MPAA Ruins Own Films As Anti-Piracy Measure

WCityMike writes "Steve Kraus, a Chicago film projectionist, noted in this week's Movie Answer Man column that movie studios are quite purposefully putting 'large reddish brown spots that flash in the middle of the picture, usually placed in a light area' in order to ruin computer-compressed pirated copies of films. Among recent films that feature these spots are 'Ali,' 'Behind Enemy Lines,' '28 Days Later,' 'Freddy vs. Jason' and 'Underworld.' (I guess they had to destroy the movies in order to save them ... )"

Comments

Thank Jebus, I am not crazy

[IronChef]

I SAW the dots in Underworld. They drove me NUTS. I thought it was some kind of problem with the film copy or... I dunno what.

I did not see this on 28 Days Later. Maybe I just missed it, or maybe it was only in the re-release with the new ending.

They are doing this on PURPOSE? Madness. Will these be on DVDs too?

Messed up compression? Not really.

[dbavirt]

The article does not say the blotches are used to screw up compression to ruin the film for pirates, as the slashdot summary suggests. Rather, it is just 20-year old "cap code" technology enlarged to be more easily visible in high-compressed pirated copies.

Cap code was "designed to uniquely mark film prints so that pirated copies could be traced to the source." Originially the dots were small enough that compression obscured them out of usability.

I've seen some pirated movies, and in my opinion, a few splotches on a few frames isn't going to screw them up a whole lot. They already tend to look and sound bad.

Re:The real solution

[GoRK]

I can see macrovision a little bit -- enough that the pulsating brightness bugs me -- even on my new (within the last 3 years) tv. Turning it off on the DVD player noticably improves picture quality. I had to use a macrovision remover unit to even hook a DVD player up to my girlfriend's TV as it's totally unwatchable (by everyone - not just me) without one. Neither of us even HAVE a vcr. Is your point bogus or am I just a freak?

Image of Dots

[Inda]

http://www.vcdquality.com/image.php?id=18919

Re:Didn't see it

[andy@petdance.com]

No such law exists.

See http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp for more.

No, you haven't RTFA.

[Jammer@CMH]

They're not talking about "Cigarette Burns" before reel changes, but unique marking codes indended to allow one to deduce which theatre allowed a given MPEG or DIVX to be made.

Here's a screenshot

[Cyclone66]

Ok there's not much usefull info in this thread so I'll try to add some :) Exhibit A: screenshot with dots
You can see the big T shape in the upper middle part of the image.
Exhibit B: ...ok that's my only exhibit. Enjoy!

Re:Um, these were always there

[whoever57]

I remember an art teacher explaining to us way back in the day what these brown spots were for. Apparently, they're signals to the projectionist that it's time to change the reel soon.

Umm, well very rarely are they brown spots. Some 25 years ago, I ran a 35MM projector, showing 4 features per week at a university to several hundred viewers.

Very, very, rarely, did the prints have brown dots towards the end of the reel. Mostly, there were white dots where I, or another projectionist, had scratched the emulsion off the print.

The first set of dots was to indicate that the other projector should be started up (it takes time for the projector to come up to the correct speed) and the second set was the changover signal.

A reel lasted about 20 minutes, so the average film was 5-6 reels.

Burst Cutting Area

[yerricde]

DVDs that you buy in the stores are pressed (instead of burned), so by definition they all end up having the same image.

It's possible for stamped DVDs to include up to 188 bytes of individual data in the Burst Cutting Area. To get an idea of what BCA markings look like, turn over a GameCube disc and look for a fine 1.2mm wide "barcode" that overlaps the inner edge of the data area. Though DVD Video does not use the BCA, the forthcoming DVD HD Video specification may require decoders to read decryption key and serial number information from the BCA and add watermarks to the decoded picture.

Thank you, Slashdot!

[lone_marauder]

I feel much better now that I know I'm not crazy. I totally saw this in Underworld every time a large portion of the screen featured a solid light color, even though my wife insisted I was hallucinating. It looked like a pattern of six dots, two rows of three dots, flashing on the screen. Drove me up the frickin wall.

Re:Okay, so now they know. Now what?

[Gaijin42]

Actually, the article said this was for identification, not screwing up compression.

They said they are using bigger dots, because they want them to still be visible AFTER compression. If they used the normal small dots, they might be washed out by the compression, and then unusable.

Well, probably they want both, but the article didn't mention anything about screwing up the compression ratio.

In underworld

[SolemnDragon]

you're looking for a spot that appears for about 2-5 seconds. It's big; keep an eye on the left-hand side of the screen, and it's not going to be bright red, rather a reddish brown colour, ovalish in shape with a distinct edge. It appears and disappears in much the same way- and frequency- that the reel change markers do. You'll see it most distinctly when it appears against a concrete wall in the upper left while Celine is in the right-hand side of the screen. I wish i'd taken closer note of what scenes it appears in, but i was distracted by seeing it at all. I thought that it was maybe damage to the reels, as sometimes happens. But i distinctly remember it because i couldn't see any reason for it being there, and reel damage would have been intermittent (flashing) if it were local to a spot on the reel (like a pinprick through layers) or continuous top-to-ottom, like a scratch...

Maybe it says something about the movie, if i was paying that much attention to a random flaw on the screen...