Titan AE Distributed Digitally

Jett sent us something interesting about Titans AE (a film that looks so cool, I just hope it doesn't suck). Apparently they are transmitting it digitally over the Internet from the studio to an early screening at a tradeshow. It will never touch film, and it'll mark the first time that a hollywood movie will be shown in a real theater, transmitted over the net, and never touching film. Not real time, tho -- it's getting downloaded first: 800x faster then a modem, 4 hour download time, so that's what, a terabyte?

Comments

hello

[Anonymous Coward]

hello i cant wait to see this except i live in zaire. here we only have a 1200 baud uucp link to the itnernet so by my calculations i should see the film by early 2008. it will be good.

sihg boaj

Re:Wonder if it's encrypted?

[orpheus]

To me the interesting question is why it's being *transmitted* at all -- except as a technology demonstration. I'm not sure that this will turn out to be the best transfer medium. (Certainly not in this case, where there will be Titan AE execs at the showing, and any one of them could have carried 50Gb of HDD in a jacket pocket)

Currently, it costs about $2K to make each theatre quality film print. The package weighs over 100 pounds, IIRC). Meanwhile a pair of 25GB HDDs costs under $500 in 1000+ quantities, and weighs a few pounds fully shock-insulated. (I'm sure studios will demand return of the HDDs, and reuse them)

Properly encrypted transmission over data lines permits a high degree of security, but shipping a special HDD unit with *hardware* protection may be more secure from certain attacks. This is the method preferred for transfer of government and high level financial secrets -- and a blockbuster film has comparable dollar value!

Envision an HDD with the file stored in a secure encryption, and hardware verification of (for example) the encrypted serial number of authorized theatre equipment. Equipment verification is crucial, because the decrypted datastream can be copied. Your HDD shouldn't play on anything but a self-verifying secured player.

Yes, all this can be done in software, but there are significant weaknesses to self-contained (on media) software-only access control when the media itself is under the total control of the attacker.

Incidentally, under software *or* hardware control the studio can assure license compliance: number of showings, seating capacity (Projector 1111 is in a 500-seat room, 1112 is in a 200 seat room, etc.), and other things theatre are interested in controlling.

Maybe internet traffic won't lag every release day, when 2000 copies of a 50GB film (100 Terabytes) go out over the Net. Maybe they'll build additional secure capacity specifically for teh 50+ major studio movie releases each year (bandwidth which can be used for other things between releases) On maybe not...

Courier- or carrier-delivery of Hardware-secured HDDs may not be glamorous, but it makes sense. If bandwidth-mediated transmission takes place at all, it should be limited to emergency replacement of damaged media, 'updates' 9as described by another poster) etc.

That would be kinder, smarter, more efficient.