Bootleg Star Wars AotC Debuts on Internet

Arctic Fox writes "Matt Drudge is reporting that bootleg copies of the new Star Wars movie have been appearing on the internet one week before the movie's big screeen debut. The article says that they have used a tripod mounted camera at a pre-screening to tape it. Not known is if anyone is seen walking in front of the camera." I gotta admit, I find this amusing, although I'd never bother downloading it: I've had 12:01 tickets ready to go and there is no way I'm gonna spoil it watching a low quality divx.

Comments

will have no effect on box office

[dioscaido]

Will this have any impact on ticket sales? Obviously not! I would dare anyone who would trade a grainy 320x200 shot of the movie for the real thing in the movie theaters.

LOTRs was out on Morpheus before the movie came it, and it still had amazing revenues.

Link to quality of bootleg

[mh_tang]

It looks like the article got the Drudge Report got their screen capture images from VCD Quality, a website that reports release news for pirated movies in VCD, SVCD, and DivX formats. Drudge even snipped out VCD Quality's URL from the image... Pretty shady reporting.

But from the reviews, it looks like this bootleg of ATOC isn't worth your download time. It's currently polling at 5.7 out of 10 for image quality, and 6.2 out of 10 for sound. Even for a VCD, that's pretty low. And of course, the JPG screen cap looks like a blurry mess. However bad the quality is, it is impressive that FTF was able to release SW Ep2 so early. Check out the comments forum to see what people (well, if you consider "5kR1p7 k1DDi3z" to be actual people) are saying about this bootleg.

Re:Bootlegs are a Way of Life in Asia

[mh_tang]

This is not exactly the case of someone sneaking a Sony HandyCam into a theater and taping among the audience. According to VCD Quality, the FTF release of AToC is a TELESYNC, which basically means that it's a high-end camera pointed at a screen, with audio recorded from the source (to eliminate audience noise). So it's better than most Cam recordings that you're alluding to. Check here for definitions of how movies are bootlegged.

That said, it's still a pretty crappy release in terms of quality. I'm sure that within a week, they'll have at least SVCD screeners or workprints available for downloads.

Upon Analysis of the Sample Video

[NeuroManson]

This is either a prerelease screener for review or for movie theater employees (I'm guessing the latter)... It's good quality, not fantastic, obviously made from a quick and dirty optical print dubbed to VHS... Not shot in a theater or with a camera...

If you look at the sample MPEG, you'll note a fuzzy edge to the bottom and right side of the video, which indicates masking that normally occurs in a film to video direct transfer- They usually invest more effort in making retail versions cleaner...

A camera captured version would usually be a little off kilter, chop off a significant portion of the screen, and as was mentioned, occasionally have another audience member either walking through a shot, or coughing, or their cel phone would be going off here and there...