Millennium Group Proposes New Comprehensive Watermarking System for Digital-to-Digital Video Copy Protection.

Business Editors/Entertainment Writers

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--July 12, 2000

The Millennium Group (Digimarc, Macrovision, and Philips) announced today that they would be offering the motion picture industry a combined digital watermarking and play-control system for new DVD recorders and other consumer electronics or PC-based devices that have the capability of recording or playing digital video.

Watermarking adds an imperceptible copy protection fingerprint to digital video that will trigger complementary watermark detectors integrated in the next generation of digital video recording devices. The watermark serves as a copy-control mechanism. To further bolster system security, the new Millennium proposal also provides a play-control mechanism that complements the copy-control mechanism. This is accomplished with Wobbletrack(TM), a new proprietary method of manufacturing authentic DVD discs. When the Wobbletrack(TM) feature is combined with the copy-control watermark, the two will allow playback devices to discriminate between authentic and illegally copied discs and prevent playback of the illegal copies. The new Millennium proposal will also provide a copy-once watermark re-marking technology for applications in which one copy of a video program is allowed.

"To facilitate and accelerate the introduction of next generation digital recording devices, we have decided to offer the new Millennium solution to the industry with patent indemnification guarantees that we believe will be acceptable to all users," said John Ryan, Macrovision's Chairman and CEO. "The Millennium Group is offering a complete copy protection solution to the motion picture, CE, and PC industry that will allow consumers and the industry to benefit from the latest advances in digital video."

Gerry Wirtz, Philips' VP, added: "We are confident that Millennium's new proposal addresses the needs of both the hardware and the content communities. We are offering a robust and secure watermark that will cover video formats from standard to high definition TV and which is compatible with physical media such as DVD and videocassette and transmission methods such as terrestrial and satellite broadcast, cable and the Internet. In addition, the Millennium proposal provides a powerful play control feature based on our proprietary Wobbletrack(TM) technology."

Bruce Davis, Digimarc's CEO, emphasized that "Millennium's IP has been further bolstered in the last six months with the grant of five more patents to our portfolio which already contains a number of fundamental patents covering the basic technologies to be employed in providing this solution. The Millennium group is proposing a comprehensive solution that will enable the industry to move forward with adoption of this critical technology."

About Digimarc

Digimarc (Nasdaq:DMRC) is the world leader in digital watermark technology and applications. Patented Digimarc technologies allow digital data to be imperceptibly embedded in traditional, digital or analog media content, including movies, audio, photographic images, print media, and valuable documents. Hundreds of thousands of clients around the world use Digimarc embedded data to serve a variety of control and communication functions, including counterfeit deterrence, anti-piracy solutions, copyright communication, broadcast monitoring, and Web-based linking. The Digimarc MediaBridge system, for example, makes magazines and other printed media a direct bridge to relevant information on the Internet -- users simply show the printed media page to a Web camera and are instantly transferred to the related Internet destination.

About Macrovision

Macrovision Corporation (Nasdaq:MVSN) develops and markets content copy protection and rights management technologies to prevent the unauthorized duplication, reception or use of video and audio programs and computer software. The Company provides its products and services primarily to the home video, consumer multimedia software, digital pay-per-view, cable, satellite and video security markets. Macrovision has its headquarters in Sunnyvale with subsidiaries in London and Tokyo.

About Philips

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of EUR 31.5 billion in 1999. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, color picture tubes for televisions and monitors, and one-chip TV products. Its 226,900 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, components, semiconductors, medical systems, and IT services (Origin). Philips is quoted on the NYSE, (NYSE:PHG), London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other stock exchanges.

News from Philips is located at www.news.philips.com.

All statements contained herein, as well as oral statements that may be made by the Companies or by officers, directors or employees of the Companies acting on the Companies' behalf, that are not statements of historical fact, constitute "forward-looking statements" and are made pursuant to the Safe-Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Companies to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties are outlined in the respective Companies' Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2000 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Companies are not obligated to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.

Additional background information on Digimarc can be obtained from our Web Site at www.digimarc.com; Macrovision's Web Site at www.macrovision.com; and Philips' Web Site at www.philips.com.

Note to Editors: Wobbletrack is a registered trademark or trademark of Royal Philips Electronics. Other products and company names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.