The European Broadcasting Union reported significant progress in digital video watermarking, with systems developed by Philips, Thomson, Lucent Technologies, and Tektronix undergoing performance tests across five European broadcasters. No system fully met all requirements, but the EBU concluded the technology is maturing and could serve copyright protection, intellectual property management, and copy prevention across digital networks.
Source documentcirca 2001preserved as-is
Thursday, March 1, 2001
Digital watermarking "coming of age", EBU says
Geneva, 1 March 2001 - The European Broadcasting Union today reported
significant progress towards the development of effective ways to protect
the copyright of live broadcasts over Eurovision and other digital
broadcasting networks.
Philips, Thomson, Lucent Technologies and Tektronix each developed a system
of "digital video watermarking" in response to requirements agreed with an
EBU project group. The systems have been undergoing performance tests since
last summer.
"While none of the systems submitted completely met all the stringent
requirements set by the group, the tests did show that digital watermarking
is coming of age," the project group said in a statement.
The need for a secure means of marking video and audio material is
increasingly urgent at a time when digital technology enables perfect pirate
copies to be made and distributed through a growing number of communications
channels.
The new technology - involving the invisible marking of video sequences and
a reader able to recognise data in real time from a digital signal - could
be of great use in intellectual property management, tracking and copy
protection from production to transmission.
The tests were carried out by the BBC (UK), TDF (France), IRT (Germany), RAI
(Italy), and SVT (Sweden). Louis Cheveau, Head of Transmission Technologies
at the EBU, said the tests had been valuable in showing how the systems
might be improved. Feedback had been given to the manufacturers, whom he
thanked for their cooperation.
Tests on audio watermarking systems will take place at a later stage.
The EBU serves 69 national broadcasters from 50 countries in the European
area, and has 49 associate members further afield. It operates the
Eurovision and Euroradio networks, coordinates the exchange of news and
sports programming, conducts technical research, stimulates co-productions,
and defends public service broadcasting.
For further information and a summary report on the tests:
Louis Cheveau, Tel: +41.22.717.27.41, e-mail; [email protected]
The report will also be published online in the March issue of the EBU
Technical Review
(click through "General information" and "Publications" on www.ebu.ch )
General EBU information: David Lewis, Head of Communications, EBU
Tel: +41 22 717 2032, e-mail: [email protected]
