IBC 2018: Friend MTS launches ASiD OTT third generation watermarking and global monitoring for 4K/UHD and HDR

Content and revenue protection specialist Friend MTS has announced the launch of ASiD OTT, which combines third generation, ultra-robust subscriber-level watermarking with global content monitoring.

It delivers highly responsive security for the latest 4K/UHD and HDR content, as well as HD/SD channels, by stopping content theft in just minutes. ASiD OTT protects live and on-demand content, and its invisibility and speed of response makes it ideal for premium live sports and entertainment.

Friend MTS’ third generation of subscriber-level watermarking offers significantly uprated robustness to defend the service from tampering by pirates. There are new watermarking algorithms which provide advanced protection against video-domain attacks, one of today’s most serious piracy threats.

There is also enhanced payload handling to protect OTT services against subscriber identity interference. Additionally, there are extra code hooks to provide faster detection of any interference of the OTT player integration, which can trigger the revoking of a subscriber’s access to secure the content.  The robustness of Friend MTS’ watermarking has been independently tested by security consultancy Cartesian, and the system is Hollywood studio approved.

Simon Williamson, chief commercial officer, said: “ASiD OTT is deployable within hours, and importantly it can transform the level of piracy of channels in just days. For instance, when ASiD was introduced by a major broadcaster which accounted for 60% of the sports channel piracy in its market, this level was reduced to less than 1% within weeks.”

“It is believed that more video pirates have been caught in real-time with ASiD than any other system available to pay tv operators,” concluded Williamson.

Friend MTS’ first generation of ASiD watermarking was introduced three years ago, and it has been deployed in tens of millions of set-top boxes and OTT players. It’s the most widely deployed and actively used subscriber watermarking in the world. Since ASiD was first introduced, it has remained secure against every attempted attack made to date.

ASiD OTT uses highly scalable, cloud-based, global monitoring to track video piracy. This monitoring incorporates fingerprint-based content recognition to identify illegal content in just a few seconds. The monitoring scans the internet globally for all types of streaming piracy, including Kodi and Android illicit streaming devices, along with content sharing by mobile apps, websites and social media. In total, Friend MTS analyses eight months of video daily.

The Friend MTS global monitoring service automatically analyses the content for ASiD OTT watermarking, and this is extracted so the subscriber behind the redistribution can be identified and their access revoked in just a few minutes.

Visitors to IBC 2018 will be able to see ASiD OTT at Friend MTS’ booth (Hall 1, stand A.58).