Televisa Watermarking
Friday, 15 May 2009 01:00
Televisa Watermarking
Tedial integrates content protection for Televisa.
Leading Spanish media group Televisa is adding content tracking and protection, based on the Civolution watermark system, into its television production and delivery system. The watermark technology is being seamlessly integrated into the workflows by Tedial.
Televisa relies on Tedial technology to manage all of the content in its facilities, based around the Tedial Ficus broadcast process management system. The network ingests, catalogues, tracks, stores and delivers content for the multiple channels which Televisa services.
The Civolution watermark technology embeds a code into each piece of media in a way which is invisible to the user but which can be reliably retrieved, even after the content has passed through multiple processes and compressions. Comparing the code with a secret key allows each piece of content to be tracked, both for compliance purposes (for example to determine precisely when advertisements were transmitted) and to detect piracy. Without the secret key it is virtually impossible to even detect the watermark, and impossible to delete it.
At Televisa the Tedial Ficus BPM includes a Civolution watermark embedding stage as part of the signal flow, ensuring that all selected content is protected. The content management system, Tedial Tarsys, logs the assigned watermark code, its location and duration. The system also generates low-resolution browse copies of the content, using Windows Media, which retain the watermark.
Using another element of the Tedial workflow, the LegalCopy module, the as-run log is retrieved from the playout automation system and compared with the Windows Media copy of each channel output. Civolution detectors check for the watermarks and create a certified playout list. This identifies media that has been cut during playout, or has been broadcast at the incorrect time.
“Watermarking is an excellent technology to track content throughout its life-cycle, whether to check when something is transmitted or to identify the source of stolen material,” said Emilio Lopez Zapata, CTO of Tedial. “Our broadcast process management platform is an open system designed to allow us to integrate cutting edge technology from other vendors. We are excited by this first integration of Civolution watermarking into a Tedial managed facility.”
About Televisa:
Televisa is the largest consortium of Spanish-speaking media companies in the world. Included in its services are pay-per-view television services, international distribution of content in Spanish, satellite television broadcasting, movie production, radio stations, and newspapers and magazines.
About Civolution:
Civolution was formed in October 2008 as a spin-off from Royal Philips Electronics, and is a world leader in technology and services for identifying, managing and monetising media. Civolution offers cutting-edge watermarking and fingerprinting technologies for forensic tracking of media assets in pre-release, digital cinema, pay-TV and online monitoring.
About Tedial:
Tedial (Tecnologias Digitales Audiovisuales) is a European high technology company, based in Málaga in Spain, that specialises in asset management and process control in systems which include audio-visual content, including broadcast, institutional, healthcare and industry. It is a market leader in Spain and Latin American and is active globally in delivering innovative, complete and highly functional media and process management systems.