TTR signs up DCA, Nimbus

Television Digest with Consumer Electronics, Jan 5, 1998

Announcements represent first step for TTR in its efforts to make DiscGuard global standard for optical media content and hardware. Designed to prevent illegal digital-to-digital replication, TTR's enhanced mastering system places indelible watermark on optical media during replication. Signature is designed to be read by ordinary players, but can't be duplicated by ordinary recording or remastering equipment. Only DiscGuard workstation can write watermark.

DCA, which supplies 75% of signal processing systems used to create CD and DVD masters, holds 6-month exclusive worldwide license to bundle DiscGuard into its MIS (Mastering Interface System) V6 machines, while Nimbus has 6-month exclusive to manufacture DiscGuard-protected CDs and DVDs on worldwide basis. Software needed to implement DiscGuard will be licensed under separate agreements with publishers and content providers, TTR said.

With DVD still in its infancy, CEO Arik Shavit said window of opportunity exists for content providers and hardware manufacturers to establish standards to curtail piracy that Software Publishers Assn. said costs $11 billion yearly. TTR says DiscGuard addresses mass production of illegal copies as well as copying by casual user with low-cost CD-Rs or upcoming recordable DVD formats.

TTR will earn undisclosed royalty for each disc replicated using DiscGuard. It said it expects to have DiscGuard on more than 25 million discs in 1998.

TTR faces competition from other watermark-based anticopying technologies by Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Philips, Sony, Toshiba. CFO Robert Friedman said company has been in talks with studios and CE manufacturers, stressing that DiscGuard can work with other watermarking technologies.

Israel-based TTR already has met with Data Hiding Subgroup of Copy Protection Technical Working Group. Group has been studying various proposals, although it's unclear whether it will recommend single standard.