Theaters vs. Camcorders, Round 27

ackthpt writes "CNN is reporting two people, one in Los Angeles and one in Canada, were caught recording The Day After Tomorrow in cinemas, while a third got away. No mention if night-vision goggles, as previously mentioned, were of assistance." Reader azmatsci writes "Tuesday Sony was issued a patent for technology that will attempt to block camcorder recordings in movie theaters. Funny to me because I just came up with the same idea and discovered it while doing a patent search. Only problem with the idea is it will only block camcorders that use CCD recorders, which are sensitive to IR light. Another jamming idea which probably work for all camcorders can be found here."

Comments

This won't help...

[Mz6]

A quick browse through some of the bit-torrent sites shows the vast majority of movies that are still in theaters ("Tomorrow" included) are TeleSync and Screener copies. So, while being able to stop camcorders from actually recording the cinema from your seat seems like the best solution, it still doesn't stop those that are getting the feed directly from the projector booth or those that have other means of obtaining the film.

I am not sure what the best solution would be. It's very hard to stop piracy on these types of thigns because of how many hands they cross when being produced. Most movies created these days require outside influence for CGI enhancements. From there it gets shown to have the music soundtrack added.. Include test audiences (and those that screen it for them), previews to movie theater employees and you have so many leaks along the chain you sometimes don't know where to start. This also isn't all inclusive of the movie industry either... The music industry suffers the same fate, albeit the music is a lot easier to take than a full-length movie.

Good!

[devphaeton]

Maybe i won't have a popular opinion on this, but i'm happy they were caught.

I love all our priveleges and i dig our open source OSes and software, but i don't feel everything should be free.

Let the slashdot hypocracy follow:

Defeatable, as usual?

[PktLoss]

In terms of putting UV projectors behind the screen or off to the side, cant you just get a UV filter and put it over the lens, to filter out all the ultra violet light?

And in terms of messing with the projection rate. All of the things they seek to exploit stem from the fact that the human eye doesn't see descrete frames, it sort of blurs them togethor. Couldn't the people using the camcorders decrease the shutter speed to accomplish basically the same thing?

whatever...

[HBI]

Can you say "waste of time and money"? Who is going to choose a camcorder copy of a film over actually seeing it? That's right - those who weren't going to see it in the first place anyway.

If I can't at least check out the film beforehand i'm probably not going to pay at the box office either. Hollywood has pretty much set themselves up for this, with all the crappy movies they let out the door yearly.

I'll wait for the DVD and rent. They get minimum $$ out of my pocket, which is my goal. Most of the sheeple don't have the willpower to do so, sadly. Things might change if they did.

Re:whatever...

[FattMattP]

I'll wait for the DVD and rent.

Renting the DVDs has a lot of benefits over going to the theatre:

• It costs the same or less to rent a movie than to see it in the theatre. All of your friends can come over and you can all watch it without having to pay more.
• You can start the movie when you want to instead of waiting for it to begin.
• You don't have to worry about getting a good seat and you and your friends can sit together (not always possible in a crowded theatre).
• No ringing cell phones and crying children.
• You don't have to be subjected to 30 second commercials before the previews and the movie.

I find myself going to the theatre less and less. The only benefit is a big screen and decent sound system and that doesn't hold much appeal compared to all of the down sides one has to deal with.

The thing that pisses me off the most is movie theatres that are showing several 30 second commercials after the slide show and before the previews. It pisses me off because I paid almost $10 to see the movie but now I'm a captive audience practically forced to watch these commercials. If I'm going to have to see ads, why isn't the movie free?

I figure that having captive eyeballs to see your 30 second spot is easily worth $10 per person who sees it. So for each commercial I have to view before a movie, I consider myself entitled to watch one for free that I've downloaded from the net.

Up to no good.

[ackthpt]

Will these people go to jail, or just get a slap on the wrist?

Assuming 'Intent' must be proven, maybe a quick ransac^H^H^H^H^H^Hsearch of their homes by the gest^H^H^H^Hauthorities could turn up a system and evidence of previous nefarious activity. I'm sure somewhere beyond the usual warning 'Use of recording devices is forbidden, yada yada yada' there are some teeth to back the warning up.

I also doubt 'Fair Use' has a twig to lean on here..."Hey, I was just capturing it in case I missed a part and wanted to rewind and see it again *during* the movie."

Re:yes!

[Nogami_Saeko]

Well, the problem would be that it's trivially easy to put an IR filter in front of the lens?

But ya, Cams suck. I watched a few to see what they looked like, and the quality is poor, the audio sucks, etc.

If you've got a kickass 5.1 surround system with a DLP projection system, there's no reason to waste your time with "copies from theatres" anyway.

N.