M+E Daily

NexGuard, a Kudelski Group company and the leading provider of forensic watermarking technology and solutions, today announced that it will demonstrate how its forensic watermarking product portfolio adapts to deter the latest piracy threats and help content owners and providers secure their revenue at NAB Show 2017.

After revolutionizing the delivery to consumers through ubiquitous broadband and IP streaming technologies, the media industry’s focus is squarely on content again. Content owners are investing heavily in premium movies and TV shows, while the studios are defining frameworks for premium video-on-demand releases within weeks of theatrical premieres of key productions. However, the advent of new piracy technologies, such as black-market streaming services based on open source software, has made “content value protection” an ever-higher priority for the industry.

“Piracy costs the content industry $6 billion every year according to the Motion Picture Association of America. In order to secure its revenues as it continues to embrace global distribution of content, the creative industry needs technological solutions that can effectively deter piracy,” said Harrie Tholen, Managing Director at NexGuard. “Our solutions empower broadcasters, content owners and distributors to identify weak links in their distribution, and act accordingly. At NAB Show 2017, we will show how we have expanded our product portfolio to tackle the latest illicit redistribution threats and help the content industry stay one step ahead of pirates.

To enable the content industry to better tackle this costly challenge, NexGuard will demonstrate a variety of products at NAB Show 2017, including:

Forensic watermarking for pre-theatrical release content, with the introduction of NexGuard’s new File Delivery product to secure one-to-many mezzanine file transfers

Forensic watermarking for early-release content, delivered to set-top-boxes or by OTT streaming.

Content protection for Live Sports. The demo will feature subscriber-level watermark insertion, pirate service monitoring, the identification of rogue subscribers and countermeasure options.

Anti-Piracy Intelligence Portal from sister company NAGRA. The demo will show how NAGRA tracks IPTV pirates, pirate equipment, and the content they illegally redistribute, in order to effect takedowns and support litigation against this fast-growing form of piracy.

Used for over 10 years by Hollywood studios to help track pirates, NexGuard forensic watermarking has been recognized by winning a Technology and Engineering Emmy® award, demonstrating the central role played by the solution in the fight against piracy. Following the publication of the MovieLabs specifications for enhanced content protection, the studios are also making forensic watermarking a key security requirement for any operator providing early release or UHD/4K content.

NexGuard works with top tier 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;); TVB in Hong Kong and ZEE TV in India.

Harrie Tholen, Managing Director at NexGuard, will also be speaking at the NAB Show Live panel “New solutions for media logistics for clips, highlights, marketing tools, worldwide distribution” held on Wednesday, April 26 at 10:00 – 10:30am, Central Hall.