Friend MTS launches 4K UHD watermarking

Content and revenue protection specialist Friend MTS has launched a 4K UHD variant of its ASiD subscriber level watermarking service to protect premium sports and entertainment content from streaming piracy sourced from set-top boxes and OTT players.

Neil Sharpe

According to Friend MTS, the ASiD global monitoring and watermarking service is highly automated to allow scaling for the largest live sports events, which can generate thousands of pirate streams.

ASiD connects directly with pay TV operators’ subscriber management systems to enable pirate streams to be deactivated within minutes of detection, according to the company. 

The ASiD global channel monitoring system uses fingerprint-based content recognition to identify broadcasters’ assets and connects with the invisible watermarking extraction to identify subscribers who are responsible for streaming piracy. 

Neil Sharpe, product marketing director at Friend MTS, said: “With the continuing growth in 4K/UHD channels, typically driven by sports and premium entertainment, there’s a pressing need to secure this content against streaming piracy. Live sports is the toughest content genre to protect, due to the scale of the streaming piracy threat and the time dependence of the assets. The highly automated ASiD watermarking is optimised for this environment, and it also delivers the outstanding consumer experience sought by sports rights holders and movie studios.”