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Foiling Cinema Pirates
minesweeper writes "According to this Associated Press article, in fighting the piracy of advanced-screenings of movies, Hollywood has deployed agents with night vision goggles and placed metal-detectors at theater entrances. Nevertheless, video cameras are still being smuggled in and the recordings smuggled out and onto the Internet. Now, the latest attempt to fight piracy will be to show the movie with a particular flicker, imperceptible to the viewer in the theater, but making any video recording unwatchable. Quoth the article, 'Cinea LLC, which created an encryption system for DVDs, and Sarnoff, a technology research firm, are developing a system to modulate the light cast on a movie screen to create a flicker or other patterns that would be picked up by recording devices...'"
You mean I won't be able to download those pirated movie captures? So sad.. they are much better than DVDs, since you can actually feel like you're in the cinema. You hear the croud laughing, crying or eating popcorn, and see all the late people who block your vision.
I truly hope pirates will get over this obstacle.
hemi
Granted there's always a market for somebody who would like to see the Matrix Reloaded captured on someone's pen-camera, but is that really the demographic that the movie industry is losing money from?
http://www.remix.net/
With people out there who say they can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3, I wonder if people won't complain about this, even if they can't see it.
Sounds to me like another reason not to go to a cinema anymore, along with reasons like the crappy picture quality (come on, stretching a 35mm film to that huge a screen is just dumb) and the fact that theatres in the netherlands only show ancient movies (except some big movies like LOTR which are released worldwide on the same date).
So if you come out of the theatre wanting to COPY the movie, now you know why.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
the resulting migraines will be unbearable.
The quality of screener divx is just crap.
I'm not watching a movie I'm dying to see in this quality. And I'm not watching divx of movies I'm not dying to see.
That's just about it.
So keep the SuperAgents out of the theatre, please.
theefer
sounds like six of one, half a dozen of the other. i assume that light sequence will interfere with the normal 30 frames per second on the film and will render any subsequent digital reproductions 'unwatchable.' For those of us who already find movies online, we know they're not the best quality.
the light wouldn't affect sound and can't affect the visuality more than a heavily compressed file already does.
I have to wait until the DVD is out before I rip my backup copy.
I didn't think they even had sailing vessels.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Cool! Now your chance of getting epileptic seizures in the cinema is even bigger! Way to go!
There's been plenty of case studies where, according to the results, flicker is perceivable for some groups of people, but not others. Something tells me that the framerate that a videocam would pick up need not be technologically dissimilar than what is needed for a viewer of the same category to see this flicker in the theatre. It's bad enough we all have monitors without exacerbating the problem.
I first noticed it when I got an insta-migraine 30 minutes into a bootleg of the perfect storm - there's a barely perceptible flicker from the 24fps of film going to 30fps of video; it's not enough to be noticeable, but it causes me all sorts of problems and aftereffects (like if i walk around in the moonlight afterwards, the brightness level "pulsates" for a good 15 minutes). i imagine this will be a lot more severe, but still, the existing problems have already turned me off to videotaped bootlegs.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
In other news, massive increase in epilepsia has been reported.
This has already been discussed in the scene months ago and ways devised to circumvent these "protections"
So...nice try industry but you lose again. Better luck tomorrow!
Would this be anything like the flicker that is visible on computer/tv screens when filmed a certain way or certain type of film? I've seen a lot of news broadcasts (in Indonesia, Philippines, etc) where the computer in the background has lines moving up and down it -- definitely not the actual monitor at fault.
Havnt they been talking about doing this for the past couple of YEARS? Im too lazy too look up the previous /. stories on it at the moment.
I don't really understand why this is a problem for the film industry. Watching a semi-focused and shaking image of a movie with mono sound on my TV in no way substitutes for going to the theatre for a movie experience. Not to mention the time it takes to d/l from any p2p service. It is nothing like MP3 music which, although not perfect, at least provides comparable fidelity to the 'real thing' you can buy on CD.
although video releases are no doubt a prob its the DVD screeners that are leaked out that make me think hmm....
:P) that should be for academy consideration only...
* AC says as he watches the two towers on dvd (for the billionth time
So this is going to stop cam releases of movies? who cares about cams anyways, I'll take my dvd screener rip thanks.
To combat camcorder piracy Cinea and Sarnoff will develop methods of encoding films with artifacts that are invisible to the human eye, but play havoc with the electronics of a camcorder.
I suppose that given the natural latency of the human eye, this could work. When I pick up a TV screen in my old-style video camera, the picture has bands of light and dark in to, presumably due to the scan rate of the camera matching the scan rate of the television.
In the movies, when you see a scene with a television in it, why are there no such artifacts? Is it due to shooting with film, camera speed, ?? I would think that adding some sort of latency in a video camera to emulate that of the human eye would render such protection schemes useless.
As expected, the article nor the follow-up links had any information regarding HOW this protection would work (or at least none that I could find).
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Great, now if only they can invent a technology that will render the garbage coming out of Hollywood actually watchable.
If the story is a duplicate, don't comment on it. I know it will take discipline not to cut and paste previous highly rated comments, but something has got to give here to make the editors take notice. I say, ignore the duplicate stories. No comments, no interest. There is no point voicing disapproval as it is generally ignored. Therefore I suggest voicing nothing at all.
Ignoring exactly how many FPS the eye can see, wouldn't it still take something away from the picture quality of the movie to modulate the light in a way that seriously disrupts recording devices? And I wonder if it hurts digital and analog recording devices.
Maybe it works like TV or old PC screen on television, where the refresh rate synchs up with the recording rate.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
This has already been discussed in the scene months ago and ways devised to circumvent these "protections"
So...nice try industry but you lose again. Better luck tomorrow!
Most video cameras are sensitive to infrared light. I bet these people want to use an IR strobe do drown the signal. A simple filter will get rid of the noise.
minesweeper writes
For too long, minesweeper, you've wasted my time! Hour after hour, when I should've been doing something productive, you demanded my time. Now, only one of us is walking away from this thing alive...
Darn it! They shouldn't create that flicker, because what if some of the more sensitive of us DO notice it while watching movies in the theatre? What if we don't notice it, but it gives us an unexplainable headache which renders movie theatres unbearable, thus useless to a small percentage of people who previously enjoyed films? If they ever make a movie of the first five of my BANANA CHAN tv scripts, I don't want that flicker, because it'd render the movie unwatchable to a large extent of people who can only afford to watch bootlegged movies! -- that's not a point made in good morals, I know, but the Dreamcast version of SHENMUE 2 wouldn't have been able to be played by me, due to my financial situation, if it weren't for pirates whom I'm sometimes acquainted with; therefore, piracy is the poor world's primary source of cool literature, such as movies and video games, err...again, not a point made in good morals...or is it? I guess my main point, which isn't in :)
god morals is: I've never pirated a movie before, and it'd be a shame to have the opportunity taken away before I get a video camera...maybe I should just shut up, eh? It's my birthday, so don't arrest me for my counter-culture opinions
I don't watch movies from the internet. The quality sucks, download takes to long, and it destroys part of the industry. Sure, the big ones wouldn't go away, but the smaller productions might. And I am not the kind of person who just jumps a hole in the sky whenever another mindless action/thriller/horror/mindless/bad acting/lousy story comes to the screen. There are few beauty's (filmlike) out there, and most of the time they don't come from hollywood or the big companies. So yeah, I don't mind paying for watching something like that.
On the other hand, I don't like the theaters. I am usally the first in line to get a decent seat (= being there at least a hour in advanced) It's crowded. Everyone makes noise. You know: talking, eating. It's even worse when there are kids around. "Oh my god, she is naked." Yeah great, 2 seconds of breasts, acceptable for a teenager approval rate so the kids can come watch this movie. It's usally unnessary nudity.
Or someone translating for someone else.
Or some people who can't handle the exciatment. (spell check, sorry). "How, wait. Honey, no It's him. He is the bad guy" Hello, have you been sleeping the last half hour or are you just plain stupid? So annyoing.
you still have to watch commercials. I already paid for entreance. I don't want to watch commercials, I hate them.
And now they want to put a metaldetector at the entrance? Jeeshh, am I glad I live in Europe.
conclusion:
When i get the money together, I am just going to get myself a state of the art home theater and wait a few more weeks before the film hits the shells or the rental store.
And yes, if it's a good movie I'll pay. It's cheaper and you don't get the hassle.
Oh yeah, by movie theater, I don't mean an 20" TV-screen with stereosound. Depending on the prices and the quality, either a huge plasmascreen of a projector. At the very least a 5.1 soundsystem.
I FAIL IT.
This is a sad day. I will go masturbate now.
Epileptic
Seizure
Lawsuit
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'm sick and tired of the movie industry abusing it's power like
this. Not only do they have ogling agents and metal detectors, but now
they're purposely distorting the image. (Ignoring the risk of
epileptic seizures?) For those keeping score at home, that's yet
another account of reducing the use value of the movie to increase
it's trade value. (Others include regions and encryptions on DVD..)
I see this as economical sabotage as well as hugely egoistic. I'll be
sticking to warez and indepentent cinema from now on, rather than risk
funding even more of these pathetic stunts.
(This may seem a bit flamey, but well, "Fear leads to anger" and
Hollywood is certainly scary enough for me now. Thanks.)
Researchers are mindful that creating too rapid a flicker could trigger seizures in some people.
Awfully nice of them to watch out for us that way...
Is it just my imagination, or does this article try to paint the Hollywood "agents" and "enforcers" as some sort of quasi-law-enforcement personnel?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
There is a recent press release on the stuff by Cinea and Sarnoff. The release on the Cinea website is inside an annoying sequence of pop-up windows, but Sarnoff has the joint press release here. not much more information, but useful.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
They're losing their Whack-A-Mole game with the true pirates. As a result, they're getting frustrated. They are bound and determined to take their frustrations out on the little guy and want to extend legislation.
Sony announced their new line of digital video cameras today, which include a system developed to modulate flicker or other patterns that would ordinarily be picked up by recording devices.
...blast some IR strobes on the audience.
I mean really, how many people have a non-CCD camera these days?
It seems like metal detectors and tactical espionage action are stopgap measures at best. The distribution of a digital original to theaters pretty much ends the need for a camera at all. Many pirated movies these days are rips (if not outright duplicates) of advance DVD copies. If the industry is worried now about movies being leaked before their major domestic release, wait till the pirates get their hands on the actual discs theaters use to present the films.
Ravi
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
"Only a small number of theaters have digital projectors, although it is expected that most theaters will go digital by the end of the decade."
That's complete rubbish - there is absolutely no reason to install digital projectors if you're an exhibitor. They cost huge amounts of money and deliver absolutely nothing extra in terms of image quality. Plus, they're bigger than 35mm projectors! The only person it makes sense for is digital prokector makers and distributors (since the 'prints' are cheaper to make).
Isn't this just another repeat?
Help us build a better map!
With people out there who say they can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3, I wonder if people won't complain about this, even if they can't see it.
If you get a camcorder and record a regular CRT and play it back, you'll see all sorts of crazy flickering on the recording. That's because the screen only updates X times per second, and that doesn't always correlate up with how often the camcorder takes a shot.
Generally, people can use a CRT without seeing this flickering. Although if you use a lower refresh rate, most people get headaches, and some will notice flickering or just sense something is 'wrong'.
At the right refresh rate, you could recreate this effect while annoying only perhaps 0.5% of your audience, and if it's just for a few preview screenings, it might be a good idea for them.
Pretty nice technices.
But I will watch matrix reloaded downloaded from warez site beside that.
:wq
those people who though it'd be a great idea to save money not having to hire a babysitter and bring their toddler who will, with fail, start crying exactly at the moment the opening credits start to appear.
Oooh, and also the people who really, really think everything is supposed to be laughed at by slapping their hands together while jumping up and down in their seat like a fucking spaz.
Let's not leave out the ugly Cassanova in the row in front of you making out with his horrid-looking girlfriend. Of course, we can't blame them since the movies are the only place where the lighting is just right.
And how can we leave out the dickheads who could have sat anywhere in an empty theater but sit right behind you, and seem to loose all control of their ability to control their legs, kicking the back of the seat every, goddamn, motherfucking, five minutes.
We can not forget all these people, for they are what make the movies a truly enjoyable experience, and make us all lose all hope for humanity.
why run from Vincenzo?
Let's see. The major advantage of a movie theater vs. DVD or warez rips is the quality of presentation.
Lets mess up the quality of presentation in the name of 'copy protection' and make the paying customer suffer. Borrow the idea straight out of the CD business - copy protection with CDs is going down with the customers SO well!
Really smart...
(Yeah yeah, supposedly you cannot see the flicker. I belive it when I (don't) see it - until then I assume this degrades the image quality.)
Now if this is limited to 'pre-release' preview screenings where the people are not, by default, paying to see the movie - then I have little issue with this - go ahead and muck the picture as badly as you want if the screening is a freebie. However, if I'm paying for it, I don't want crappier quality in the name of 'copy protection'.
I don't mind if they hire thugs to guard the doors or pay good money to render the screens unrecordable so long as they keep shipping perfect copies in the form of DVDs (screeners) to people who vote in awards shows a few weeks or months prior to the actual theatrical release.
...what does that tell you?
This is what my grandmother would have referred to as "closing the barn doors after the horses have already left."
Hmmm. $50 to take four children (and myself) to go see Ice Age or invite over every neighborhood kid on the block to watch it on our HD for free before it hit the theatres. That's a tough call. Well, "free" isn't strictly true. $5 for a metric ton of popcorn.
I don't know what is wrong with the RIAA. If people are willing to watch a shitty copy (Cam/Telesync sucks) of a film instead of shelling out the loot for the full whiz-bang of a theatre experience
The truly stupid would say "it tells me we need to hire thugs to guard doors."
The moderately stupid would say "this means we need to lower prices."
The bright would do nothing.
The enlightened would see an untapped market.
My
Limekiller
no, but people will claim they can hear it.
and, yes, if the mp3 is of a low enough quality (128kbps or lower, in most cases) and provided a good sound set-up and armed with an idea of what to hear for, you too can detect errors in the audio stream that you otherwise wouldn't hear. I know I do it all the time.
same applies here:
people will claim they can see it.
and, yes, if the flickering is of a low enough quality, and provided a good visual set-up and armed with an idea of what to look for, you too should be able to see the screen flicker... or at least fade and brighten slightly.
and they'd probably be correct.
but this edit isn't supposed to affect the populous at large.. only the people who look for this sort of thing should notice it.
which means 99.9999% of America will probably not notice a thing,. and that's exactly what they want.
One very simple possibility to deny bootleg videos is to install a high power
infrared light source. Most video cameras pick up infrared just as good as
visible light. Thus the bootleg copy is just garbage.
However, photography accessories include infrared filters, which may cut down
on quality (hey, what quality???), but enable the bootlegger to continue his
job. Also, to my knowledge there is no study about the medical effects of
beaming high wattage infrared light right into the eyes of cinema visitors
(including children).
Marc
Would be really mean but they could make the flash represent a snow crash image that'll fry all the techies brains.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
If you have ever filmed the front of a remote control with a camcorder, you know that the infrared LED can be seen pulsating when you press buttons. This leads to the conclusion that the CCDs inside camcorder catch a broader spectrum of light than the human eye does.
So I don't know how this cinema solution works, but if a friend asked me to equip his cinema against "pirates", I would just install a infrared strobe light somewhere - job nicely done.
This is incredible, going to such lengths to foil some low-grade pirate copies of some movies. This sounds like desperation on the part of movie companies, or the increasing megalomania of power-hungry madmen. What are they thinking?
Stick Men
I know a few people whose eyes are very sensitive to light. Some can tollerate movies now, but they can't tollerate florescent lights and the like. This whole idea of adding more "flicker" to the screen could make movies unbarable for these people. What are the chances of the companies realizing this?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I agree. Also I wonder when people start complaining about all the headaches, experiencing random nausea and such after a movie screening, will the MPAA blame this on the pirates too in some roundabout way? (The video cameras emit RF radiation etc. etc.) Or will they just try to pay the susceptible people silence money?
we discovered a new way to think.
What if some ppl start getting epileptic seizures by seeing this?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
k-zed writes:
... And WIN.
"I agree. Also I wonder when people start complaining about all the headaches, experiencing random nausea and such after a movie screening, will the MPAA blame this on the pirates too in some roundabout way?"
Are you kidding? This is America. Someone will watch the pirated copy and sue the RIAA.
My
Limekiller
If it will ever become a problem, an appropriate filter for a DivX codec will appear quickly.
Just like the Macrovision protection in DVD's, there we go again, paying the REAL pirates for that they pay other bandits to DECREASE the quality of images we pay to view. Or anyone believe that this, or DVD Macrovision for that sake, does actually mantain image quality as the perpetrators clain?
-><- no
Modify/build a camera that sees exactly like a human eye. If the movie has to be seen by humans to be a movie, something that sees like humans can see it properly. Not that I endorse piracy or anything, it's just a fun little re-engineering problem.
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
Cinea LLC, which created an encryption system for DVDs[...]
Yes, the highly successful encryption system for DVDs! I'd say any individual involved in the creation of that system must be some of the smartest in the world, because we all know how unbreakable that is. Oh woe, if only we could decrypt DVDs, but alas it has proven as hard as breaking all other forms of encryption combined!
*puts on "Got DeCSS?" t-shirt and walks away*
Why is this site promoting companies that helped to pass the DMCA?
First off, this technology is only for digital cinemas. Not very many of them right now.
This also shows how little the MPAA and their minions know of film piracy culture. Most cams are nuked anyway, since they usually are unwatchable. Telesyncs (a tripodded cam with direct sound source) are a little better (and can be very good if shot properly), but are typically released if they are the only option - for the past six months, most films released eventually have Screener versions released. If the first release is a Cam/TS, that is usually superceded by a Screener within a week or two. Hey Hollywood: fix the leaks in the studios and your post facilities first before you attack the lowest of technologies. A PDA cam with a tiny surveillance lens? Please.
Before Oscar season, almost any popular film was available in DVDRip format, since the studios felt piracy was less important than gathering Academy votes, and they issued tens of thousands of Consideration DVDs to Academy members. If piracy of their most popular and valuable assets was secondary to winning awards, why all the fuss now about Cams?
There are also rips taken directly off the DigiBeta which are absolutely stunning. Again, this is an internal studio problem, and $2 million in taxpayer money will do NOTHING to stop that.
This is like fighting cocaine importation by attacking the kids on the street smoking cheap nickel bag weed.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
ok, so a cam version comes out pretty quickly - and, you can download it within a matter of hours from any decent file sharing system.
but, really - have you ever see one of these? they suck. even if they were very high quality, they suck. the audio is bad, and, the lighting could be improved a bit.
i think these companies should be more worried about the DVD screeners that are ripped.. you know the ones that say "this movie is owned by XXXX recording studios.. blah blah", but, since they only appear for a few seconds, its enough to ignore and continue watching. consider it a subtitle. 2002 grammies was hard.. what was available while it was still airing in cinemas?
- 8 mile
- lord of the rings (two towers)
- harry potter (chamber of secrets)
- the ring
- xxx
i think there were a few more too. so much for CAMCORDER rips of the cinema.. it happens every day, just look at www.vcdquality.com or other 'movie' websites that advertise releases.
With people out there who say they can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3, I wonder if people won't complain about this, even if they can't see it.
:)
Time to go off-topic. Yes, I can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3. Assuming you're talking about a 192kbps or less mp3 on a decent sound setup. Also, I'm not one of the people who has damaged his hearing by blasting rap-metal in my car so loud that people 3 cars over being vibrated in time with the bass.
If you are someone who has blasted his music at high volume, you *have* damaged your hearing and that does explain why an MP3 sounds "just as good" as a CD to you. It's as if you were color blind and trying to critique monitors for their suitability in color correction work.
Another factor is what use for playback. If you listen to a CD and an MP3 on your cheap computer speakers or your average car stereo and say "they sound the same" that's because of your cheap speakers. A crappy divx rip and a DVD look the same with your eyes closed, too.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Personally, I think that a movie seen at a theatre flickers quite badly even today.
If you are bothered by a 60Hz monitor with a white background you are probably going to be bothered by a white scene in a cinema as well. I hope that this technology will not worsen the effect too much.
Personally, I don't have that much of a problem with this. I think they're being really silly, but if they really want to spend that much time and money on this, they can go right ahead.
If it negatively affects picture quality though, I'll be pretty annoyed.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The research is funded by a $2 million grant from the Advanced Technology Program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency.
So the government is funding commercial companies (Cinea, Sarnoft) to come up with a technology to help protect the profits of other commercial companies? Not entirely unexpected, I suppose...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
I can tell the difference, but only when sitting on a vinyl floor. Go figure.
I recently visited Los Angeles and was invited to see two prescreenings (The Italian Job and Bruce Almighty). In both screenings they searched bags and wanded the patrons.
They had a list of 'disallowed' items including still cameras, video cameras, and cellphones. In practice, they didn't do anything about cellphones, as most people had them and would be unwilling to leave them at the door.
As for the cameras, I didn't know the restriction at my first screening, and I had my digicam with me. I put it in my jacket pocket and held my jacket in my hand when I held my arms out for wanding. They didn't notice a thing. I didn't use it at all, but it was pretty silly how easy it would be to get a camera in.
The second time around they felt my jacket pockets and found a lump where I kept my paperback book. They peeked in to the pocket and said, "What's that?"
"It's a book." (under my breath, "It's what we used for entertainment before movies.")
Anyhow, it's nice if they can block recording in select theaters. I recall an earlier slashdot story a year ago about this, and how it would be useless unless they got it in *every* theater. At least in prescreening situations, this technology seems a lot more useful.
Kevin Fox
Most of the problems people are encountering with the MPAA and RIAA could be avoided if people simply realized that popular movies and popular recordings are of very little value.
You`re quite right. If you take a piece of music, and remove 90% of the file size, you`ve got to be crazy if you think you can hear a difference.
How bad would it be if both the movie and DVD were released at the same time? People that have kids will probably not take them to see the latest movie when they can wait a few months and buy the DVD at half the price of taking family of 4 to see it. Also some people have a really good home cinema set up why not let them watch it as soon as possible on it. That way all the advertising can be done at the same time for the movie/dvd release - hence cheaper for the company to advertise.
Maybe now people will wait to pirate the movie until the dvd comes out. I hate it when the only copies of a movie available are crappy screener copies. Kazaa(lite) STILL doesn't have any decent copies of the first Harry Potter movie, because people all downloaded the screener copies, and haven't bothered to distribute a version ripped from DVD.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Actually they use a genlock to get the TVs and monitors to match the scan rate of the film camera.
The reason Apple Macs used to be seen so much in films is simply that Macs have always had a genlockable video output (along with Amigas), whereas PCs require more work to genlock.
Is there anything these assholes are going to fail to do to drive me out of the movie theaters?
Well, I guess I'd have to go on avoiding going to the movies for a long time. Not much to watch, anyway, not from them.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
Remember how the RIAA tried to legislate their own police powers? It's not uncommon; corporations want as much power for themselves as possible. And power is not just money. Power is also control over what one produces, be it legal, electronic, or physical.
The problem is that they want to maintain absolute control over their content, and ultimately that's nigh-impossible, as I discussed before.
On the way to trying to develop this degree of control, the content becomes increasingly difficult to enjoy. Are they in danger because of this? I'm afraid not, at least not until someone disrupts their current source of revenue: consumers with low standards.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
I'd like to see the studios (and yes, I know they're too dumb to do this) release a screener copy of say, Matrix Reloaded, to the P2P networks themselves, and then see if people don't still flock to the theaters. I mean, they keep saying it's hurting sales so much, so if a good divx copy is widely available at the same time as the release in theaters, nobody should show up. But I think most people want the big-movie-theater experience with a movie like that.
If somebody watches a pirated film, gets a headache, sues the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America, which obviously has nothing to do with film piracy), and still manages to win... then it's really time to move to Canada.
With the crap that's released these days, they obviously want to cut back so the release will be a giant surprise and noone will know it sucks before they get to the theatre. However with my shitty cam screener, I can easily see the paper thin plot and save my $7.
This technique doesn't involve subpoenas to ISPs to get the identities of p2p users.
This technique doesn't involve scare tactics targeted at network admins.
This technique does not involve arrests, fine, or prison sentences.
This technique does not involve some cockeyed "protection scheme" that renders the product absolutely useless in certain circumstances.
What the fuck do you guys want?
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
... there aren't any epileptics watching.
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story..."
I agree. A friend of mine's son has Epilepsy, and can't even look at a computer screen at less then 70 hertz for more then a couple minutes. Introducing a flicker into movies I'm sure will be an eyesore for most people (think: 60 hertz, high res, hours or more looking at the screen) and an obstical for others that prevents them from seeing movies in theaters at all.
The latest batch of pirated movies that I've seen around Hong Kong and southern china are DVD quality ripoffs from DVDs that the movie studios send to journalists, academy / awards voters and other folks that need to be appeased in the PR process.
Video cameras in movie theaters are now obsolete. The process of pirating movies has been perfected with social engineering.
Do you realize how rude it is to attach "-sama" to your own name, Black Cat?
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
does this article try to paint the Hollywood "agents" and "enforcers" as some sort of quasi-law-enforcement personnel?
They are enforcing the law; thus, how are they not law enforcement personnel?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Is it just me or does seem more like a publicity stunt on the behalf of the MPAA more than anything else? Something they can point to and say "Hey, look, we're doing our part in trying to prevent movie piracy."
As mentioned before spending all this time/effort/money to try and stop cam movie rips, while at the same time distributing massive amounts of screeners which are then ripped at close to dvd quality is ridiculous. It seems more likely that they'll use this as a political tool the next time they try to push some "anti-piracy" legislation trough congress.
Sony threatened a lawsuit against Sony, claiming that the system developed to reduce flicker was primarily intended for circumventing access control on copyrighted motion pictures published by Sony and that Sony camcorders incorporating such a system violated the DMCA with respect to Sony's copyrights.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Anyone with even a moderate understanding of graphics programming could write software to remove the flickers. Certainly the quality may suffer a tiny bit, but films recorded in the theater are not so great anyway. This isn't like attempting to make counterfeit money; minor issues aren't going to matter.
i assume this technology can be easily defeated if it even exists. most likely they are just trying to stop the bleeding that they have in their investments.
... like a mirror'ed sunglass cut to fit.
they need to make a statement to combat their losses every week or so. so they mumble some insane thing. related or not to their losses.
most of the good video are copies of 'for review only' are they are just copies of a vhs tape to me in quality. and the groups release them before the movie is actually out which hypes up the demand.
i still think this technology can be defeated by some sort of filter on the lens of the camera
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
With people out there who say they can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3, I wonder if people won't complain about this, even if they can't see it.
To really hear the difference between a CD and an MP3, try classical music, preferably something with plenty of cymbals and intertwining parts. Rip the song from your CD at 128 or so, then listen to the rip and the original CD back to back. I can listen to most music at mp3 quality, at 192 or 320 bitrates, without really noticing, but when it comes to classical there's a definite noticeable loss of quality.
There's also the psychological factor. I sometimes already am annoyed by the flicker at movies during action sequences, and if I'm watching a movie that was reported on slashdot to have this new intentional flicker technology implemented, I'm more likely to notice the flicker, weather I'm actually seeing the flicker that's already there or the result of this technology.
Maybe I'll see if I can filter out any future stories regarding this technique. Ignorance is bliss.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
If this becomes a problem for the bootlegging market, I see some demand emerging for motion picture film cameras (if they can find one on eBay that's quiet and small enough) as they would not be effected by FPS rates or sneaky scrambling techniques. They film the thing in the theater, maybe at a really late night showing on a Monday night when it's not too crowded, leave, get the thing developed, and capture the pirate-able motion picture onto their computer one way or another.
They could possibly accomplish that by projecting it onto their own screen and videoing it, then capturing that video into their computer, or maybe some sort of a negative scanner that can scan a couple hundred thousand negatives automatically in a reasonable period of time. What do you think? Genius?
Before the days of digital electronics, they'd paint matte layers by hand and project in the TV footage with the original image in a multiple exposure.
See "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) for a good example of this. There's a TV news anchor reading
at his desk, shot from the side (right profile.) On the desk is a TV showing the synchronized front-on view of the same news anchor. Then the scene you're watching switches to the front view of the news anchor: they shot the scene with two (motion picture film) cameras, and used the early footage from the second camera composited on top of the TV shown in the footage from the first camera.
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is not a movie known for being loaded with special effects. However, Robert Wise got a lot out of what he did have to work with: it's a wonderful flick.
Now they've found another way to make us pay for stuff that's only nessesary because they want total control and the power to make some people feel important.
We've heard about RIAA making up glued discmans and similar stupid things to prevent reviewers from ripping the preview CDs and putting them on the net before public release. We've also heard about MPAA effectually strip-searching reviewers to make sure they don't carry recording devices into a preview show, and now they want to invest time and money in developing means of making it impossible to make a viewable recording of these shows.
Who's paying for this? You and me!
Does it work? - Nope. Never did, never will. It an arms race that'll never be won.
I think it's about time RIAA and MPAA sat down and realized that they'll never be able to prevent this and therefore plain and simple stop doing these pre-release things altogether. Or limit them to no more than a few days ahead of the public release. - That way the pirates won't have much time to make their copy and the impact on sales will be much less. Of course this means that all the VIPs will have to wait just like everybody else...
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I just saw a show on the Discovery channel saying that digital cameras capture at 24 frames a second just to give the movie the same look as traditional film. To me that's like putting scratches and pops on a CD to make it sound like vinyl.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
a 14 yr old coder is busy hacking out the frames that mess up the recordings.. cause if the eye doesn't have the resolution to catch the flickering frames in the theater, it doesn't have the resolution to catch the missing flickering frames in the pirated copy.
maybe i misunderstand, but this seems like a really stupid move. *shrugs*
Here's my take. Actors are overpaid. They think their profession is more important than everyone else's. They think they are so important that a terrorist attack on them is emminent. They think their opinions are more important than anyone else's. They think it's okay to demand millions of dollars to make a film, spend all their money on opulent living, and then preach to us about the homeless. They think that by putting together a celibrity phone-a-thon after 9-11, they have done their part. It's one thing to hit up regular Americans for donations, when what they could afford to donate collectively would dwarf what the rest of us could afford to donate.
So what is the end result? They make movies--most of which suck. Then because it costs so darned much to make a movie, we pay out the nose to go to the theater. They hype up crappy movies, pay other actors to pretend to be people coming out of the theater after seeing the movie to tell us how awesome it was, falsify rave critical reviews in some cases, and trick us into helping support their version of American royalty. The worst part is that after paying too much to see a lame movie, is not only are you screwed out of your hard-earned money, but you've just wasted a couple of hours of your life. You can't get either one back.
Maybe that's the real problem. Maybe people are tired of it and are willing to watch a crappy bootleg in order to decide whether it's worth their money before shelling out for the real goods. With only a few, notable exceptions, most stuff coming out of Hollywood these days sucks.
I'm a student with a wife and 2 kids. For what it would cost for me to take us all to the movies and buy concessions, I could pay for Dish Network for a month or get a month's worth of DSL or cable internet connection (my current ISP is a dialup and it's going as soon as we can afford to upgrade). You tell me, which option is a better value for my money? Hollywood can rot in hell for all I care.
And they can just shut their yaps while they're at it. I don't want to hear them telling me stupid crap like, "War should be avoided at all costs." --Nicholas Cage. I thank God that Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington weren't that utterly freakin' stupid. Some things are worth dying for. But he's an actor. Poparazzi follow him around and people with no lives fall at his feet and scream and weep because they got an autograph or simply close enough to touch him. And thay pay him millions of dollars to make sucky movies. Therefore he MUST know what he's talking about, right?
Anyway, I'm done. I hope that by trying to shut down piracy that they wind up shooting themselves in the head like the RIAA is doing with their not really CD's. Treat the symptoms, not the root cause. I wish I could be that smart...
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
If he has problems looking at a 70hz screen,then don't you think he'll have trouble looking at a 24 frame movie screen? I wouldn't be worrying about 60hz or other frequency `protection` against copying.
Here in germany, all major theaters have digital projectors and you have to say, the quality is awesome, no more scratches or strange artefacts no matter how often the movie is shown.
The audio is also always 100%.
There used to be a time when there were small problems, but they are ironed out now.
So I don't share the opinion of the parent posting.
Sarnoff's claims of being able to introduce flicker or other artifacts that are imperceptible to moviegoers is bunk. Different people have different thresholds. I know a computer science prof who cannot work for long periods of time under fluorescent lights without getting migraines from the 60 Hz flicker. His office and the server room are outfitted with incandescent lights. I can detect a 70 Hz flicker on a monitor, which is extremely distracting for me (but it doesn't cause me migraines).
Here's a question: If Sarnoff's anti-copy protection becomes the norm, will those of us in the "flicker-sensitive" population be able to get our money back if a movie proves to be unwatchable? Will we even know a film is Sarnoff-modified in advance, so we can avoid these movies?
... lower take the money they're spending on these stupid procedures, and use it to lower the price of tickets instead? Who'd be interested in downloading a movie if the cost of going to the theater was lower than purchasing the DVD?
"Derp de derp."
Come to the theater with multiple cameras.
Bring PAL (Euro, @ 50 Hz) and HD-TV ones.
Hold some cameras upside-down or sideways.
Then process all the video via computer.
This takes out the flicker, camera movement,
people walking in front of the camera, etc.,
and even lets you get better resolution.
Check out the Chirplet Transform BTW.
I really hope it hasn't.
I was at the Boston Common theater last night watching A Mighty Wind - which I wouldn't suspect to be a wildly pirated movie.
It was driving me crazy because it had a flicker over it the whole time - almostly like it was missing a frame, but not entirely, sort of a haze.
I asked my friends if they noticed it and none of them did.
I'm hoping that maybe I'm just nuts and it isn't that I somehow am part of the population that can see the flicker and therefore get fucked over and can't go see movies that do this.
It was really fucking annoying. It didn't matter too much since that movie is one that isn't really a visually stunning film - but if I watch the Matrix and it is like that, I will likely just burn the whole place down.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
"imperceptible to the viewer in the theater"
Just like flourescent lights have an imperceptible flicker?
Just like security cameras have an imperceptible high-frequency audio hum?
Just like mp3's have imperceptible audio distortion?
Just like city water has an imperceptible aftertaste?
Just like Microsoft has imperceptible security flaws?
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does."
Education is the silver bullet.
I'd be worried. The movie industry hires some real idiots. DVD encryption turns out to be about 16-bits strong if you use a simplified version of the attack Ross Andersen discovered against GSM cellphones. The GSM A4 break was known before DVD encryption was released. You don't actually need the cracked player keys if you're willing to wait a couple of seconds to bruit force the disk key.
In short, I wouldn't trust the jokers the movie industry hires. Research shortcuts with epililepsy and retinal damage on the table spells bad news. That, and for the cost of you and your date going to the movie, you can BUY a known great DVD and snuggle on the couch at home rather than sit next to a bunch of strangers in uncomfortable seats. (Or if you're like a friend of mine and are morally opposed to giving one red cent to the MPAA, you could grab a good movie off Kazaa and give the DVD purchase cost to charity.)
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
Of course, it doesn't concern me. Last time I was in a theater was to see "Bowling for Columbine." Which is, as far as I'm concerned, about the only movie worth seeing this year. I'm not sure anything that I've seen in the past about 3 years has been affiliated with the MPAA (Brotherhood of the Wolf, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) but I'm definitely not contributing to the blockbuster machine. I'm not seeing the next Star Wars flick (Didn't see the last one either) not seeing Lord of the Rings, not seeing the next X-Men flick and I'm not seeing the next Matrix flick because I don't like the MPAA and I don't like their tactics. And if I waver on the whole MPAA thing there's still always the fact that you go and drop $9 on a movie and have to sit through half an hour of commercials before the movie starts.
For a few dollars more I can go see a live play and be much more entertained. The play won't have some corporation trying to ram its merchandise down my throat either.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Now don't get me wrong here! I enjoy pirated movies :-) but seriously! How hard would it be to flash infrared at the screen at half the framerate ?
Video cameras pick infrared up and it would make it look bright/dark and totally screw with the recorded movie's contrast.
As a consumer of "pirated" movies, I can tell you that the vast majority of new releases are not "cams" (ie camcoder in theater) but "screeners". Screeners are special "preview" DVDs given to movie critics and award critics for "screening" purposes. These then end up ripped and dumped on the file-sharing networks even before the movies hit the theaters. All the movies currently showing this week at my local theater in NY have been available for at least a few weeks as high quality "screeners". As ever, the movie studios cannot solve the real problem behind movie piracy: INSIDERS
which is why in most recent films, you're unlikely to see any computer without one.
-
Why, oh why are they always trying to take away our freedom ? Why do they always want to deny us fair use ? Why do they want us to stop pirating when they make billions and don't redistributes half to artists and even only to the big ones, those who wouldn't need that much, and never to those many awesome artists that majors don't even care about ???
:))))
On a related topic, and since my news item has been denied, Madonna's website has been hacked...
They even uploaded mp3s from her 2003 albums =)
mirror here: http://clapcrest.free.fr/revol/madonna.com.htm (at least this one don't require flash+IE
The film projectors "flash" each frame of the film multiple times to reduce the flicker-effect. So the real frequency could be 48, 62, or even 96 fps.
This is like Macrovision. First, it was a retrofit to existing technology. Then the MPAA will want it mandated in camcorders. Then camcorders won't work when pointed at a TV screen.
Soon it will be as bad as aiports just to get a damned sandwich..
I wonder what they will classify as 'allowed' objects now that they are almost strip-searching their patrons..
Not a good way to run a business, invading the customers privacy..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Recently I was lucky enough to catch these guys in the act . Frightening, isn't it?
Now, the latest attempt to fight piracy will be to show the movie with a particular flicker, imperceptible to the viewer in the theater, but making any video recording unwatchable.
But Hollywood already makes too many unwatchable movies!
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
"The disruptive flickers would be unseen by the human eye in the movie theater."
I get it, sort of like MacroVision, which doesn't disrupt the picture at all. Thank you sir, would you like some ibuprofen with that popcorn?
So THAT explains the mass seizure when watching Anger management the other day...
Or it could've been Adam Sandler's acting...
On the other hand, they are saying that we are all criminals and that they are going to take measures to keep our criminal tendencies in check. Putting metal detectors and night vision goggles in theaters? Are we going for a couple of hours of entertainment or on night maneuvers in the desert?
Basically, the movie/music industry (MPAA, RIAA, that gang of thieves) would be happiest if we just sat there and took what they put out, and every time we thought about it, gave them money.
The other sude of the equation is that the very people that they are worried enough about to place night vision and metal detectors in theaters for are the same people they are trying to entice. Why else would they spend billions of dollars making more and more sophisticated special effects?
The best way to deal with this is to speak with your pocketbook. Don't go see movies in theaters that have this equipment. Better yet, deprive the MPAA by waiting until it comes out on dvd...
--Storm
I'm very far from being one of those "golden eared" people (hell...I did some double-blind A/B testing, and was unable to detect when the music was run through a 12 KHz low pass filter, so my ears suck).
Nevertheless, in double-blind A/B testing, I can spot the difference between MP3s made with iTunes using default settings and the original, 100% of the time, on music I'm familiar with. Same with MP3s made on Linux using Bladeenc at 128 kbits/second. If I use Lame on Linux, or whatever MusicMatch uses on Windows, my results are no better than what random guessing would produce.
I've been testing this because I ripped for my Archos at the highest bitrate that I thought would let me fit everything...and I was wrong by about two gig. :-) So, I need to rerip a few things at a lower bitrate to make room, and I'm trying to find out just what bitrate I actually need.
It's as simple as that. They assume we're all criminals, and treat us thusly. I mean, come on, searching people at the doors of movie theatres? For cameras? It's just ridiculous, and insulting.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
I expect that some people will still see it...
There's a large variance in human persistence of vision; it's more of a bell curve. The reason for this is evolutionary; studies have shown that some people have better visual resolution, while other have better motion detection thresholds. For example, my resolution is lousy, but my color vision has better frequency discrimination, and I can detect even very slight motion in my peripheral vision ("How did you know I had come into the room?").
It seems to me that they are targetting the center of the curve only, and that they will lose the people on the edges.
Personally, I expect to be on the wrong end of the curve for this, and it will probably annoy me enough that I will stop going to movies, just as I've replaced all the landlord provided long life flourescents in my apartment with incandescents, because the 60Hz "flicker" drives me nuts when I try to watch TV or work on the computer (there's a reason that some people like to work in a dark office; it's because the alternative is unbearable to them; expect these people to not go to movies with this "feature", either).
When this happens, they will also lose the people who are members of those people's social networks, and who are more willing to select some other form of entertainment (e.g. "Dave and Busters" or whatever) than go to a movie without one of their friends.
-- Terry
Somewhere, Theodore Roszak is either grinning or wincing.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Here are some links to reputable sources that underscore the problem in Chinese society.
Please read " Singapore implicated as piracy hub". This article has a chart showing that the rate of movie piracy for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan is 91%, 25%, and 44%, respectively. Contrast these shocking figures with figures for normal Western countries like Australia and Japan; their rate of movie piracy is 8%.
Please read " China Learns to Say, 'Stop, Thief!'". It explains that Chinese society has a software piracy rate of 92% in 2002 and claims that this figure is an improvement over the rate of 94% in 2001.
This problem of pirating movies and software is a cultural problem, not a legal problem. Most Chinese simply believe that stealing intellectual property is acceptable.
"because I'm a big mofo."
Don't you know? Everyone who posts on the internet is a hyooge bodybuilder type.
I think you may be just a little late.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
What if that 90% is all 0's? Can you hear the difference between silence and silence?
If they add more flicker to movies, you'll never see me in a movie theater again. My eyes are relatively sensative to flicker-I can't stand to work on a monitor with a refresh rate slower than 85Hz, and I preffer 100Hz+ or an LCD. I see the flickering on movies when I go to movie theaters now. It's annoying, but I can deal with it. If they add more flickering, you won't see me in a movie theater anymore. *thinks hmmmm, better excuse to continue building home theater*
48 fps (showing each frame twice) is the standard for 35mm and 70mm films. As far as IMAX is concerned i'm not sure (dunno what the frame rate is).
" To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. "
Simpsons owns.
Comic book guy getting kicked out of the movie theater because he brings his desktop with him.
God spoke to me
Have you searched Kazaa et al for "Matrix Reloaded"?
I have, and found many different file-sizes near 700 MB. So I decided to download a few (cable modem is very nice), and the titles I got were:
Someone is having fun poisoning the network -- but they're poisoning it with valid movies, instead of output from /dev/random!
The last movie, Lustgarden, is a foreign (Swedish?) 3-hour fuckfest. Don't let your kids use Kazaa!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
instead of concentrating on developing new and innovative plots and story lines the Hollywood Studios are spending a lot of money to try to stop people from stealing a bad copy of a movie which only serves as advertisement for their movies.
If the "stolen" movie was any good, the "thief" would then go out and purchase the DVD, or VHS for the extra features.
Like with music, this censorship will do nothing to halt the freedom of information, and it will only serve to raise the prices of movies in the US so that more and more people will choose not to go.
Take gun, display foot, Shoot foot.
*woman* Oh, I have a headache
*man* Here's 2 asprin, we WILL have sex tonight!
*woman* No, 2 pills don't do it for me, I need 16.
*man* fine, we will have sex tonight.
*woman* But what if it conflicts with my anti-depressant, my anti-congestant, or my makeup!
*man* You'd probably be healthier without all of that junk...and besides your headache is caused by a government conspiracy to stop me from stealing the movie we are watching.
Haven't you seen Canadian Bacon?!?
Canada bad, US good.
Actually, that's not the way the mp3 format works. Due to some really strange coincidence, all 0's happens to be "Rapper's Delight". It's weird, I know.
...you could just watch the thing on DVD, *as the parent poster pointed out*. You are *not* going to get a completely quiet, immersive experience in a theater. That's just the way it is.
May we never see th
as simple as that.
They've never watched one of these.
Before enacting this lame-a** idea they should have done the research. Set up a simulation of a movie theatre, Steal the movie themselves. Try to watch it.
Problem solved. No wasted capital.
With people out there who say they can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3, I wonder if people won't complain about this, even if they can't see it.
Drop $70+ on a pair of headphones, and regardless of how "highly trained" your ears are, you'll hear the difference up to at least 160kbps or so.
Most people are listening to music through fairly crummy cheap speakers.
I have a decent pair of headphones, and a cheap pair of speakers. On the speakers, there's no way to tell the difference, but on the headphones, it's very, very obvious.
May we never see th
I'll be able to see it. I can see the screen refresh on monitors at 60 or 65 hz. I can see the flicker at 70 hz. I will only use LCD screens, screens with fairly persistent displays (like old phosphorus terminals), and screens set to 75 hs or above. I can also here sounds up to about 37 kHz and the difference between mp3s and CDs.
This is pointless, as people will still rip from Screener DVDs. Even if you wanted to RIP with a camerra you can still do it. The way to rip it is to use a low film rate video camera, about 24 hz, so that the camera can't pick up smaller artifacts, or to use a very high film rate camera, so that on playback the artifacts are of the same quality (ie invisible) as they were in the theater. The third method would be to film it with whatever and just apply a simple digital filter to remove it. Anything as simple as a low pass filter set to cut anything of extremely high frequency (twice that of a one frame scene change) will get it. They forget the world has access to fourier transforms and the same film editing power they have.
Probably more like so that they can tie in legacy footage if they want to.
Traditional film looks awful to me...
May we never see th
lame with one --alt-preset extreme does very well for me, but --alt-preset standard might well be good enough for most people. This does sound a little better than the r3mix settings to me.Certainly give me VBR over CBR of less than about 224k anyday...
If you removed the silence, then what you`d get would be shorter silence. You`d notice it. The song would be shorter.
Seriously, the lossless decoders handle cases like that rather better than lossless compression. And in the real world, you`d not have anything like 90% compression, unless you were listening to John Cage.
Even if everyone entering a movie theater gets a pat-down and a background check, its not gonna change anything in hong kong where most of the camera-copies come from. I think most that are done here involve a little greasing of palms anyways, that wouldn't stop anything.
Hollywood is just wasting more money that they are going to get back from us through $14.25 movie tickets.
matt
Does it strike anyone else as odd that all "anti-piracy" technology essentially boils down to reducing the quality of the movie/music or, in the case of data, introducing errors on purpose?
"Imperceptible" is a very strong word. Our senses and brains still surprise us with their capabilities. Other "imperceptible" flickers are known to introduce anything from motion sickness to seizures.
High time for a "Not Degraded / No Copy-Protection" campaign. I know I would look for a sticker like that if it were around.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
A veteran railroad engineer will have significant hearing loss anyway due to the constant mechanical noise.
;)
Many years ago, I used to get yelled at for making any little noise when my dad was trying to sleep. He used to hear water running and yell at us for that. Now he probably has 35% less hearing, so my much younger sister gets away with things like playing THPS3 with sound or listening to the radio at any time.
I should have bought my dad a walkman for his birthday when I was 3
I recently visited Los Angeles and was invited to see two prescreenings (The Italian Job and Bruce Almighty). In both screenings they searched bags and wanded the patrons.
It's all just part of the hype. They want to create the atmosphere of this being a really big deal.
Sounds to me like another reason not to go to a cinema anymore...
I was waiting for someone to turn this into a "another reason not to" discussion. You don't even know what it will look like or if you'll notice it, and you make a completely unrelated comparison to CDs and MP3s. Yet you've already decided it's a bad thing.
Cue Texan accent. "Seems to me I reckon people will complain about this." Please stop.
"Sufferin' succotash."
question: what is the sound made by a post that's supposed to be taken as a joke fly over the head of a kid who loves posting scathing replies to illustrate their bitterness and compensate for their lack of wit?
Ooooooh -- fatality! I'm just kidding you're a swell little guy, i'm sure.
why run from Vincenzo?
It won't happen. The slobbering, drooling masses who have to reply to absolutely everything won't remember it was a duplicate or just won't care. The idealist minority is outnumbered by the idiotic majority who treat this place as their karma playground. The misinformed "technology experts" who feel the need to post five-paragraph diatribes incorrectly explaining the technology in the article, the idiots who actually post the text of the article itself, the saps who feel the need to follow every article with a "In other news..." joke...it's a parabola of stupidity out there, and we're on the edge looking in.
"Sufferin' succotash."
So they say the flicker is imperceptable to the human eye? How can this be? Will this work only on digital projectors or film projectors? 1 frame out of 24 per second on a film projector can still be seen by the human eye? So how can this be done, I'm curious.
.smell my feet.
I waited and waited for that one perfect idiot who would post about how this was an abuse of power. Score.
How dare they project movies in any way they choose. For some reason, this is an abuse of power. Having people scan the audience once in a while to check for cameras is wrong, though it's okay if they check tickets like they have for decades. Simply changing the projection method to make it more difficult for cameras to pick up is also somehow immoral. You blindly call it "distorting the image."
What really let me know your level of intelligence was when you called it "economonical sabotage." You are right. All the sudden, there will be a mass exodus of people leaving theaters all over the nation even though they won't notice a single difference in anything, except that once in a great while, someone illegally filming the film will be asked to leave.
Please do stick to warez. The fact is, you already use warez, and you needed your little exposition to help you justify it.
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
With DAT tapes. They wanted to put a watermarking on them that would survive analogue copies. They claimed it wasn't audible. It was.
Or how about all the BS CD copy protections on computers? They claim it doesn't interfere with normal operation. Yet, there are tons of CD-ROMS that just can't handle certian protections. It was so bad with teh new SecureROM that they removed the checks for it in later version of Neverwinter Nights.
The copy protection folks love to claim that their shit is great and that noone will notice unless they try to make a copy. However, that is marketing crap, pure and simple. It DOES often interfere with normal use.
The next thing we'll see is epileptics all over having their siezures triggered by the flashes of light.
Boy, if you wind up twitching on the floor of a movie-theater, you'll be stuck there for life!
Look, there's nothing wrong with the encryption algorithm used on DVD's. And DeCSS wasn't created by "breaking" the encryption, but rather by extracting the keys from a software DVD player.
The problem with CSS is a protocol problem. If the secret keys have to reside in the player, they're susceptible to getting stolen. Anyone who can come up with a better solution that doesn't require processing power on the discs themselves would have to be be a genius.
-Mark
Wanna bet those "unnoticeable" flickers are likely to give people some terrible migraines? How 'bout epileptic seisures?
I tell you, if the movies strat giving me migraines, I'm suing somebody.
Its bad enough that they insist on having the sound up a few notches above the pain threshold, now they're gonna mess with our eyes too? Geez!
You can't take the sky from me...
Now it will be harder and harder to make "Legitimate Copies" of screenings I have already paid for. Now I'll have to wait for a mod-chip to come out for my video camera, or wait for someone to do the equivalent with only a memory stick
I'm no medical expert, but wouldn't certain types of screen flicker trigger epilepsy attacks. Who would be legally liable for that?
A caution sign on the door reads.. "If you are prone to seizures please do not enter this theater" and "If you have already seen 2 movies today please step in the radiation cleaner as your genitals have shrunk due to high radiation."
Depends on the digital camera. Most consumer-level camcorders capture at NTSC speed (that is, 60 half-frames per second, or 29.97 interlaced frames per second). You usually have to start spending a lot of money before you can have a digital video camera that will record at 24 full frames per second, but there are a few exceptions here and there.
--sdem
What's your point, you're too fucking good to wait for a movie to come to your market?
Yes. I am too intercoursing good to wait until everybody involved in the production of the movie has been dead for 70 years.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The "invisible flicker" might just be infrared. Digital cameras see infrared as a sort of purple. Try flashing your remote control at it! If most video cameras are sensitive to it, a bright IR strobe could be a cheap but effective foil.
The real problem isn't shaky camcorder recordings, the real probelm is people taking dvd screeners meant for exhibition at awards ceremonies and industry screenings which are copied. They are of much higher quality than anything john q. hacker could pull off with his cam.
OK. I'm not an engineer, I don't really know anything about optics, and my only experience with polarzing lenses is with sunglasses.
But, what if you projected two images onto a movie screen simultaneously, one of the movie, with vertically alligned light, and one of garbage horizontally alligned, next frame the movie is horizontally alligned and the garbage is vertically alligned. Movie-goers are forced to wear special glasses, one eye vertical polarized lenses, left eye horizontal(I'd boycott if they did) persistance of vision plus maybe a higher frame rate and a much brighter screen might be necessary. A camcorder would see every frame garbage, and it's not like you could put both lenses on the viewer simultaneously(you'd get black), and there are no ways I can think of for software to filter out the trash.
LOWER THE GODDAMN PRICES!
If you want more people to go to your movies, stop charging them $8.50 a pop!
Some people would agrue that doing so would decrease revenues, but if piracy is making them lose as much money as they say, lowering the prices would benefit them in the long run. They will have more people going to movies at less cost, and therefore less of an audience for pirates.
You will always have people that won't pay for anything, but they would never go to the movies anyway. The best way to defeat piracy is to eliminate the demand for it, and in this case, it is best to lower the prices.
Recording devices... any my eyes. It's true. I cannot even stand looking at most CRT monitors unless the refresh rate is 90hz or more. I get headaches and my eyes strain. If I do look at a monitor with a refresh rate too low for me, I actually see the flicker. After long exposure, I feel my eyes straining. When I close my eyes at night, I might even feel these tiny (but really annoying) spasms caused by the muscles being so strained. I would have to leave a theater if they used this kind of thing.
Thats what Bitzi is for. Don't download big files without checking what other people have to say about them. And don't give files negative ratings because the metadata (ie, filename) is wrong.
Time to go off-topic. Yes, I can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3. Assuming you're talking about a 192kbps or less mp3 on a decent sound setup. Also, I'm not one of the people who has damaged his hearing by blasting rap-metal in my car so loud that people 3 cars over being vibrated in time with the bass.
If you are someone who has blasted his music at high volume, you *have* damaged your hearing and that does explain why an MP3 sounds "just as good" as a CD to you. It's as if you were color blind and trying to critique monitors for their suitability in color correction work.
Loud bass/rap music can be bad for your hearing in several ways:
(1) Low frequencies tend to move more of the basilar membrane and this means more overall damage.
(2) As we age, we tend to loose the ability to detect high frequencies -- someone listening to loud bass music is setting himself up for total hearing loss later on.
(3) A lot of percussive sounds generate a large initial pulse which contains all frequencies -- this means the whole basilar membrane gets a jolt and this means potential damage to at all frequencies.
Sounds should be taken in moderation like most everything else.
... I'm not looking for top quality video. I just want to see the movie in advance. If it flickers, so what? And I've still got the audio for all the quotes and stuff. Sheesh.
Only problem is they don't have a plug-in for Kazaa, which has by far the most content.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
No, I'm not, since I'm not going to the cinema any more thanks to actions of the movie industry, this being but the latest. The victims are those who are paying for tickets, the perps are the execs in the movie industry.
I'm just a bystander.
The other two are relevant to put the actions of both Hollywood on one hand and so called "pirates" on the other hand in context.
That's preposterous. I hold that it's you that portray the movie corporations as "victims", and that they had absolutely no choice what so ever in adding this subliminal flicker.
If that ripping were neither illegal nor stopped, those movies would be a lot more accessible in a variety of ways. You could go to a theater (same as now), you could download them or you could get a copy on CD-R from a friend. The movie would achieve greater spread and thus make a bigger contribution to society, being seen by more people thus enriching the culture more.
Not only do I think that's okay, I think that's commendable behaviour from a moral (not legal) standpoint. You on the other hand were "just waiting" for a post like mine so you could criticize it for daring to question the reproduction monopoly that copyright law grants.
I do feel that it's absurd that an archaic business regulation for the book printing industry is turned against the computer-using consumers. There was no Internet when copyright was invented.
That appears to be a false statement. You might want to go back and check my original post and your reply.
I've watched telesync rips a grand total of two times. Whoop-de-do. I'll manage. I won't be going to theatres with this kind of distortion, though.
So was your quip about me trying to blindly justify my warez, which only were meant to make my arguments seem somehow less valid. That's why I wrote about not being able to justify copyright. I used a quote, relevant to that, and I attributed it (if someone wanted to read more).
No, that's just a hobby. :)
Joking aside, my objective when it comes to movies is to watch them, alone or with friends, if I like them maybe give a copy away or two to people dear to me, and, if I want those who did that movie to make more movies, to support them by sending them money directly or indirectly. Now, many moviemakers these days are associated with the kind of investors/execs that I definitely don't want to support, since that money will go to junk like this flicker.
First, the good pirate copies were made by people in league with theater employees. It's not the horrible bouncy video half blocked by a cowboy hat and a soundtrack messed up by a crying baby 4 feet away that anyone downloads.
Nightvision goggles, metal detectors, and FBI agents getting free tickets won't help.
Second, there are a lot of so called "imperceptible" techniques that annoy the hell out of a lot of people. I'm one of them. My computer monitor has to be above 80 refresh to not annoy me. 60-80 refreshes become painful in 15-40 minutes. Less than that is directly visible on a decent monitor. Heck, I can even see when a flourescent light is starting to go out when 70% of the office can't. Can theaters really afford to drive away 20-30% of their market by giving them eyestrain headaches to stop an insignificant portion of video piracy?
No, I'm not, since I'm not going to the cinema any more thanks to actions of the movie industry, this being but the latest. The victims are those who are paying for tickets, the perps are the execs in the movie industry.
Do me a favor and explain to me how preventing piracy with no effect to non-pirates makes ticket-buyers victims.
I'm just a bystander.
You're clearly activist.
The other two are relevant to put the actions of both Hollywood on one hand and so called "pirates" on the other hand in context.
No, stop adding "so called." People who illegally film movies and distribute them on the net are movie pirates.
Do me a favor and explain to me why they're not.
The other two points had nothing to do with the discussion.
That's preposterous. I hold that it's you that portray the movie corporations as "victims", and that they had absolutely no choice what so ever in adding this subliminal flicker.
They're simply preventing piracy. You're pretending to be a victim over unnoticable flicker added to stop piracy. This leads me to believe you are simply a disgruntled movie pirate.
Yes, the corporations are victims if their material is being illegally stolen.
If that ripping were neither illegal nor stopped, those movies would be a lot more accessible in a variety of ways.
Stealing is illegal and immoral. It's a given they would be more accessible if it wasn't illegal to rip them and distribute them. As it stands, you have no legal or moral right to do so, no matter what your IRC Undernet buddies who trade movies all day think.
You could go to a theater (same as now), you could download them or you could get a copy on CD-R from a friend.
Downloading or copying from a friend is illegal since you don't pay to see the film. Why do you think you are entitled to see it completely free of charge? What gives you that right? You have none.
The movie would achieve greater spread and thus make a bigger contribution to society, being seen by more people thus enriching the culture more.
Take your bullshit "information wants to be free" mentality back to the 80s BBS hacker age. How can a culture be enriched if nobody is making money off of what they work on? You have just officially made the silliest argument I have ever read on Slashot.
Not only do I think that's okay, I think that's commendable behaviour from a moral (not legal) standpoint.
Then you are obviously trolling.
You on the other hand were "just waiting" for a post like mine so you could criticize it for daring to question the reproduction monopoly that copyright law grants.
There is no "reproduction monopoly." You have no right to steal. I was waiting for a post like yours because I knew an idiot Slashbot would post something like it and argue with me that piracy is a-okay and the right thing to do.
I do feel that it's absurd that an archaic business regulation for the book printing industry is turned against the computer-using consumers. There was no Internet when copyright was invented.
It doesn't matter. You don't have a right to download a movie for free. Since you'll never grasp that simple concept of morality, you'll just have to learn to deal with it.
That appears to be a false statement. You might want to go back and check my original post and your reply.
It wasn't a false statement, and I don't know what else to tell you. I copied and pasted your text.
I've watched telesync rips a grand total of two times. Whoop-de-do. I'll manage. I won't be going to theatres with this kind of distortion, though.
Good riddance. The "distortion" will be unnoticable.
So was your quip about me trying to blindly justify my warez, which only were meant to make my arguments seem somehow less valid.
It's true. They make your arguments less
"Sufferin' succotash."
You should read the site for a little longer. The 'plug-in' you need is called sig2dat.
And I say it's bollox that Kazza has the most content. They may have a few million more users than the other networks but the quality of files does not compare to other P2P clients that are higher up the P2P distribute ladder. Kazza is all about imcomplete files, bad naming conventions, deliberate poisoning by corporate monkeys, and Britney Spears.
Give eMule a try if you are fed up with Kazza's many downsides.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I just did a test to find out if I can tell the difference between an mp3 and a CD. On my CD-mp3 player with $10 Philips headphones, I could still hear the difference between a CD and a 128kbps mp3 ("I of the Mourning" by Smashing Pumpkins). So you don't need an expensive surround-sound stereo system for this - at least if you're familiar with the song you're listening. If I've heard only the mp3 of a song, I can't on most cases tell if it's lower quality.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
However, as soon as we use cultural relativism to, say, prohibit any Chinese immigration into the United States of America (USA), the apologists (of whom most are Chinese) are up in arms. They condemn us Americans for narrow-mindedness. We can certainly use cultural relativism to justify why we must prevent Chinese from coming into the USA and contaminating Western culture.
Sure. If the Chinese really believe in cultural relativism, they are free to stay in China (and to stay out of the United States) and to steal and copy anything that they want from other Chinese. This widespread disregard for intellectual property will effectively end innovation in China. Its quality of life will stagnate. Meanwhile, in the West, we shall keep all the technology to ourselves as our Western nations prosper. Some future technologies on the horizon are the cure for AIDS and spinal-cord damage.
However, as soon as we use cultural relativism to, say, prohibit any Chinese immigration into the United States of America (USA), the apologists (of whom most are Chinese) are up in arms. They condemn us Americans for narrow-mindedness. Why? We can certainly use cultural relativism to justify why we must prevent Chinese from coming into the USA and contaminating Western culture.
Sure. If the Chinese really believe in cultural relativism, they are free to stay in China (and to stay out of the United States) and to steal and copy anything that they want from other Chinese. This widespread disregard for intellectual property will effectively end innovation in China. Its quality of life will stagnate. Meanwhile, in the West, we shall keep all the technology to ourselves as our Western nations prosper. Some future technologies on the horizon are the cure for AIDS and spinal-cord damage.
Note that they have a nice XML interface for writing your own utilities too.
I wrote a program that scans my file library every few days and notifies me of files which have poor ratings, so I can stop sharing them. This is a feature that should be in all P2P clients, IMO, to help keep bad content off the network.
Heck, the most expensive speakers I've seen can only do 25kHz.
Heck, with those earplugs, I even slept like a baby in a Pullman that was spotted next to a hump-yard retarder (and those babies scream at 120-140 dB!!!)...
I guess it depends on what you're searching for. I had already installed eMule but rarely use it, as Kazaa generally has everything I search for.
For instance, looking for "Family Guy" I find only 10 files matching on eMule; only 8 of these are full episodes (>200 MB; the other two are 64 MB (a compressed episode perhaps?) and 1 MB).
On Kazaa, there are 54 full episodes (>200 MB).
My sister wanted to see "Strangers With Candy". I was able to get all the episodes from Kazaa (30 of them; not all were 200 MB, some were more compressed, down to 70-80 MB). However, eMule doesn't have a single episode (or match of any type).
Sometimes when my ReplayTV doesn't record something, I look for it on the net. In these cases I generally only find it using BitTorrent, as there's a big TV taping community sharing files through BT. Google for "BitTorrent TV" and you'll find it.
I downloaded the Bitzi software (BitCollider), but it can only tell me about files that I've already downloaded. And I have sig2dat but it's used by sites like FastTrackMovies -- they give a link, you click on it, and sig2dat converts the link into a search/download in Kazaa. I don't see a way for it to tell me whether a certain file which shows up from a search is valid or not. (If you know, please respond! Thanks.)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
If all you Americans are going to move up here to Canada to get away from each other, you're all just going to end up with a colder version of the States.
And then all us Canadians are going to have to move to Greenland to get the hell away from you!
Couple of things here:
-- Going back to the 'flicker' concept: the way a standard 35mm projector controls the light that passes through the print and lens is with a rotating disc. The disc has sections cut out of it, so that as it spins light from the lamphouse is interrupted while the intermittent pulls the film forward one frame. This process is entirely mechanical -- the blade is geared according to the standard design of 24 fps.
To introduce variable flicker, you would have to overhaul the projector and produce some type of controlled motor design. It would have to maintain sync electrically. One of the reasons projectors are the workhorses they are today is that the base mechanical design is pretty much idiotproof: the only way to get the blade out of sync is to reach in and forcibly move it out of alignment.
-- Introducing a variable-speed blade system and/or an IR flood into the projection booth presumes something very basic: someone willing to pay for it. The theater chains are still operating at or beyond the brink of bankruptcy -- so you're now going to ask them to retrofit thousands of projection systems at their own expense? The studios are notorious for introducing systems like this but expecting others to pay for them (sounds a bit like unfunded governmental mandates).
When you think about the thousands of theaters across the country, many running 20 or 30 year old projection equipment, expecting this to be introduced on a national basis is silly. If this ever shows up, it will only be in the largest cities.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/5680527.htm Yes its off topic. But if all web sites do what these web sites are doing, I will be cancelling my account with my ISP and pick up a library card.
http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=5E4FDA3 6-14AD-4F21-AE43-F9331FCCA53A
Getting out of hand, I tell you.
News Just In- Sony has disappeared up it's own arsehole.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.