Home Box Offi ce (HBO) has selected the Thomson Shield watermarking system to protect its pre-released screener content against piracy within its file-based infrastructure. The new deal follows HBO's acquisition of Grass Valley HD equipment including K2 Media servers, Trinix routers, and LDK 8000 WorldCam HD cameras as part of HBO's migration to HD production and playout.

To be initially installed in three sites including the company's main playout facility in Hauppauge, New York, the Shield Forensic technology will synchronize and manage watermarking IDs across HBO's global facilities. The system at each facility consists of the Forensic Manager, a database server for each site synchronizing and managing each watermarking platform; DVD Marking Stations with a built-in DVD burner; live HD-SDI and SD-SDI stations for watermarking original content in real time to HD or SD tape distribution or duplication; quality control HD/SD workstations to read and confirm the forensic ID information; and an Investigator Platform which investigates and tracks pirated content.

Based on the NexGuard video watermarking technology which embeds a virtual and invisible barcode in the video, the Shield Forensic solution is used to watermark distributed files and content with copyright IDs or recipient name IDs to allow easy investigation and tracking of content back to the origin. Depending on the application, the watermarking can be done at various stages of the workflow and the invisible label can be read even after video editing or format changes downstream.

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