Galaxy And Millennium Groups Agree To Combine Efforts To Provide Video Watermarking Solution For Digital Recording/Playback Devices

Digimarc, Hitachi, Macrovision, NEC, Philips, Pioneer And Sony Form The VWM Group

25-Apr-01

Two groups of companies that were leading contenders for a next-generation digital video copy protection solution employing proprietary watermarking technologies announced that they signed a binding Letter of Intent (LOI) to combine forces as the VWM Group (Video Watermarking). Video watermarking technology is generally regarded as an essential component in preventing unauthorized digital-to-digital copying, analog-to-digital copying, and in providing recording and playback control for the next generation of digital recording and playback devices. Watermarks require a ""bilateral"" copy control solution that involves embedding the invisible watermarks in film or video content and incorporating detector circuits in digital recorder and playback devices. The seven members of the VWM Group include the former Galaxy companies - Hitachi, NEC, Pioneer, and Sony - and the former Millennium companies - Digimarc, Macrovision (NASDAQ: MVSN), and Philips. As part of the LOI, the VWM Group has selected Macrovision as its exclusive worldwide licensing agent for the entirety of the VWM technology. In this capacity Macrovision will be responsible for all marketing, licensing, technical support, certification, and license enforcement programs. The participating companies will contribute their respective technologies to a jointly developed solution, and will be licensing any necessary intellectual property rights for use by the VWM Group. The VWM Group anticipates receiving Department of Justice clearance on a customary business review letter. Bill Krepick, Macrovision President and COO, indicated that, ""The agreement was the culmination of over 12 months of intensive negotiations, due diligence, and engineering design efforts on the part of the seven companies. The combined engineering talent, intellectual property, product performance, marketing and support infrastructure of our seven companies is unparalleled in the field of video watermarking."" The VWM Group intends to offer a best-of-breed video watermarking solution in response to the May 2001 DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) request for bids. The DVD CCA is a multi-industry association comprised of licensees of the CSS technology (the encryption technology used for DVD movies and other content), including content owners, computer product implementers and consumer electronics product manufacturers. A prior DVD CCA bidding and evaluation process was suspended in January 2000. Both groups' watermarking solutions had been tested and deemed to have passed the evaluation criteria at that time by DVD CCA. The DVD CCA bid and evaluation process has been reactivated and is targeted for completion by September 2001. During the previous DVD CCA evaluation process, both Millennium and Galaxy watermarking solutions were subjected to an extensive battery of tests for robustness (surviving multiple digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversions), security (resistance to hacking), transparency (invisibility in the original video), absence of false positives (detecting a watermark when none is actually present), and economic implementation (minimal impact of detector on cost of goods for hardware manufacturers). The new VWM solution has resulted from substantial additional testing and refinement to enhance the proven attributes of the Millennium and Galaxy technologies. The VWM solution will offer such additional features as extensibility to high definition TV and resistance to scaling or other video transforms.