Civolution’s NexGuard Forensic Watermarking Integrates with STMicroelectronics’ Cannes and Monaco Systems-on-Chips

Shown in Las Vegas during CES 2015, the integration of Civolution’s content-protection solution with STMicroelectronics’ Ultra HD-4K Systems-on-Chips (SoC) enables CE manufacturers to deploy Ultra HD-4K TV secure services and protect content owners Geneva, Switzerland and Eindhoven, The Netherlands / 05 Jan 2015

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, and Civolution, the leading provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing content, today announced the integration of Civolution’s NexGuard forensic watermarking with ST’s UltraHD-4K Cannes and Monaco SoCs to detect unauthorized sharing of digital content and help deter piracy. The integration will be demonstrated at STMicroelectronics’ private suite during the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (January 6-9).

Forensic watermarking is the means by which a unique and imperceptible identifying code is inserted into a media asset, whether a movie, video or any other type of content. By adding a unique identity disseminated throughout a piece of media, that content, along with its owner, becomes identifiable. Digital watermarks are used to enforce contractual compliance between a content owner and the intended recipient. It provides proof of misuse and a link back to the source of a leakage. By integrating Civolution’s NexGuard with its Ultra HD-4K Cannes (STiH314/318) and Monaco (STiH414/418) SoCs, ST ensures that its leading-edge set-top box chipsets can offer a powerful deterrent against digital-content piracy.

ST’s Cannes and Monaco SoCs already support Conditional Access (CA) and Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems to enable the efficient delivery of next-generation 4K TV (broadcast and Internet) services. The addition of Civolution’s NexGuard raises the bar to meet the MovieLabs^¹ guidelines, which require platforms distributing and playing 4K content to support encryption methods, a secure media pipeline, a hardware root of trust to protect studio content, as well as forensic watermarking to securely mark video on the server or client side to facilitate the detection and location of breaches.

“Civolution and ST work together to add support for the industry-leading digital-watermarking solution with the powerful Cannes and Monaco SoCs for UltraHD-4K services,” said Alex Terpstra, CEO, Civolution. “As the leading provider of forensic watermarking solutions for pre-release, digital cinema, Pay-TV and streaming, we are proud to be working closely with ST to deploy our solution in the powerful Cannes and Monaco chipsets. This recent integration is further proof of NexGuard’s role as a core component to providing best-in-class innovation for high-value-content protection.”

“The strong adoption of ST’s Cannes and Monaco SoCs globally is the result of the powerful ARM® multi-core processor-based design, incorporating superior 2D/3D graphics performance and integrated hardware Faroudja® multimedia subsystem with HEVC-capable robust video decoder,” said Philippe Notton, Group Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Product Division, STMicroelectronics. “Adding Civolution’s NexGuard forensic watermarking to the Cannes/Monaco security toolbox for UltraHD-4K premium content complements the chips’ existing industry-leading security capabilities and raises the bar in content-rights protection.”

The combined solutions will be demonstrated in a private suite in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show, January 6-9, 2015.

About Civolution

Civolution (www.civolution.com) is the leading provider of technology and solutions to identify manage and monetize media content. The company offers an extensive portfolio of cutting edge digital watermarking and fingerprinting technologies and applications, which are provided by two business units:

The Teletrax business unit provides real time TV analytics and synchronized advertisments, servicing the broadcast and digital media industry.
The NexGuard business unit is the world leader in forensic watermarking, providing solutions for forensic marking of media assets in pre-release, digital cinema, pay TV and OTT streaming.

About STMicroelectronics
ST is a global leader in the semiconductor market, serving customers across the spectrum of sense and power technologies and multimedia convergence applications. From energy management and savings to trust and data security, from healthcare and wellness to smart consumer devices, in the home, car and office, at work and at play, ST is found everywhere microelectronics make a positive and innovative contribution to people's life. By getting more from technology to get more from life, ST stands for life.augmented.

In 2013, the company's net revenues were $8.08 billion. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.

¹MovieLabs Specification for Enhanced Content Protection – Version 1.0: Describes a set of high-‐level specifications for improving the security of audiovisual works in this developing environment. MovieLabs recognizes that most of these features will have broad and strong studio-wide support in most contexts involving enhanced content distribution. Each studio will determine individually which practices are prerequisites to the distribution of its content in any particular situation.

For more information:

Harrie Tholen
Civolution Sr VP Sales & Marketing
Tel: +1 347 493 4640
harrie.tholen@civolution.com

Segolene Roche
Platform PR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7486 4900
segolene@platformpr.com

Mike Gyulai
Beck Media & Marketing
Tel: +1 310 300 4800
mike@beckmedia.com