Advanced Television

Ultra HD Forum adds forensic watermarking guidelines

April 24, 2017

By Colin Mann

The Ultra HD Forum, the global organisation defining industry best practices for the introduction of technologies to facilitate the ultra-high-definition (UHD) viewing experience, has released the UHD Forum Guidelines version 1.3 including a new forensic watermarking chapter. This chapter is the result of the collaboration between leading watermarking technologies providers. In addition to an overview of forensic watermarking, the new chapter details deployment scenario for Forensic Watermarking.

With representation from service providers, technology and providers, consumer electronics manufacturers, sound and video experts, camera makers and more, as well as feedback from early deployments, the Guidelines describes how commercial Ultra HD services can be deployed, considering the entire supply chain.

Several member companies initiated the creation of these security guidelines that are now endorsed by all participating watermark vendors (ContentArmor, Irdeto, MarkAny, NexGuard, Verimatrix). The guidelines take the MovieLabs specification for Enhanced Content Protection to the next level and have been vetted or reviewed by various organisations such as MovieLabs, the Digital Watermarking Alliance, and the Streaming Video Alliance. The Guidelines define different integration approaches on a high level, to facilitate watermarking in ecosystems including CDNs and video encoders.

“Our guidelines security chapter on best practice for content encryption is an important foundation for sharing know-how on how to meet many content owner requirements,” said Laurent Piron of NAGRA, who chairs the UHD Forum Security Workgroup. “The Forum has now extended this with a full description of the implementation of forensic watermarking, which will enable the secure delivery of much more premium UHD content at a time when sales of UHD-enabled devices are at an all-time high.”

The Ultra HD Forum continues to grow, reaching over 60 members with the recent arrival of key industry leaders such as Qualcomm. At NAB in Las Vegas, the Forum will also be giving 14 UHD demos on its booth in the Futures Park, running a Masterclass and holding a members meeting.

Categories: Articles, Business, CA/DRM, Content, Equipment, Regulation, Standards, UHD, Ultra-HD/4K