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

Okay, so now they know. Now what?

[preric]

Let's pretend I sneak a video camera (yes, I know it's more technical, trying to make a point) in my local theater and record the film, then run home, encode it and upload it to the world.

The movie company then downloads the film, see's the spots and tracks it to my theater. Now what? Are they going to shake down the theater owners, untill they install security and metal detectors?

How does this really prevent anything, aside from viewers like me having just ANOTHER excuse to wait until the DVD comes ou and rent that, rather then deal with tampered film (among the other lame problems of theater viewing, like ticket prices, travel, lines, food, seating, etc)?

Just Remove the Frame?

[goofy183]

Um ... so I think I'm missing somthing. Whats stopping someone from using a diagnostic tool (since DivX is multipass now) from finding points where the compression goes to crap and just cutting out the bad frame? Yeah it's a LITTLE more work but as most compressing jobs take on the order of several hours I don't see why the pirating groups wouldn't do it to save the output quality.

I don't care

[EvilStein]

If I ever download a movie, it's so I can watch some of it and decide if it's worth shelling out the $30 to go see. It's about $30 because:$9 for me, $9 for my g/f, and the rest for popcorn/etc.
Can't bring in outside food or drink anymore. Can't even bring in a backpack, either - post 9/11 fears and "anti-piracy measures" gone too far.

I don't care if the movie looks like crap on my computer. I'm not interested in keeping most movies anyway. If I like it, I'll go see it in the theatre or wait for the DVD.

This really isn't a bad thing. Heck, since the MPAA is purposely altering movies, maybe they should go ahead and let us download stuff and leave p2p alone. If the stuff on p2p is of such low-quality, what is the big problem?

Oh, the problem is that we'll watch it and realize that the movie sucks and we won't shell out $$ to go see it.
I wish I could have my money back from John Carpenter's "Vampires" - aside from 1 hot nude chick, that movie was a total waste of time and money.

Re:bleh

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

They are for reel changes, not scene changes. I worked as a projectionst in the 60's. In those days, a movie consisted of 6 - 10 reels of film, each reel being 15-20 minutes long. You had 2 projectors, one running the current reel, the other threaded up and ready to run the next. A bell would ring on the first projector when you got down to 1-2 minutes of time left. Then you'd go over and light the carbon arc on the second projector and start looking for the cue mark.

At the first cue mark, 8 seconds from the end of the reel, you'd roll the second projector and uncap the arc lamp. At the second cue mark, you'd close a shutter on the first projector, open the shutter on the second, and throw the sound feed over the the second.

After you changed over to the other projector, you had to shut off the carbon arc, unload and rewind the film on the first projector, thread it up with the next real, check the carbon arcs, and go back to sleep for 10 minutes.

And yeah, I still always see the cue marks.

555

[1u3hr]

Actually, there are real 555 numbers, though they aren't issued to normal subscribers. See NANPA: Number Resource Information: 555 Line Numbers which lists them. (And for a list of movie 555s, see the 555-list.)

I researched this a year ago when working out a fake number to use in a book, and finally have the opportunity to share this worthless information...

Re:No, it isn't lossy at all...

[Admiral1973]

I bought St. Anger just for the free music. I listened to the album once and wasn't too impressed, but the free music on the web site wasn't bad. It's three full concerts from 1994-1998, with the audio taken right from a mixing board. So you don't get the crowd noise (and you really miss it in songs like "Master of Puppets") but the sound quality isn't too bad. And since I paid $13 for the album and got three concerts of good songs thrown in, I think I spent my money well.