Archive for September, 2007

You may not have noticed that there have been several announcements recently about some entertainment companies making commitments to watermarking schemes. And if you did see, you would have noticed that these are deals between some large players and some larger players. What you can’t know is that the as yet unnamed partner of USVO is not among those having made announcements.

It would be normal of you to wonder “what does this mean to USVO?”. Well it means good news. Let me give you the reasons why-

1) The culture is beginning to shift towards enforcement. As any reader of this space would know, the industry has been heavily invested (although not financially) in prevention. These deals show that our recommended path of enforcement is starting to show up in the business. More watermarks out there will help bring forth enforcement stories and that is what will mark a tipping point in this trend.

2) The watermarking technologies announced are not simple and lightweight in comparison to SmartMarks. The HBO – Thomson announcement is really about a HD broadcast equipment purchase (originally announced August 6) that is going to include the elements to begin HBO watermarking certain products. The Dolby- Phillips announcement is about offering digital cinema watermarking as an option to its customers. What isn’t obvious from the announcement is that Dolby is a vendor to the companies that build digital cinema projectors, who are required by the DCI standards to have watermarking integrated into their products.

3) The names here are also revealing. Dolby bought and wholly owns Cinea, a watermarking company, yet is offering Phillips as their digital cinema product. Thomson is not even mentioning their own NextAmp division of watermarking products because they have reorganized and rebranded it. This announcement doesn’t use that new brand either.

4) Careful reading of the announcements show that these are plans being announced. The planning announcement that USVO and a major studio made was months ago. We have also made a delivery announcement.

So it is GREAT that the business is making announcements and deals about watermarking. There are other not public activities of both USVO and the competitors to indicate more watermarking is going to be implemented in the industry. Queries about various market niches like dailies and internal deliveries are heating up. None of these are huge retail delivery applications that will ultimately create profitability for vendors in the space, but do indicate that the concepts we have been articulating are sinking in.

It is GREAT that the other vendors are huge multi national companies that have spent eight figure numbers to be in this business.
It is GREAT that these plans are not in our core competency or strength of technology areas.

It is still a tough challenge, for the space and USVO. We have a lot to look forward to, both in terms of work and rewards.