April 13, 2007
Verimatrix offers security for shows delivered over IPTV
As telephone companies worldwide roll out video over telephone lines to compete with cable TV, Hollywood studios are gearing up for a piracy battle akin to the one that rocked the music industry a few years ago. SignOnSanDiego reports.
"Many telephone companies will deliver TV over digital networks using Internet Protocol – known as IPTV.
Hollywood studios tend to view the Internet as a vortex of piracy, where hackers pluck recently released movies off the network with relative ease and post them online for free – essentially vaporizing the way studios make money.
Hoping to ride to the rescue – so to speak – is Verimatrix, a San Diego company develops content security software and forensic watermarking for video delivered over IPTV networks.
Its main product encrypts movies and TV shows before they are sent over the network. It then unscrambles the video when it reaches the particular set-top box of a pay TV customer's home – making sure the correct signal is getting to the right subscriber.
Verimatrix's watermarking technology embeds a sophisticated code into the video. The code is invisible to the viewer. But it allows the video – if it ends up being pirated – to be traced back to the set-top box from which it originated. "
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