over-The-Top (OTT) internet entertainment and Video on Demand (VoD) applications.

The solution enables the protection for a vast range of dailies, mezzanine and master deliverables at all stages of the production and post production workflow, whilst also allowing users to track the source of illicit B2B and B2C distribution, particularly of 4K/UHDTV and HDR content.

The joint solution leverages NexGuard’s world-leading forensic watermarking alongside Colorfront Transkoder deployments by major Hollywood studios including Sony Pictures, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Universal, and Colorfront On-Set Dailies systems used in the workflows motion picture and high-end episodic TV productions including Blade Runner 2049 (Warner), Atomic Blonde (Universal), Game Of Thrones – Season 7 (HBO), Avengers: Infinity War (Marvel/Disney), Robin Hood: Origins (Lionsgate), Moonlight (A24) and The Revenant (20th Century Fox).

“Security of media assets is a matter Colorfront takes take very seriously. We work closely with our media and entertainment customers to help them find new and better ways to safeguard their content,” says Aron Jaszberenyi, managing director of Colorfront. “Colorfront joined forces with NexGuard in 2016 to integrate their forensic watermarking technology into our On-Set Dailies and Transkoder product. Now, the full integration of the new generation of NexGuard watermarking technology means we are delivering even more advanced content protection tools, to support our clients as they continue the challenge of staying one step ahead of the pirates.”

New for IBC 2017, the solution has been extended to include:
Full integration of the NexGuard Manager with the Colorfront Transkoder: Users of the joint solution can easily scale up their use of forensic watermarking on pre-theatrical and pre-aired content, and store all their NexGuard watermarking job metadata in a centralized database for a 360-degree view of all watermarking activities.

Support for multi-layer watermarking: Up to three levels of NexGuard “G2” watermark layers can be embedded in any given pre-release or pre-aired piece of content by using different watermarking keys, which do not affect the robustness and imperceptibility of the watermarks. This feature enables watermarks to be embedded at the ingest and outgest of post-production workflows.

“Last year, we joined forces with Colorfront to launch a tool that protects content when it is at its most vulnerable – during the production and post-production phase’’ said Tholen. "As the industry becomes more aware of the dangers of piracy for the creative industries, solutions that provide a robust yet simple integration into existing workflows are increasingly essential. The latest additions to our solution provide customers of the combined Colorfront-NexGuard solution, ranging from studios through to post-production companies and distributors, with an even higher level of content protection and full visibility on all watermarking activities to secure prime assets.”

Based on the world's leading forensic watermark, NexGuard forensic watermarking adds a unique, invisible identifier to video content. The watermark remains with the content, even in the case of transcoding, resizing, downscaling, recording by camcorder or any other alteration before illegal re-distribution.