NexGuard and Colorfront join forces on UHDTV & HDR forensic watermarking at NAB 2016

New York, 07 April 2016 – NexGuard, the leading provider of forensic watermarking technologies, is joining forces with Colorfront (www.colorfront.com), the Academy and Emmy Award-winning developer of high-performance, on-set dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, high-end episodic TV and commercials, to present the very latest solution for the protection of digital content creation materials, particularly 4K/UHDTV and High Dynamic Range (HDR), in digital cinema, broadcast, Over-The-Top (OTT) internet entertainment and Video on Demand (VoD) applications. Demonstrations of NexGuard’s collaboration with Colorfront will take place during NAB 2016 at NexGuard’s booth (#SU3424), and Colorfront (c/o ALT Systems, Renaissance Hotel, #Presidential Suite).

Forensic watermarking is the process by which a unique, invisible serial number can be added to video or audio content. The watermark remains with the content, regardless of how it might be transcoded, resized, downscaled or otherwise altered for distribution. Following the publication of the recent MovieLabs specifications for enhanced content protection, Hollywood studios are making forensic watermarking a key security requirement for any operator providing early release or UHD/4K and HDR content.

The joint NexGuard and Colorfront solution, a world first, combines NexGuard’s award-winning forensic watermarking with Colorfront’s Transkoder and On-set Dailies products, enabling the protection for a vast range of dailies, mezzanine and master deliverables at all stages of the production and post production workflow, whilst also allowing users to track the source of illicit B2B and B2C distribution, particularly of 4K/UHDTV and HDR content.

The NexGuard and Colorfront solution leverages experience of Colorfront Transkoder deployments by major Hollywood studios including Sony Pictures, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Universal, and Colorfront On-Set Dailies systems used in the workflows motion picture and high-end episodic TV productions including The Jungle Book, Deadpool, The Revenant, Warcraft and Game Of Thrones.

Aron Jaszberenyi, Managing Director, Colorfront, said: “Colorfront’s production, studio, broadcast and OTT customers, are taking a strong stand on security and are increasingly looking for new and better ways to protect their high-value content. NexGuard is a robust forensic watermarking solution which proved fast and easy to integrate technology into our Transkoder and On-Set Dailies products. Now, our customers can have the increased confidence in the security of their prized media assets with the most advanced forensic watermarking solution on the market – from dailies all the way to the latest UHDTV and HDR delivery formats for OTT services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix.”

Jaszberenyi added: “You can even watermark multiple outputs simultaneously with different payload IDs, delivering DNxHD MXF to editorial, H264 for PIX, and HD ProRes for marketing, all with unique payload IDs – and be able to identify which one ended up being pirated.”

Harrie Tholen, Managing Director at NexGuard, explained: “Content is at extremely high risk during the production and post-production process, which involves multiple players, often across continents. Piracy remains a core challenge for a lot of organizations, ranging from studios through to post-production companies and distributors. The joint Colorfront and NexGuard solution provides a readily accessible solution for studios that want to prevent illegal redistribution, which can be devastating for high value content such as UHD and HDR.”

Used for over 10 years by Hollywood studios to help protect their content, NexGuard forensic watermarking is the world’s most trusted solution, and was recognized with a Technology and Engineering Emmy® award at CES 2016, demonstrating the central role played by the solution in the fight against piracy. NexGuard’s forensic watermarking solution for HDR will be available on the market in Q2 2016.

Note to editors: If you’d like to meet NexGuard at NAB 2016 (LVCC, 18-21 April), or to find out more about the company’s solutions, please contact Lauren Alboini, Platform PR: lauren@platformpr.com, +44 207 486 4900, or Ron Prince, Prince PR ronny@princepr.com, +44 7802 447 484.

For more information:
Ron Prince, Prince PR
Email: ronny@princepr.com
Tel: +44 7802 447 484

About Colorfront:
Colorfront, based in Budapest, Hungary, is one of Europe’s leading post production facilities. The company was founded by brothers Mark and Aron Jaszberenyi, who together played a pivotal role in the emergence of non-linear DI. The company’s R&D team earned an Academy Award for the development of Lustre, Autodesk’s DI grading system, and a Primetime Engineering Emmy for the Colofront On-Set Dailies. Combining this in-depth expertise with a pedigree in the development of additional cutting-edge software, Colorfront offers today’s most advanced technologies for scanning and recording, DI grading, conforming, digital dailies, VFX, online and offline editing, cinema sound mixing, mastering and deliverables. For further information please visit www.colorfront.com.

About NexGuard:
NexGuard (www.nexguard.com), a Civolution company, provides the most widely deployed forensic watermarking solutions in the movie and entertainment industry across the globe. Civolution is the leading provider of technology and solutions to identify, manage and monetize media content. The company offers an extensive portfolio of cutting edge digital watermarking and fingerprinting technologies and applications. Follow us on Twitter: @NexGuard and LinkedIn.