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Civolution, formerly Teletrax, is a Dutch digital watermarking company spun off from Philips.
| Company type | VC funded |
|---|---|
| Industry | Media, broadcast, television, pay TV, digital cinema, internet, pre-release, digital watermarking, video and audio fingerprinting |
| Founded | Eindhoven, the Netherlands (incorporated 2008) |
| Headquarters | , the Netherlands |
Key people | Alex Terpstra, CEO |
| Website | www.civolution.com |
History
editCivolution was spun off from Philips. The first digital watermarking activities started in the Philips Research labs in 1996, after several years of research and development of the technology. The first commercialization activities started in 2000. In 2002, Phillips launched Teletrax as a joint venture with Medialink.[citation needed]
In 2006, the Philips Content Identification business unit introduced a forensic marking solution for digital cinemas. The technology allows unlicensed copies of content from digital theatre to be traced back to the time, date and location where the illegal copy occurred.[citation needed]
A few months later a digital watermarking solution for the Pay TV environment was deployed. Designed for set-top box integration, the technology uniquely watermarks and identifies content delivered to individual Pay TV subscribers and hospitality TV screens. Whenever Pay TV content is accessed or distributed, a watermark is applied into the video stream in real-time. Any redistributed content can be traced back to a specific Pay TV subscriber or viewer.
Philips content Identification assumed, in September 2008, full ownership of its joint venture Teletrax and completed a spin-off from Philips Corporate Technologies as a stand-alone company Civolution B.V. backed by venture capital firm Prime Technology Ventures.[1]
On July 21, 2009, Civolution announced that it had acquired Thomson Software and Technology Solution (STS) watermarking business from Thomson.[2] As a result of the amalgamation, Thomson became a shareholder in Civolution.[citation needed]
In December 2014, WPP's Kantar Media acquired Civolution's SyncNow audio watermarking unit supporting Audience Measurement and Second Screen synchronization applications [3]
Following the Kantar Media acquisition, Civolution announced the launch of two separate business units, NexGuard and Teletrax.[citation needed]
Civolution has offices in Eindhoven (the Netherlands), London (UK), Rennes (France), New York City, Burbank (Los Angeles).
In July 2016, Kudelski Group acquired Civolution's market leading NexGuard forensic watermarking business supporting content tracking solutions for pre-release, digital cinema, pay TV and streaming.
Technology
editThe automatic content recognition and synchronization technology has been deployed by Red Bee Media for The Walking Dead by FX (UK). [4]
The company has also partnered with Vetrya on mobile platform technology.[5]
Global operations
editCivolution is headquartered in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and has offices in Rennes (France) London (UK), New York, Hollywood and Hong Kong. Its teletrax service currently[as of?] tracks and monitors over 2,000 television channels worldwide through a network of monitoring stations located in Europe, Middle East, Asia, North and South America.[citation needed]
Affiliations
editCivolution is among the 12 founding members of the Digital Watermarking Alliance, an organization that was formed to promote and educate the public about the benefits of digital watermarking technology.
References
edit- ^ Prime technology ventures and philips arrange for successful spin-out Archived 2009-01-26 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Civolution acquires Thomson Software and Technology Solution watermarking business".
- ^ "WPP Plc's Kantar Media agrees to acquire unit of Civolution". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2014-10-18.
- ^ "FX UK Signs up Red Bee Media to Launch Watermarked Companion App | News | Red Bee Media". Archived from the original on 2012-02-04. Retrieved 2012-01-26..
- ^ "Civolution and Vetrya facilitate a more powerful and engaging TV-synchronized experience".