Hewlett Packard (HP) and Phillips have announced their joint development of a new copy protection technology designed to enable direct recording of "copy-once" content from digital broadcast signals. The technology is designed to enable protected digital recordings of digital broadcast and cable television according to the rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its recent broadcast flag ruling.

A company release informs that through the FCC ruling, broadcasters may in the future have the opportunity to include additional information called a broadcast flag in their transmissions to protect the content from indiscriminate Internet retransmission. The HP and Philips technology has been submitted in the first round of filings to the FCC in order to be among the first technologies approved for the recording of content marked with the Broadcast Flag.

Furthermore, it is designed to enable protected direct digital recordings for copy-once digital TV broadcast and in uni-directional cable products on new discs for DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R Double Layer.

The release adds that a key element of the new technology is that the new discs are expected to be used in both future products that meet the Broadcast Flag content protection requirements, as well as in today's DVD players and DVD+R/+RW recorders. These new discs may be used to record all broadcast flag modes. The discs are designed to use the same manufacturing technology in use today so the cost to manufacture the discs is expected to remain the same.

Designed to be used with the DVD+R/+RW format, the technology can be applied to other recording formats. The security elements in the system are designed to be renewable, helping ensure long-term effectiveness and robustness.

HP and Phillips claim that their new technology already has generated support from a variety of industry leaders and DVD+R/+RW partners, including drive, software, independent software vendors and chipmakers. Its robust cryptographic protection and competitive license conditions offer benefits to the electronics and content industries.