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Tag: watermarking technology

  • Waves anti-piracy challenge sparks digital security revolution

    Waves anti-piracy challenge sparks digital security revolution

    MUMBAI: Piracy is the digital equivalent of sneaky pickpocketing—except here, it’s entire films, shows, and creative works vanishing into the dark web. But India has decided to put an end to this digital thievery with the Waves anti-piracy challenge, an ambitious initiative aimed at safeguarding digital content in an era where technology evolves faster than your favourite streaming algorithms. Organised as part of the Create in India Challenges, this competition has drawn a staggering 1,296 registrations, proving that fighting piracy is not just a noble cause—it’s an urgent one.

    The challenge, backed by the ministry of information and broadcasting in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), zeroes in on fingerprinting and watermarking technologies to combat unauthorised distribution, piracy, and content manipulation. And it’s not just a contest; it’s a digital battleground where individuals, research teams, startups, and established organisations are vying to create the ultimate piracy-proof tech.

    A core segment of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (Waves), this anti-piracy initiative is set to unfold in Mumbai from 1-4 May 2025, where the global media & entertainment (M&E) industry will converge to witness the next wave of content protection. With four key pillars—Broadcasting and infotainment, AVGC XR (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics, Extended Reality), digital media and innovation, and films—this summit is India’s bold declaration that it’s ready to lead the fight against digital piracy.

    Why does it matter? Because piracy is no longer just about grainy bootleg DVDs or sketchy torrent sites—it’s an evolving beast that threatens content creators and industries alike. The Waves Anti-Piracy Challenge is a clarion call to India’s brightest minds, encouraging them to develop indigenous solutions that will protect digital content integrity.

    The create in India challenges have already attracted over 73,000 registrations, a testament to the country’s booming interest in media security. With a clear focus on fingerprinting and watermarking, this initiative aims to:

    .  Provide a launchpad for homegrown companies to showcase their security solutions.

    .  Foster novel techniques that improve digital content traceability and protection.

     .  Ensure seamless integration of anti-piracy technologies into media workflows.

     .  Support the development of cutting-edge solutions addressing both current and future piracy challenges.

    Piracy has evolved from sneaky DVD sellers at traffic signals to sophisticated cyber operations threatening billion-dollar industries. India’s response? Unleashing an army of innovators through Waves. This initiative ensures that content creators—from Hindi cinema studios to indie game developers—can secure their intellectual property with robust, state-of-the-art technologies.

    As the Waves summit approaches, anticipation builds for the groundbreaking ideas that will emerge. Supported by industry leaders, policymakers, and tech pioneers, this challenge doesn’t just showcase innovation—it paves the way for real-world applications that will safeguard India’s digital future.
     

  • 250 channels sign up for BARC India’s watermarking technology

    250 channels sign up for BARC India’s watermarking technology

    MUMBAI: Even as signs of a delay from Broadcast Audience Measurement Council’s (BARC) side are doing the rounds, the audience measurement company has already got on board 250 channels that have ordered for watermarking embedders. Half of this has already been installed.

    The watermarking technology has been taken from Netherlands based Civolution and field testing of the meters is underway for homologating them to Indian conditions. As BARC India has consistently maintained, the meters have been assembled in India at a fraction of the cost of global suppliers.

    Deals with 26 vendor partners such as Intel, Hansa, Mediametrie, Civolution, Markdata, Magic9Media across 12 processes have been finalised. It also claims that this is the largest such audience measurement system globally with cutting edge technology.

    Very soon, it will start testing and validating the data from the system. The government has laid down policy guidelines that prescribe a minimum of 20, 000 homes, which BARC India feels isn’t enough in the long run. It has also opted for the harder and tougher method of assembling systems from various vendors to offer a superior and cost effective output.

    The measurement process undertaken by BARC India is as follows:

     

  • BARC conducts watermark technology workshops

    BARC conducts watermark technology workshops

    MUMBAI: With only a few months left for Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to start operations full-swing, BARC conducted technical workshops for broadcast engineers to enable them get a deeper understanding of the watermark technology.

     

    The workshops that were conducted countrywide between 18-21 March, aims to help in understanding the deployment of the future watermarked system at the broadcaster’s end.

     

    The workshop was conducted by technical experts from BARC’s technical partners. Watermarking technology inserts a mark inaudible to the human ear into programs. This mark contains the identification of the channel which broadcasts the program and the regular broadcast timestamps. The meters installed in panelists’ homes can retrieve this information. This audio watermark is inaudible to viewers, and is compatible with both digital and analogue broadcasting.

     

    On successful completion of this workshop, BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta said, “It was a delight to see a massive and encouraging participation from 150+ broadcast personnel at the recently concluded watermarking technical workshop by BARC. This technical workshop was successfully conducted at multiple locations in India. It gave a unique opportunity for the broadcasters to interact directly with the technology and service providers. The broadcasters have already started placing orders for the watermarking embedding technology required at their playout centres.”

  • Civolution to provide watermarking technology to BARC

    Civolution to provide watermarking technology to BARC

    MUMBAI: Civolution, a Netherlands-based provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetising content has announced that the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) has contracted it to provide its watermarking technology to underpin one of the world’s largest audience measurement platforms.

     

    The announcement comes shortly after BARC chose the TV meter system of Mediametrie, the audience measurement and survey company for television, radio, cinema and the internet. The two companies will build the technology framework for audience measurement solution for BARC.

     

    BARC addresses a population of over 1 billion, of which over 600 million have access to television in some form. This will be the first fully digital audience measurement system employed directly by the Indian broadcasters, advertisers and ad agencies and is scheduled to commence operations towards the end of this year.

     

    The audience measurement system – which has already successfully been deployed by Mediametrie in multiple TV markets – relies on Civolution’s audio watermarking coding technology for automated content identification and integrates seamlessly into Mediametrie’s TV meter system for panellists’ equipment and panellists’ data processing. It provides broadcasters with a detailed analysis of their exposure to the public, whether by the number of households tuning in to the programme or the amount of time spent watching each piece of content.

     

    “India has one of the largest TV audiences in the world so it was critical for us to create an audience measurement system that is gold standard,” said BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta. “By leveraging Civolution and Mediametrie’s expertise in audience tracking, technology and analytics we can now study viewers’ TV habits in precise detail, enabling broadcasters and advertisers to implement efficient strategies to reach their target audience.”

     

    Civolution’s audio watermark is embedded in the TV’s sound track prior to broadcast. Upon airing, the content is then identified by Mediametrie’s TV meter, in real-time. In addition to granular measurement of the content being watched, the solution features support for catch-up TV. The technology provides cross-platform audience measurement and will enable mobile device measurement, triggering the creation of new services and the reduction of operating costs. In parallel, the same watermark infrastructure deployed by Indian broadcasters could be used to synchronize with great accuracy their own interactive second screen applications.

     

    ”With so many new ways of watching TV content in this multi-screen universe, precise audience measurement has become increasingly complex. Audience measurement services must now report more accurately and reliably, from a larger number of channels, delivered through a fast-changing and diverse mix of broadcast platforms, and consumed either in real time or time-shifted” said Civolution CEO Alex Terpstra.

     

    ”Through our close collaboration with Mediametrie, we have devised a powerful solution that provides accurate and reliable audience data that will allow BARC to help broadcasters plan, entertain and monetize their TV audiences,” added Civolution SVP Watermarking Solutions Jean Michel Masson.

     

    Mediametrie Director of Audiences Measurement Benoit Cassaigne added: ”We are very enthusiastic to embark on this project with Civolution and its watermarking technology, which is definitely the most powerful and error-free content detection technique available for TV audience measurement.  This means we are future-proofed in the fast-changing world of TV.  Mediametrie has relied on Civolution’s technology for many years.”