Digital Home Thoughts: Movie Studios to use Digital Watermarking

"Digimarc Corp has announced that their digital watermarking system has been used as part of the Digital Cinema System Specification that Hollywood has adapted. The initiatives are meant to crack down on piracy of movies shown on the emerging digital theaters around the world. The watermarking process is applied to both the video and audio stream of a movie. Once in place, leaks can be identified in the distribution chain. The tool helps identify the theater, location, production version, and date and time that a film is supposed to be shown."



I was involved the original Digimarc beta test several years ago, and the technology was impressive, to say the least. The beta test I participated in involved reading digital watermarks from a magazine using a low-resolution webcam, and in my experience it was astonishingly accurate. The technology should survive the transition from theater to VHS, perhaps even to lower resolution formats. This should be a powerful anti-piracy tool for the studios if they choose to use it properly.