Vizrt, a provider of content production tools for the digital media industry, is now integrating Civolution’s watermarking solution into its Viz Ardome media asset management software. Using Civolution’s NexGuard, users will have the ability to deter potential piracy threat or trace the source of unauthorized copies of a video asset.
“Watermarking in the field of media asset management is new, but it’s a growing market,” said Henrik Nordström, VP of media asset management sales at Vizrt. “We see more and more requests from customers, including those that handle video archives, to ensure that no media assets can be used without approval or financial compensation. TV networks with program management workflows are also potential customers for this process. They need to export content for dubbing, closed-captioning or promotional purposes before airing, but also need to ensure that the latest episode of a major series, for example, is protected and they can offer a theft-deterrence solution before the air date.”
Piracy is still a major issue for the content industry, but working together, Vizrt and Civolution will provide a solution to better protect, manage and allow the full exploitation of revenues. The integration of Civolution’s product with Viz Ardome is currently managed through the NexGuard plug-in for Rhozet’s Carbon Coder, a stand-alone transcoder that facilitates the transfer of media between acquisition, editing, playout, archive, Web and mobile applications.
Because Viz Ardome is already integrated with Carbon Coder, using the Carbon XML API, it was a natural and straightforward process to add support in Viz Ardome for watermarking requests. The dynamic use of the Carbon XML API to request watermarking allows more flexibility than drop folders.
Civolution’s NexGuard plug-in embeds a unique virtual barcode in each copy of the content. The watermark is imperceptible to the human eye and, being part of the content, remains even if the content is modified. This content serial numbering process is versatile, fully automated and scalable and is driven by the central NexGuard management server, which hosts a database of copies and corresponding recipients. By crossreferencing the database with the watermarks discovered in pirated copies, the NexGuard forensic marking solution can locate the source of piracy. Rightful owners can then implement a graduated response to piracy.
