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Foiling Cinema Pirates

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the avast-ye-bootleggers dept.

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...'"

3 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Why is this a problem? by zakath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --

  2. Infrared light by jetmarc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  3. Re:I wonder if they really can make this 'invisibl by tamyrlin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.