ATEME, a French provider of video compression solutions, and Civolution, a Dutch company that provides solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing media content, have partnered in order to enhance the protection of premium VOD content.

The two companies have integrated Civolution’s NexGuard - PayTV (News - Alert) and online watermarking technology with ATEME’s multi-format file-based transcoder. The result is a solution that allows content owners to confidently offer premium content such as high definition movies in an early release window to PayTV operators.

Wim Bus, senior vice president product management at Civolution, said, “This is a major technological advancement but also a crucial commercial move for the PayTV industry. The combination of streamlined workflow processes and robust piracy deterrence tools for premium content means that satellite, cable and IPTV (News - Alert) operators, video web services and e-tailers on the one hand and content owners on the other can collaborate to now offer movies in earlier release windows.’’

The PayTV industry has recognized early-release HD as a promising source of new income. However, the content industry has been reluctant to grant early access as ‘pirates’ could exploit the ‘analogue hole’ that exists after decryption and before the video is displayed. The Civolution-ATEME solution addresses this issue by embedding a watermark during the encoding and then adding a second, unique watermark when the content is accessed by each individual consumer, thereby providing a powerful deterrence against piracy.