“agnostic” in terms of the technology used to transmit a digital video stream to a consumer because, “We can encrypt the video signal as it goes up and decrypt it as it comes down. It doesn’t matter to us whether it comes through fiber, satellite, or cable.”
The company says its software also can give Hollywood studios, sports leagues, and other video content owners an extra level of protection against piracy for streaming video delivered over IP networks, including watermark technology that can help identify the set-top box where a pirated video originated.
While studios and content owners are not Munro’s customers, he says they are moving to restrict content distribution in ways that will change the rules for network operators—and cut into the revenue operators have generated under traditional content licensing deals. For example, such restrictions could limit content resolution, for example, or the availability of certain Hollywood films to certain geographical areas, the times when they can be viewed, and perhaps even limit how much data storage is available for customers to save movies, sports events, and other licensed content.
“They want to be sure that [their] video is not just distributed for free over the Internet,” Munro says. “The good news is that they need us to do it—to manage those business rules and deploy that technology.”
Munro joined Verimatrix with its Series A round of venture funding in 2005, a $5 million investment by San Diego’s Mission Ventures and Germany’s Siemens Ventures (Siemens also was the company’s chief customer at the time). When Siemens spun off its communications equipment business, forming Nokia Siemens Networks in 2007, Munro says Verimatrix gained the freedom to expand its customer base, which now includes
