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Camcorder Jamming Devices Announced
Adam Carrington writes "I'm definitely not behind things like DRM, but Virginia-based Cinea has an idea that I do support... jamming camcorders in movie theaters. CNET has some interesting details on how they plan on going about it. They even throw an unrelated jab at Microsoft." This might be the technology that drives the stake in analog projection.
..because we all know how those high-quality camcorder-bootlegs are robbing millions from the movie producers.
camcorders to rip off content, ok, nice, who cares.
but to jam mobile fones, that would be a good thing,
and actually increase the value of the experience
for consumers, not just for the movie houses.
for that matter, how about jamming screaming babies,
and that person in front of me with the big head,
and the person behind me who keeps kicking my seat.
rant off.
Not evil. Misguided. Remember that you should never attribute to malice what is perfectly explainable by stupidity.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Because neccesity is the mother of invention.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
While I understand that the media conglomerates are opposed to people stealing their content (which costs millions of dollars to create), most people who purchase $2.99 "ShakyCam" copies of new release films off the street probably wouldn't have the money to actually *go* to the movies and spend $8.50 on a ticket, $6.50 for popcorn, and $5.00 for a soda.
This is similar to how the 12-year old kid who obtains a pirated copy of Photoshop to fool around with isn't really causing a net loss for Adobe because he wouldn't be able to shell-out the $650.00 (or whatever it is these days) for Adobe Photoshop 7.0.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Since Americans generally are apalled by the thought of voyeurs and law enforcement alike capturing images without 'proper' permission, then a weapon like this seems like it would be incredibly useful.
I must say, it is quite amazing the lengths that Intellectual Property manufacturers will go to in ofrder to "plug the analog hole". I know that there have been stories about how movies appear on Kazaa the same day the sneak preview has been shown because somebody brought in a videa camera and filmed it, but please. These videos are of terrible quality, and only help promote interest in the movie - "Hey all you hyped up fans - look at this crappy copy you can see two days early - really whets your appetite for the real thing, doesn't it?" I am just amazed that people would go to the extent of adding significant cost and complexity in order to prevent a very small group from trading crappy copies.
And most improtantly, I am sure that there will be a hack to get around the distortion - whether it is a run-time hack that fixes it as you record (difficult) or go back with some sort of filter to post-process it (maybe easier), I am sure it will happen. But bottom line, it won't matter - the people who watch these video-taped copies aren't in it for the fidelity, they are in it for seeing it first - a little more distortion won't stop them.
First Falcon-1 to orbit, then Falcon-9. Then I can die a happy man.
I can't imagine that hiding a camcorder-stopping signal in the picture being projected from the back of the theater WOULDN'T adversely affect the quality of the picture in someway.
Camcorders are much more sensitive to infrared light than the human eye... why not just mount some infrared strobes in the front of the theater, aimed out at the audience? The people won't notice it, but the camcorders would effectively be blinded.
Yeah, all five of them...
The rest of us preferred clinging to the illusion that once we buy a copy of a movie we get to do with it as we please.
However, we can thank Divx for some memorable Penny-Arcade comics ("I'm about to go from zero to drunk in twenty dollars.")
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
The trouble is that, with this particular problem of movie pirating, it has to be 100% effective or it's no good.
It doesn't matter if they find ways to block 95% of camcorders from being able to read the signal, since most or all pirated copies of a given movie come from one point source, so as long as there is *any* camcorder or other solution out there, the copy will be made, and once one copy is made, that's the ballgame, since VCD-Rs and mpegs will propogate from there.
Of course, the vast majority of these copies come from Asian countries, and are often recorded in poorer neighborhoods. I'd like to see how their business plan will get this digital protection mechanism into every theater in the East, regardless of the economic level.
If they only manage to get it into 80% or even 98% of the theaters, then it doesn't do any good at all.
Kevin Fox
Yeah a laser pointer should do it as shown in this article.
But with any scheme that attempts to use light, you have to consider the safety of the audience topmost, including audience members that may suffer from photosensitive epilepsy.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Ok.. let's see.. he want -every- cinema to install this gadget which no doubt will cost money, and might degrade the image quality..
Now why would Charlie Cinemaowner want to install this? No reason at all.
True, the studios often own the cinemas and can force him to install the gadget, but that's no guarantee that he'll actually have the thing plugged in.
Not to mention that many Asian camcorder grabs are done with the concent of the cinema owner.
(The ones where the cinema isn't fulled with
people speaking Javanese or whatever)
It's just stupid. Need I say it's not going to stop piracy,
it's just going to cost the money for the theaters.
(And that means even more expensive movie tickets!)
There is a fundamental problem with encrypting things for mass consumption:
/. article about ebooks being decrypted? the 'Print Scrn' button on your keyboard takes care of that...
At some point, it has to be decrypted and viewed. As long as that happens, then there won't be any way to prevent people copying it.
Remember the
The same thing with this. People can develop a program that eliminates the screen flicker, or turn down the gain on their camcorders or tap into the feed before the projection ocurrs or any number of things...
Another useless arms race.
My $0.25
There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Frame misalignment, their protection scheme if I understand correctly, is easily defeated. Simply adjust the "shutter" speed of the recording device to a longer duration. This will eliminate blank captures they intend to project.
I'd imagine their copy protection scheme will be *hell* on people with epilepsy. I have done work in offices that had lighting offensive to sensitive people and can just imagine what these theaters will do for an entire audience. The people investing their money in this have no idea what they are in for...
Besides, the people who don't care about the (piss-poor) quality of 'camcorded' movies aren't going to care about some stupid watermark floating on the screen.
Another piracy-battling idea that will be ignored (by pirates) and yet make lots of $$$ for the company that brings it to market.
It seems that piracy-battling solutions are the only thing that makes $$$ while not working. That and Congress.
Result: S/W available only as compelte .iso image with crack implemented.
Going to make theater movies unrecordable?
Result: P2P shared movies are all nicely ripped screaner DVD releases.
DRM, cleaning up the warez and vids available on P2P.
I would venture to guess that the liability factor would be too great when someone's pacemaker stopped as they passed through the field. Or whatever artificial medical device, etc....
It's illegal. This company figured a way to stop it.
So, you can't download the latest Lord Of the Rings DiVX? Cry me a river.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Dude, it's called, go see a matinee... Or wait until the film has been out a a couple of weeks and go see it then. I personally enjoy being in a full theater, but then as my wife says, I am a freak. Anyway, the point is, go when no one else is there, then you don't have to worry about someone's running commentary during a movie.
Having said that, I go to the theater almost every weekend, and I have never had someone talk throughout the film, or had a baby cry during a movie.
Face it, if you're likely to receive a call that is so stupendously important that it couldn't wait until you pick up your messages, then perhaps you shouldn't have gone to the movies in the first place.
How does a guy get a name like 'Winky?'
Anyway, I'll agree. The idea of 'jamming' camcorders is insane. How many times have you actually been bothered by someone with a camcorder?
The answer is none. Anybody desperate enough to film the movie is gonna be as low-key and low-in-the-seat as possible.
It's the mobile phones and beepers that oughta be jammed -- in movie theaters, restaurants, and anywhere where you, the cell phone owner, are surrounded with people who are not using cell phones and aren't even thinking about cell phones.
"They even throw an unrelated jab at Microsoft" ...as if that somehow adds substance or credibility to the article.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
And recorded comments on your bootleg tape don't piss you off?
Hank! White!
Dammit, people, it's not that hard to be polite. You don't need to be reachable immediately at the press of a button all the time.
-30-
Look on the bright side - every dollar Hollywood spends on pointless snake oil, is one less dollar they can spend buying politicians. :)
They don't care about jamming phones. Phones ringing do not figure into their perceived revenue loss.
i hope everybody noticed they got a $2 million dollar grant from NIST to develop this technology.
your hard earned tax dollars, not going to towards things like a faster internet, faster genome sequencing, or an aerospace plane, but instead to pay to develop a technology that will make some guy rich helping hollywood fight a fringe form of copy protection that will be dwarfed by the possibilities of direct digital piracy that will be opened up by the digital distribution/projection infrastructure this proposed technology depends upon.
wtf.
-- p
I always have a problem when the content producers claim to be losing x dollars to piracy.
The use of the phrase "losing" or "loss" implies that they had possession in the first place. Isn't there a better term that they could use? I doubt that there is any way to prove the link between pirate sales and sales loss on the real deal. If an industry claims $3 billion in losses due to piracy, it would be logical to assume that if piracy were to go away, that the profits would instantly go up by that amount...I seriously doubt that would be the case.
If pirates had to pay full price for something, rather than get it for free on the internet, would they? I think we all know the answer to that question. Free is part of the appeal...god knows the shit that Hollywood puts out is rarely compelling enough at it's current price point.
You can't do that now because the film is on a big canister that needs light shone through it... but if it's just bits on a HD, the bits can be intercepted, or even copied when the movie isn't being played.
This DivX company seems doomed to failure. Now they're trying to introduce something akin to stopping people from copying CDs onto audio tapes. Sure, it might work, but those who want a copy of a CD now just rip it...
And, seems that the industry's biggest problem now is untrustable DVD screeners, honestly.
If you're about to say that there aren't HDs big enough to store a full digital projection movie, well, my HD used to get pretty full ripping an audio CD, too...
Rip the digital stream, bring it home, reencode. If it's at all possible, it'll be done. It's essentially an early copy of the DVD playing on a really nice projector. Capturing that video through a camcorder won't be necessary for much longer.
sheephead
7d9e63e9501751ff4bf9307989d5623d *SheepHead
I disagree. Just in places where silence is expected and needed. There's no reason someone in a restaurant can't take/make a mobile phone call, if they know to keep their voice down to the level of normal conversation. But in a cinema or theatre or library, it's totally unacceptable.
How many times have you actually been bothered by someone with a camcorder?
I agree with your point about banning mobile phones, but the whole point of this system is not about stopping people being 'bothered' by a camcorder, its about film companies/cinemas using this technology to protect their investment.
I never apologise, I'm sorry but that's just the way I am - Homer
There is an even easier way of handle that.
On-call, don't go to the cinema. If nothing else
because getting paged in the middle of the filml and having to interrupt and see what's up is such an nicredible pain anyhow.
And if you're about to say "what about those who are always on call?", all I can reply is "get another job".
It's illegal. This company figured a way to stop it.
... what, exactly? More mindless Hollywood tripe that is selling like crazy already, despite the avialability of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in divx format?
Yeah, its innovations like this that make the world safe for
I wonder how many Rodney King's are going to be caught being victimized on tape now, once the LAPD installs those buggers in their squad cars. Or how many bank and convinience store robberies are going to go unmonitored, once Joe Thug can go out and buy (or steal) a cheap video camera jamming device.
Not that you can ever put Pandora's box back together again (to mix my metaphores), but spending the kind of money on this sort of research the way the entertainment industry is doing is anything but a positive contribution to the net human condition.
Not that cartel thugs like that will ever know or feel shame, as their past actions and words already attest.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"Face it, if you're likely to receive a call that is so stupendously important that it couldn't wait until you pick up your messages, then perhaps you shouldn't have gone to the movies in the first place."
Never heard of a doctor on call, have you? Or do you expect him/her to just sit in the hospital 24 hours a day, just in case.
There are exceptions to every rule.
The point was it was like $10-12 for the DIVX DVD. And the players were shitty and expensive, and didn't meet up with specs for regular DVD's. There's a reason it failed, it was a crappy product that no one wanted to buy.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Besides, just how much do the producers think the videotaping of a movie off a theater screen will hurt their sales? If it's a movie I want to watch, I'd definitely not be content with watching a inferior-quality camcorder rip. The only occasion I can think of is where such a rip might prevent me from watching the movie is if the movie does not meet up to my expectations. Therefore, only the makers of awfully bad movies have to be afraid of this.
But then... 90% of Hollywood's movies are awfully bad. Okay, I understand now why they are concerned ;)
"...Divx was a great concept that didn't get market support...."
err DUH how clueless can you get, no market support implies it was NOT a great product because NO ONE wanted it. The only people behind DIVX were the movie companies that stood to gain bazillions by controlling your every viewing choice. The so-called market, or the paying customers HATED the crap and refused to buy it. Must be nice to be the center of the universe...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Where are those screeners coming from? Well, the film industry of course!!!!!
I know this is the exception to the rule but:
I have a 17 month old child. My wife and I have brought him to about 20 movies since he was born. This includes ATATC, LOTR, Spiderman, ect.
For those of you who have an infant child and want to bring he/she to the movie, try some of the following:
- Your kid naps. Usually like clockwork. Time your movie for when the kid is about to fall asleep. We would keep our child from napping until we actually got to the movie. This usually can get you through about half of the movie with a sleeping child.
- Breast feed/bottle. Have these ready to go when the child wakes up.
- Biter cookies (Gerber). These are intended for teething infants/todlers. These cookies are hard and if your child has yet to have much of any teeth, one cookie will keep the kid busy for a good 15 to 20 minutes. We'd bring at least 4 to 5 of them. Overkill is necessary as they get dropped on the floor.
Out of 20 or so movies, we have had to remove the baby from the theater twice. Once was because we didn't follow our own rules (family corraled us to go against our better judgement) and the other time, his teeth hurt so bad, that nothing (short term) would keep him from crying. We've learned since then that having our child pre-party with a bit of kiddie ibuprofren with a bit of ambesol if needed works wonders.
Yes, I know that those two movies that we attended with a cranky baby, likely caused a few frowns, but as we care about our own movie experiences, we were extrememly quick to remove him from the theater once he wouldn't settle down. We'd never think of staying in there with him crying.
We are getting to the point now where he usually walks where he pleases and if the movie doesn't keep him attentive, he wont want to keep in one place. We don't go as often at this point (and very rarely with him).
But maybe he could hold the video camera. That might keep him busy. After all, he can minimally use the Replay TV to start *shudder* Barney, Sesame Street, ect. 17 months old. I can barely believe it myself.
Exactly. And just like macrovision, you won't even notice it. It's just like all the copy protection mechanisms big money has given us. From Macrovision to sector-skewed floppy disks to nonstandard CDs to DRM... they're all designed to make the end user's experience more pleasurable while simultaneously maximizing profit. The end user gets the same great quality as they've always gotten. Isn't it great? [sarcasm meter finally goes off the chart]
Honestly, I'm SURE I'll see the diference and it will annoy me enough to never step foot in the theaters again. Some people don't notice the flicker of flourescent lights, but I do. I'll be forced to get my movies off the internet... much like the way corrupt CDs have encouraged me to get my MP3s from P2P networks. Why bother making my own MP3s from my own CDs if they're going to make it hard?
I should apologise. I'm not nearly as law-abiding as you seem to think I am. I've lately begun to suspect, though, that my reasons for breaking this law or that are not well thought out. I suspect that my lawbreaking doesn't benefit me as much as I thought, and doesn't benefit my community at all.
When I break a law, it is almost always because I find it too difficult to keep, or change, or repeal: my lawbreaking is a matter of immediate convenience. Sometimes, when challenged, I parrot various catchphrases as an excuse: "The infraction is trivial!"; "The law is unjust!"; "I'm not hurting anyone!"; "Or if I am, they deserve to be hurt!"
On closer inspection, these excuses seem to be unsubstantiated, poorly reasoned, or obviously weak. In the end, my lawbreaking is nothing more than the instant gratification of my desires--hardly a good reason to abandon the conventions of my society (and note that one of these conventions is that all laws, no matter how trivial or annoying must be kept, and those that do not keep them should be punished).
Saying "such and such a law has no value" is very different from saying "keeping the Law has no value". If I find value in the Law--a system of rules to govern peaceful interactions between individuals--then I'd be very upset indeed by bad laws, since I must bear the burden of keeping them even though they do not improve society. It's precisely because I (hypothetically) value keeping the Law that bad laws are so burdensome. But if I find no value in keeping the Law, then specific laws are meaningless to me, whether good or bad. I'll ignore them all at my convenience.
Breaking a law might be the best way to improve society, but it might also contribute to a culture that devalues the Law. How does warezing movies make me a better person and a better citizen? How does it improve my community or enrich society? The answer is not clear to me, except that I know that as long as my arguments are weak, breaking the law does not do any of these things.
Any argument that began, "warezing movies improves the individual and the community because..." would interest me greatly. The arguments I have actually seen show little evidence of any attempt at reasoning, or any real concern for self- or social improvement. Should our motto really be "breaking the law is easier than fighting it"? That hardly seems a solid foundation on which to build a better system.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.