MUMBAI: Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB), a supplier of technology to the global digital television industry, has announced that it is adding watermarking capabilities to its TV convergence solutions portfolio.

ADB has integrated The Civolution’s VTrack watermarking technology (www.civolution.com) into its digital TV set-top boxes that provides operators with further means of protecting content.

The integration of VTrack in ADB’s set-top boxes shows VTrack’s flexibility in integrating with different platforms ranging from cable, satellite and terrestrial to IPTV.

Says Civolution CEO Alex Terpstra, "VTrack is a robust and easy to integrate solution. Now with the increased availability of high definition and early release content, camera capture and distribution of high quality content copies is a new threat requiring fast, efficient and cost-effective solutions.’’

Using Civolution’s VTrack solution, ADB’s set-top boxes are embedding an unique watermark into video material each time an on-demand programme is distributed, enabling content owners to identify the source of any potential copies. The VTrack watermark will survive camcorder-capture and subsequent degradation of the content through internet usage.ADB CEO Francois Pogodalla says, "ADB is proud to be one of the first set-top box companies to integrate such a solution onto its products. Considering the development of home networking, which enables content to flow freely between multiple consumer devices, ADB believes that the industry will welcome our efforts to offer an extra layer of content protection, in addition to today’s conditional access solutions."