www.kansascity.com | 04/15/2007 | Firms developing protection for high-def digital signals: "Two companies are introducing technology to thwart people who make illegal copies of video-on-demand and cable television pay-per-view content.
Both systems, one from Philips Electronics and the other from Cinea Inc., a unit of Dolby Laboratories Inc., insert an invisible digital watermark into the content before it is viewed.
The digital fingerprint contains information that would allow a cable TV company to identify the specific cable subscriber.
The information cannot be seen by a viewer but is robust enough that it will stay with the content after it has been copied several times, or even if someone makes a camcorder copy directly off a screen.
The Philips system, dubbed VTrack, inserts the watermark as the signal passes through a cable set-top box or cable-ready digital televisions.
The system from Cinea, called Running Marks, inserts the watermark into the digital stream before it leaves the cable operator or other video-on-demand provider.
Both systems can be adapted for use in high-definition broadcast signals.
Studios and TV networks have been lobbying for hardware- and software-based copy protection mechanisms as the nation makes the shift from analog signals to digital.
Studios persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to require TV makers to produce sets capable of receiving a digital signal known as the 'broadcast flag.'
That signal contains rules for how many times a program can be copied and is designed to prevent content from being sent over the Internet."