Microsoft Corporation has launched a multi-colour barcoding technology, the High Capacity Colour Barcode (HCCB) system, which it says allows significantly more data to be stored on multimedia products like DVDs and their packaging, enabling “consumers” to interact more with such items.
Developed by Microsoft Research to also aid identification of commercial audiovisual works like films, video games and digital video recordings in the the supply chain and archiving, the 1cm square HCCB barcodes provide additional identification /tracking and anti-counterfeiting features for brand owners into the bargain.
The technology has now been licensed by ISAN-IA (the International Standard Audiovisual Number International Agency), the voluntary numbering body that implements the current ISAN ISO standard for global identification of multimedia goods. It will now make the barcodes available to national registration agencies overseeing ISAN numbering and to media publishers; the code should start appearing on DVDs and games by late 2007.
While current ISAN codes allow audiovisual works to be uniquely distinguished via a simple identification system, HCCB will add the ability to incorporate other “important, exciting” features. Consumers will, for example, be able to scan the code with webcams and eventually, as lens technology improves, camera-equipped cellphones – which will then take them direct to the product / manufacturer website. Gavin Jancke, director of engineering, Microsoft Research, says: “The barcodes can be combined with other Web services to offer data such as product versioning, ratings identification, parental controls, product availability, special releases, contents pricing and promotions.”
For publishers, identification and tracking features will provide detailed data that can aid in royalty payments, anti-counterfeiting, market analysis and “many other business functions”.
Australia’s DataTrace DNA plans to provide additional anti-counterfeiting protection to the codes via nanotechnology invisibly embedded within the material and ink of the barcode and packaging.
Patrick Atallah, ISAN-IA ceo, adds: “Secure Path Technology, our Hollywood-based ISAN registration agency, will be the first to implement the HCCB format to deliver content identification, management and distribution capabilities to entertainment industry customers across a variety of media.
ISAN-IA currently has 13 registration agencies (including one in UK) and over 600,000 registered audiovisual works.
The new HCCB barcode (the multicoloured square below the NTSC and Microsoft wording) should start appearing late this year
VivaDVD300dpi