• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

SecureMedia and ASTRI to Demo World's First DRM-Enabled AVC Video Delivery Platform at NAB 2005

Posted on: Monday, 18 April 2005, 09:00 CDT

LAS VEGAS, NAB 2005, April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- SecureMedia, Inc., a leading provider of conditional access (CA) and digital rights management (DRM) software solutions, and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI), an applied R&D institution conducting world-class customer-focused research, and delivering superior quality technologies, jointly announced today that they will be demonstrating at NAB 2005 the world's first video delivery platform based on Advanced Video Coding (AVC, MPEG-4 Part 10, H.264) technology with integrated digital rights management security.

AVC represents a breakthrough in video encoding technology and has emerged as a viable standards-based alternative to proprietary codecs. The ASTRI AVC codec is optimized to achieve optimal video quality through narrow and fluctuating channels and can deliver DVD quality video at less than 1Mbps. ASTRI has also developed a reference set-top box that provides a flexible hardware platform to support a full range of digital TV services, including broadcast TV programming, pay-per-view, video-on-demand and streaming applications. The partnership of SecureMedia and ASTRI offers broadcasters, telcos, cable operators, internet service providers and content owners an end-to-end solution for delivering secure AVC-based video services over IP networks.

SecureMedia's Encryptonite System is an open platform CA/DRM software solution that secures multiple video formats including AVC, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and a variety of proprietary codecs including WM9. The system operates on a number of hardware and operating system platforms and features an ultra-light and processor-efficient client for low cost integration in CE devices, set-top boxes, and PCs. Encryptonite provides content owners and service providers the highest levels of digital content security while offering operational flexibility and massive scalability in a low cost solution.

"SecureMedia believes that AVC will result in an explosion of new digital video services delivered by a multitude of service providers, and we are most pleased to be collaborating with ASTRI to bring to market the first end-to-end AVC video delivery platform with integrated CA/DRM security" said Fred Ellis, CEO of SecureMedia. "The Encryptonite System is an open platform, software solution with a design that allowed us to quickly release the AVC version of our product to meet the demand of our customers. The Encryptonite System can simultaneously support multiple formats allowing service providers an easy migration path from an MPEG-2 to an AVC delivery platform, for example, as well as from standard definition to high definition."

"SecureMedia's Encryptonite System provides the superior performance, flexibility and cost effectiveness to complement ASTRI's state-of-the-art AVC codec and STB reference design," said Dr. Shen-Chang Chao, Vice President of Communications and Application Software, Wireless Technology of ASTRI. "Products and applications using ASTRI's codec technology will benefit immediately from improved video quality and reduced cost. Since our solution is 100% software programmable, products that utilizes our solution will also benefit from continued improvement and innovation on the algorithmic front in the future."

SecureMedia and ASTRI will be demonstrating DRM-enabled AVC video delivery at NAB 2005, April 18-21, in SecureMedia's suite at the Las Vegas Hilton.

About SecureMedia, Inc.

SecureMedia, http://www.securemedia.com/, is a leading provider of open platform, media agnostic conditional access and digital rights management solutions for the delivery of video-on-demand, IPTV and other digital content over broadband IP networks. The Company provides a range of content security solutions from the comprehensive Encryptonite System(TM) CA/DRM solution to software toolkits, hardware cores and plug-ins for third party media delivery systems. SecureMedia's customers represent industry leaders and include Sony, NTT, Softbank BroadMedia, China Data Broadcasting, Kasenna, Equator Technologies, Texas Instruments and RealNetworks. SecureMedia has offices in Boston, San Francisco and Auckland, New Zealand with representatives in Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and Amsterdam.

About ASTRI

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region founded the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI) in 2001 to capture the promises of technological advances for Hong Kong through applied research. Its missions are to perform high quality R&D for technology transfer to industry, develop needed technical human resources and act as a focal point that brings together industry and university R&D assets to enhance Hong Kong's technological competitiveness on a continuous basis.

As Hong Kong's applied technology research focused on providing world-class innovative technologies, ASTRI's R&D activities focus on four closely interrelated technological domains -- IC Design, Wireless Communications, Enterprise and Consumer Electronics, and Material and Packaging Technologies. In the past few years, ASTRI has built a team of excellent researchers who are already conducting world-class research. Our goals, in the next phase of ASTRI's development, will be to build a totally customer-focused R&D organization that not only conducts world-class research, but also excels in bringing real industrial impact, continuously and in volume. Our objectives will be nothing short of establishing ASTRI as one of the most influential R&D forces in the entire Greater China Region, and a truly strategic asset that would enable Hong Kong to capture values from competitive technologies for years to come. For further information about ASTRI, please visit http://www.astri.org/.

SecureMedia is a registered trademark and Encryptonite is a trademark of SecureMedia, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

SecureMedia, Inc.

CONTACT: Whit Jackson of SecureMedia, +1-415-563-1800,wjackson@securemedia.com; or Jay Liou of ASTRI, (011) 852-3406-2775,jayliou@astri.org

Web site: http://www.astri.org/

Web site: http://www.securemedia.com/

Source: PRNewswire

More News in this Category