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Automatic Scanning for Cameras in Theaters
An anonymous reader writes "A Florida firm claims to have found a solution for the movie industry to prevent bootlegging in theaters. Tom's Hardware carries a story about Trakstar, which demonstrated its 'PirateEye' technology in a Hollywood movie theater to journalists and movie industry representatives: The technology uses light impulses to detect video recording devices. A second component is an audio watermarking system."
Reminds me of the Thunderbirds puppet shows, they had a Camera Detector in TB1. Red blinking light with a beep tone.
It's another case of life imitating art.
Ahh yes, the solution to bootlegging in theatres. How much of a problem is this anyway, though? I've seen copies of movies taken by some guy with a camcorder... the audio quality is always lousy, people chatter in the background, and there is invariably some big guy who takes a popcorn break right in the middle of the movie. We won't get into the video aspect, which is dog awful. Sounds like someone solving a non-problem, as usual.
The real issue are those screeners, which they've made some progress with (I hear), and the people who work in the theatres, which will be difficult. I doubt someone getting paid close to minimum wage is going to care about your IP. Watermarking sounds promising.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Let's turn this technology around for our use in civil liberties; thus, making the product a threat. I would like to have this in a backpack. Imagine if it could detect a camera from several hundred yards and direct a laser (preferably mounted on a shark) to that camera thwarting intrusive surveillance. Yeah lets see how long until the Men in Black would allow this.
But really, the issue at hand is cameras in theaters. Is the bootleg market that big? I have seen some movies that were recorded with a camcorder and they were funnier to watch the action of recording than the movie. The market has to adjust to the viewing habits; it appears people may want to watch new movies using alternative methods (aka internet). Don't most movies nowadays make more money from DVD sales then the actual movie? I wonder if the movies were released simultaneously to theaters, DVD, video on demand, video of Internet, etc if this would be an issue?
Now lets bring the two views together from paragraph 1 and 2. Just as the public sector adapt to use changing technology, the movie industry needs to adapt to the situation.
Looks like it's also being promoted as a tool to prevent employees from doing the pirating themselves: the "PirateEye" camcorder detector and the "TrakStar TVS" audio watermarking system, ostensibly installed by theater management, are apparently connected, and if one is disconnected from the other, loses power, or is otherwise tampered with, TrakStar's call center (a paid service, I'm sure) is notified, which can then make an independent decision to call security: Is the movie supposed to be exhibited now? Is the anti-piracy equipment still intact and functioning? This is in addition to the tracking information that audio watermarking can provide (i.e., to certain theaters and certain times, narrowly identifying "offenders").
You can bet a company like this is angling to position itself to be EVERYWHERE, much like Macrovision - and then, one wonders if "offending" theaters will be punished by, say, having new releases withheld?
http://trakstar.net/solutions.htm
Is this going to affect my ability to bring in and drink beer at the movie theater?
If and when it gets used in Theatres?
Ummmnnn.... was that a rhetorical question?
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
I really really cant understand people content with the quality of these recordings! Its absurdly bad!
stuff
i thinx cameras are the lest of the movie industry's worry . try patching up the holes were the screeners are comming from first.
.. is a brute-force attack against CCD's and other camera optics.
Some sort of electronic/optical flash system that, when activated, overblows CCD's, or otherwise interferes with their operation.
Then I could sell it to guys like this and make a fortune...
(And before you liberties people get started, I believe I have a right to not get my picture taken, when I want not to get my picture taken..)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
...they misspelled "infrared"
Way to market to idiots.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Once the DVD's hit the shelves in any country, the stuff will be on the net anyway.
Sharing it could become easier and safer also: I2P --- an anonymous onion-routing network --- now has a functional BitTorrent client that functions completely within I2P (tracker, peer-to-peer traffic, everything).
For those on I2P, get it here: http://duck.i2p/i2p-bt/files/i2p-bt-0.1.0.tgz (this URL only works when you're running I2P).
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This page shows photos of the "PirateEye in Action".
Can anyone figure out what's the deal with the "cyborg eye" man on the right?
to the "anti-sniper" technology Sony was selling at the DHS/AT-FP convensions? (I've been googling for the last 5 minutes, cant find a link damnit)
What it does, when the "anti-sniper" camera detects a multiple array lenses (minimum 2) the area will flash a green circle (similiar to the night vision color) around the suspected target.
From what I understand, its available to the public market as well!
Now can they invent some kind of device that detects shitty movies? A shitty footage detector could be used during shooting and editing to stop shitty movies before they start.
The companion shitty dialogue filter would be indispensible as well.
This still won't work because all the good movies rips come from France or England.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
They move mass DVD fabrication into the US where they can really punish people for making a second run to sell on street corners for a couple bucks? Seriously, the brown dots are pretty fucking gay. They are QUITE conspicuous, and with movie prices being what they are, someone like me really needs to take a look at exactly what is to be gained from seeing a movie a week (for about 10 years). And now they want to add strobes and tones? Are they trying to get me to pirate movies, so I can have the satisfaction of putting lying painters out of work? Cause if that's they genious plan, they're pretty close to realizing their goal.
Okay, reading the scanty information they provide seems to indicate that it does its trick by bathing the room with IR light.
Somehow the camera is supposed to respond to this. My knee jerk reaction was that all you needed to do was put tape over the remote control sensor and you would be good to go.
But they would undoubtedly have thought to create a system more resistant to spoofing than that. So I am stumped. I assume they are relying on some response from the lens? The feature list says it can't be fooled by pinhole cameras or even filters on the lenses, so thats what I base my guess on.
Anyone with more information care to speak up?
Which i thought was pretty funny. Read
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
The equipment is designed to be installed by theater management, and ALWAYS be running. If it's tampered with, a call center is notified. And if any "detections" are made, the same call center is notified, and then a live person makes the decision to notify the local theater's security and management. If it's not tampered with AND a camera detection isn't made, then the audio portion has a watermark that contains the exact theater and time the recording was made. See my post here.
...if it detects a video camera in the theaters is stop the film, turn the lights on, and make an announcement that there is a person in the theater who is illegally recording the movie and this is the cause for the delay. The movie will commence once the perpetrator has been identified and leaves the theater. Come to think of it, this system should search for obnoxious kids and cell phones too.
as long as they don't find my well place toilet voyeur cams i'll be okay with this! So does this mean popcorn and soda will now be $15 a pop instead of just $5??
I read slashdot for the sigs...
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Fuehrer Michael forgot to censor one link to the Google Dupe story: Google Cranks Up Index. Google News has a few words: http://news.google.com/news?q=google cranks index slashdot. People need to mirror this so that his fascism can be resisted. Here's a coral cache mirror. This is a sad day for Slashdot; never before has an entire article been pulled.
First of all, detection of a recording device is impossible as long as the recorder does not send anything, just like it's impossible to detect any kind of passive eavesdropping, notwithstanding the quantum cryptography where by the very definition of measurement any observation is inherently active. Second of all, I fail to see how is it going to help "scan" for cameras set by the cinema operators themselves, for no one records a movie for serious bootleg operations using his camera phone in a crowd for Christ's sake. Third of all, I refuse to go to amy cinema which "uses light impulses" which can be potentially damaging to my poor eye sight, nor will I risk an epileptic attack. In short, they propose a dangerous technical solution to the social problem addressing not the right people which they should address in the first place. In order to introduce said pointless and dumb technology, they are going to raise the proces even further, making people even less likely to pay for a movie. In other words, it's a Very Bad Idea.(TM)
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
...will scan for people bringing outside drinks and snacks into the theater.
ST:TNG Episode 106. When Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) and Ensign Robin (Ashley Judd -yummy) develop a strobe-light sequence to counteract the effects of a mind-controlling VR game.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
But you must admit that this gives you the real cinema feeling. If there was a smell of popcorn and artificial butter it would be undistinguishable from a real cinema...
Watermarking sounds promising.
Watermarking? Sounds like something my dog also finds interesting.
I don't need a signature.
That's a coincidence. My eyes use "light impulses" to see. So do cameras. Are we going to see another stupid patent now: "a method of procuring the location of objects by sensing light impulses"?
Rig a small halogen projector bulb to a make-shift heat shield on a baseball cap, and hook it up to the a properly assembled circuit and car battery you carry around in a backpack, or rolling carry-on luggage. Put the switch where you can reach it. Look like a complete freak everywhere you go, insuring everyone will remember you. Especially when you don't want to be picked up on cameras and you turn your gadget on. Remember be careful, spilling acid on yourself, or setting yourself on fire is almost always a bad idea, no matter what MTV might lead you to believe.
I am just counting down to the point when someone releases a filter to block all light on this wavelength. You might even be able to make one with stuff you can currently buy at the DIY shop. This would not effect the filming because the light it would filter is not visible. To this 'detector' the camera's lens with the filter would show as a black blob (non-detectable).
This technology will be really easy to block.
Why don't the theater owners strategically place high output infrared (LEDs) light sources behind the screens. Since most of the screens are full of holes, it should allow enough infrared light through to severly mess up the image recorded by the camcorders.
For those that don't understand, CCD cameras are highly sensitive to infrared light and will produce a white hotspot. Try it some time with your camcorder.. press a button on a remote while holding it infront of the camera and watch the results in the viewfinder. The higher output the IR, the bigger and more pronounced the hotspot would be.
Sure is really creative ripping or should i say to steal the layout of their page directly from macromedia, how's that for anti-piracy :)
I don't think Brody is going to like this new development!
http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheLittleKicks.htm
The movie people seem to be as dumb as they music people. The way Internet file sharing works is that you only need one source. Just one person with a camera, to distribute a movie around the globe. So protecting a few movie screens with this tech will not accomplish a damn thing. Just like the music industry, who spends so much time, money, and effort on poorly securing digital files, while at the same time it releases a lossless copy of the same content on an unprotected format.
So if I pay to go to a cinema, rather than download a copy of the movie from the Web, they're going to mess up the picture and mess up the audio in order to make sure I don't tape it with a camcorder?
Can someone remind me why I'd want to go to one of these cinemas?
This is useless. Even if it works as advertised (doubtful), it would have to be installed in _all_ theatres. Not going to happen. And even then, nothing prevents an "inside job" involving an employee "borrowing" the film print and running it in a private home screening room (yes, private 35mm screening rooms do exist).
As for the watermarking thing, I don't see it being any more useful than the existing CAP code that is printed on film prints. Distributors are _not_ going to have separate soundtrack negatives made for each print (would more than double the cost of each print--already in the $1500 range). If it instead required inserting a device between the cinema's sound processor and the amplifiers in the house, that will also not happen, due to the wide variety of cinema sound systems in use.
Besides, no sane theatre owner would pay for this anyway. He's not the one losing out to piracy (for the most part) and theatre owners are notoriously cheap.
I've never taped the movies i went to but now the movie theather will be taping *ME*!
Come on, no more banging on the last rows? Ok, I read Slashdot, not much banging anyway...
.. and erase the film memories from the brains of the cinema visitors when such a tech is discovered?
;)
I think its my god-given right to 'remember' what I see, even if I use some litle gadget to 'help' myself
I want a mobile detector that scans for cameras in any room. A parallax-guided laser response is left as an exercise to the reader.
--
make install -not war
Network television announces a new television series: PirateEye for the Copying Guy
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
First, I find it humerous that a number of the first people to post comments all mentioned that they had watched pirated movies.
/.'s readership is known for, I find that interesting.
Second, I have not seen a single post that adequately states how this technology really works. Given the level of technical ability
My guess? CCD cameras almost always use an infrared filter. They have to or the color gets screwed up. This technology bathes the theater in infrared light and the camera simply picks up the reflection off of the filter. Take off the filter and you mess up the image. Keep it on, and your camera glows.
...and wrap it around your head, shiny side out. That will protect you against *any* type of camera. You'll become absolutely invisible to cameras. Guaranteed.
Here is a good overview on laser/light-based and other techniques:
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1187/MR1187. appc.pdf
From the document: Laser systems that illuminate potential hiding places, or "hides," and detect retro-reflections from the sniper's scope are referred to as optical augmentation systems. These systems have the advantage of possibly detecting the sniper before he fires his weapon. The downside is that the sniper can employ antireflection filters that selectively block the wavelength of the laser. Tunable lasers may reduce the effectiveness of blocking filters in the future.
All those movie and copy protections are so worthless. If there's somewhere one leak in the system (there always is) and one person uses that to put the movie online... there you go. Same with music and software protection.
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
Really? How much is this deal there and how many normal, or maybe a bit run down theatres, will actually spend the money on this? There will always be pirated movies, doesn't matter if people put this in their theatres or not... I for one say that not many movie theatres will do this, or at least there will be enough of them that won't put that in there.
Based on the pirated films that acquaintences may have described viewing, which of the following do you perceive as the likely source of the majority of these dubs?
1) screening releases are already on DVD and easy to copy
2) reels go by sneakernet out to the van for conversion to video and then back to the projection booth.
3) projectionist sets up a camera and dubs from the booth
4) hustler with camera sits in audience and dubs a copy.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
I watched one once. The keyword there is one. It was really pointless. Not exactly a high fidelity experience. I guess if some people really desire the cinematic equivalent of a crack whore, each to his own.
Far better to just wait and copy the DVD from Netflix. ;-)
--- Ban humanity.
here
Here's a simple, possibly flawed idea. Install some high powered IR emitters around the screen. Most CCD cameras I've played with picked up invisible to the naked eye IR (like from a TV remote) as very bright white light. A halo of IR emitters, (possibly strobes?) shouldn't be noticeable by you and me sitting in the theater, but for an unfiltered camera would really wreck any quality of picture possible.
Is the sharing of "handycam" pirated movies really so much of a problem? This smells to me like a smart company marketing a product to an industry that still doesn't seem to "get" what's happening.
I see news stories all the time about these "bandits" being caught in cinemas with recording devices - but anyone I know who downloads movies deletes anything that turns out to have been recorded this way. Instead, the vast, vast majority of the content available on p2p networks are high quality rips from the screener DVD produced to market the film before its release.
Most of the time, these versions are not only of far higher quality but are available online days or even weeks before the film is even in theaters.
If the cinemas really want to "solve" this problem, maybe they should lean on their distributors a little to change their obscene pricing so the tickets don't need to cost so much and the establishments don't need to inflate refreshments so ludicrously to maintain profitability.
Will the update system be called "EyePatch"?
do not read this line twice.
You mean if it was set to detect single lenses it could detect every geek within a mile?
Where are my tinfoil specs.
First off, any refractive surface is also reflective at the right angle. Since all cameras include at least one refractive surface in the lens, this can be isolated for a reflection. So, therefore it is not impossible to detect passive videorecording because video is much different than audio in the fact that it does not reliably bounce off of most surfaces, requiring a direct line-of-sight between the recorder and subject.
However, it may be true that it will not be set to scan the projecting area. This would probably be difficult because it's behind a window and next to a very large directed light source (the projector.)
Even though you may not be willing to subject yourself to "light impulses" and such, there are many, many consumer sheep willing to do so--with their knowledge or without. So therefore, your dollar vote matters not.
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
Imagine audio watermarking television programs by the customer. Imagine if your HD programs on the premium channels are audio watermarked so that if you copy them, release them onto the web, that they'll be able to track you down. Actually, this would be very fair since once you release them onto the web, it's not personal use anymore.
A quick visit to suprnova.org lists many screeners and much better digital quality movies that arent handheld captured from a theater. They should look in their own backyard and find out who leaks these movies instead of concentrate on shitty quality handhelds.
I'm sick of trying to download a movie whose description claims it is a DVD extract only to find that it's really the product of some jackass with a camcorder. I'm not talking about current release movies either, I know better than to expect them on DVD. I'm talking about movies that are a year old or more and have been out on DVD for at least half that long.
If people are going to share camcorder rips they should label them as such so that those of us who care about quality can avoid them. At the very least they should not lie and claim the movies are DVD rips.
I am of course speaking completely hypothetically. I NEVER download movies from the internet, no way, not me, not ever.
Since the system appears to detect only a camera lens, and not an active recording, why not attach a few lenses to your jacket (k001 l334 badgez, right), etc. After the "human verification" agent checks out a few hundred false alarms, the system fails.
ALso, I hope they aren't trying to trademark all the quoted phrases on ther web page.....
on a tripod.
Admittedly, I didn't read the story, I just jumped to the "demonstration." The demo seemed less than impressive as it showed that the "Pirate Eye" thing, found two shady looking characters sittinging in an oterwise empty theater sitting next to a tripod with a couple of large popcorn bags sitting on top with holes cut in them.
Now certainly a less sophisticated detection method could be used to weed these guys out.
All people will do is start selling components for cameras that disable/foil these "detection" devices. Surveillance and Counter-surveillance.
The capacity of some kid coming up with a simple solution that works is much higher then the corporate execs who keep trying to fight them.
I remeber when I worked in a movie theater 79'ish, the projectionist said he go two copies of a movie when they mad orders. One was shown on the screen and the other walked out the back door.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
One way (almost the only way) it can work (to my naive mind) is if it's looking for a spectral component assoc. with CCD litho or possibly p/n junctions or .x mm-sized diffractive features. IOW, it's looking for an optical characteristic specific to a chip. Big tautology, but i'm a simple mind...
This suggests that if we were to deploy a handful of EEPROM-typ chips (the UV-erasable things with the little windows) around the theater, we could probably spoof the system with false positives.
it's a thought.
The CCD sensor array in a digital camera is sensitive to IR light. This is easily shown.. Take your webcam, plug it in and get it to display what it sees on your computer screen. Point an IR remote control at it and hit a button. You'll see a white/red flash on the camera's output.
CCD's see IR, people don't. So if they flood the room with IR from several locations, it'll ruin any digital recording devices ability to see the film without affecting your ability to see it. This works for all camcorders, more or less.
You could use a lens that filters the IR out to prevent this from working though, and it's a short step to figuring that out too.
As far as the detection portion of that goes, I have no idea how that would work.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Ok, if these guys are so worried about piracy, where do they get off stealing macromedia's website?
If you bring them up side by side, it's pretty obvious they copied their layout. No, it wasn't a direct file copy. Macromedia's site is better, more Anti-aliased, better colors, cleaner. But it's pretty clear what their designers were looking at while they designed the site.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Screeners suck anyway. I'd love it if someone introduced a technology to keep them to a minimum. The REALLY cool thing about this technology is that you'll be able to use it to know if there is a hidden camera somewhere. Screw the theater. Wait til you can use this technology to find hidden camera's anywhere.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
If I find out a movie theatre I'm patronizing uses this Pirate Eye technology, I'll take a few snaps with my camera phone in every movie I attend, just to keep those call center people on their toes.
...is that EVERY THEATER IN THE COUNTRY (or at least the city) be on board with this.
"Gee, the new theatre downtown has that new IR technology? Hmm...guess I'll pirate movies uptown, then."
This is a pretty good example of a chain being only as strong as it's weakest link. 90% of theaters could put this technology in, and get essentially NO benefit--the COST is that the bootlegs (in theory) impact sales at ALL theaters, not just the one where the bootlegging took place.
How is this supposed to work? I can imagine only two ways in which a watermark could be implemented:
A) The audible component of the sound is mixed with some sort of signal. Result: the sound becomes distorted, and if you're going to make sure the signal gets through it has to have a high amplitude, meaning strong distortions.
B) The inaudible component is used as a carrier wave (ultra- or infra-sound) which means it will not be recorded by audio equipment designed to mimic the human ear or by a compression algorithm that removes signals not noticeable to the ear (mp3, AAC, basically all lossy codecs).
So it either interferes with my enjoyment of the movie (which means I will not put up with it) or it is worthless. Great idea.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
The anti-pirate camera is filming the reflection off of the IR filter on the camcorder. Most modern camcorders use chips that are ultra-sensitive to IR wavelengths. In order to block it, filters are installed behind the lens. By beaming an IR lightsource into the theater, you can pick up any filter in the audience-- it will glow light a flame.
Remember the Sony "nightvision" cameras that caused the uproar over filming through clothes? The camera had the ability to shunt the IR filter to the side and film in near-infrared.
Or at least, H'wood might look at alternative delivery methods, since people are apparently tired of high-fidelity delivery. Video on demand, anybody?
But I'm not sure the cinema experience is obsolete, yet. I think it's inseparable from the movies, even if you just want to out in the dark.
I never understood why people bothered wasting money on crappy camcorder bootlegs; I saw a bootleg Shrek 2 recently and at the end of it wasn't sure if I'd seen the movie at all. Certainly it wasn't enjoyable.
you had me at #!
Movie costs are high enough as it is. This technology, and call center costs will ultimately be pushed onto the consumer. As mentioned, movie recordings from a camcorder are utter crap. The sound is muffled, the colors often out of preportion, and you get all the audience crap, only worse. A bigger threat would be the dvd rips, that come out before the movie is released in theaters, or while it is in theaters.
M. hankie le tue dans un ajustement de la fureur lors de le trouver molester kenny dans le dos du cafétéria!!!
I know it might work, and possibly might lead them to catch a few people...
But really, I don't see how it's possible for the cost of this device in every theatre with the ongoing cost of monitoring is going to ever be cost effective. I guess the theaters wont mind though, they'll just charge $10 a ticket instead of $7. My condolences to those of you that already pay that much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
According to Gladstone, the audience does not notice the scanning progress. "The impulses are only 20 ms in length. Neurons in the brain need about 40 ms to recognize the light source. And the head normally will turn after 200 ms.
Is that anything like the horrible brown dots we're not supposed to be able to see? I stopped going to movies when they started doing that. I can't imagine how distracting a strobe light flashing in your face might be.
The only way I can think of you can detect a camera is a "red eye" effect. To make it not disturbing for viewers you have to make it invisible and so much less effective as the cameras have IR cutoff filters inside. So there are at least 2 things that can be done about that:
1. Use additional high quality dielectric IR cutoff filters in front of the camera lens and
2. Make fun of them - take pieces of reflective tape (maybe cut as circels) or bycicle reflectors and stick them to the walls and chairs in the theater. Make it look as there are dozens of cameras recording the show!
I can't quite see being beaten up by a rampaging squad of baton wielding, pimply faced, pubescent males because some idiotic system deterted my glasses (well their lenses.)
No music (RIAA pissed me off once too often, and, for the most part, the music sucks.)
No TV, (puh-leez,I have a brain and my IQ is not in remission.)
Now No going to the movies to be surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs (its only a movie "Buford", put down the pistol, and stop talkin' at the screen; they can't hear ya,) and/or screaming kids ruining The Incredibles or Team America (specially Team America! which was DEFINITELY NOT a kiddie movie. GOD! If YOU brought 'em to Team America, just how cheap are you? Didn't want to spend the money on a sitter and now your wife [remember her? She's the one they'll investgate first when you have your 'huntin accident'] is going to have to explain why that man/puppey was being sick after drinking. Not to mention the two puppets going at it hammer and thongs with ever variation in the Kama Sutra.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
In the end they'll probably mind wipe us before leaving the theatre to make sure that nothing of the movie goes out through the door.
-- This tag is looking for a new poster
The camera had the ability to shunt the IR filter to the side and film in near-infrared.
If you put this filter/beamsplitter in front of the lens you could reflect the IR from the anti-pirate system off to the side, much like a stealth plane reflects radar to somewhere other than the detector. A little bit of careful beamsplitter/filter selection and the camera is invisible again, and can still see the screen.
Then they'll start putting detectors all over the theater to catch the light that pirates reflected off to the side, and the pirates will start bouncing the light to the side and into a cavity where it's absorbed, and the detector people will look for the missing energy, and it will go on and on, and as the pirates have to get more sophisticated they'll start being producing even better quality bootlegs, and getting into a movie will be worse than going through airport security, which will make otherwise avid moviegoers want bootlegs even more....
Why don't they just release movies all over at about the same time and save everyone the trouble?
Well, at least grandpa will still be able to pirate movies using his good ol' Super 8.
"The impulses are only 20 ms in length. Neurons in the brain need about 40 ms to recognize the light source."
What garbage! By that reasoning, the flash from a camera ought to be invisible.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
That's kind of the attitude I get from them. Those damn customers are always screwing it up. They don't deserve to see our movie.
I have a better idea. Instead of dropping that $10 (Or whatever it is where you live) on the movie, why not poke around and see what live entertainment options you have? Chances are you could find some university play or even a rehersal at a bigger-name theater for that $10 and you might even be able to get cheap seats in the bigger-name theater for not much more than the movie would cost you. It's a lot of fun, and you won't be treated like a criminal for wanting to see a live performance.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
available to most theatre managers and projectionists. After all, when you pay all your staff the same minimum wage, there has to be some compensation for putting up with the extra BS.
The film canisters or DVDs, etc, goes out the back door sometime after the last show, ends up at a film/video dubbing chain somewhere (usually one of the smaller local broadasting outfits) with the admonishment that "that has to be back here by morning..."
Compensation accepted in the form of legal or illegal tender, upon transfer at the shipping door. Not that I would know, or anything.
Not quite sure what this is going to solve...
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
What happens if I am a cyborg, because I somehow lost one or two of my eyes, and the doctors replaced it or them with to high definiton cameras, and I have a hard disk inside my body? So, I am intrinsically a pirate? I dont agree with this technology, cause in this case is treating me, a person with a disabilitie, as a criminal!
felipe at cantv dot net
Two solutions, both of which are problably cheaper. 1) just have several night vision cameras mounted than can watch the audience during the showing. If monotored by the theater security, it would be very easy to stop anyone with any type of camera. 2) I personally dont have a camera, but my webcam is capable of viewing Infra-red light, so they could mountseveral IR flood lights around the thearer, and it would be like trying to record the sun, and blind the rest of the camera. Of course, there would be ways to avoide this, but just an idea.
...why don't they just install near infrared lights that shine dazzling images on the screen during the movie? Human eyeballs won't see it, but it'll mess up what most CCD-based video cameras see.
Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago.
As a former 5-year veteran of the PC game industry (I think that counts as veteran)... only someone who's been exposed to the industry less than a year could think to right this article. Of course it's totally on-target and correct, but it's SO omnipresent that no one who's been in it for a length of time would think to be so outraged.
Myself and friends (all with prior gaming experience) have had phone interviews where we were practically hung up on if we tried to put ANY limitations or boundaries on the hours we might work. Even to "reasonable" amounts of crunch time.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Science & Engineering Associates is a subsidiary partner of Apogen Technologies, who licensed this to Trakstar. They've been pretty busy in this area.
Agreed... But who has a pinhole video camera?
Pin hole lenses are the most simple form of lens to make. But if you are too lazy you can always buy one. A machined pin hole lens is likely to produce more consistent results, all you really need is a tube, black primer, a cover, and a pin. First year photography students are often taught to make pinhole cameras from a Quaker Oatmeal box. Spy Cameras are often just pinhole cameras but these tend to be piss poor quality.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
You can buy a handheld SpyFinder. Here's a customer review with a discussion of how it works. It uses two lasers, one on the optical axis and one slightly off it, run alternately at a few Hz. Things that have focusing optics followed by a flat reflective surface (which includes most cameras) will blink. Ordinary shiny things will not.
Here is some more information on hidden camera locators:
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http://www.dafh.org/gbppr/mil/hidden_cam/index.ht
This is stupid how can the theater idustry blame it's loss in profits on piracy when it can't attract an audiance due to there stone aged attempt at showing a film(why whould I pay to see analog video at home or in the theaters) seems like the theater industry is playing the blame game just like the music industry, Like the IR Idea better fix than paying an outside company and raise ticket prices
a patented technology, sold to every movie house in the world (because we all KNOW the MPAA will not release a movie to an unprotected theater), all at a nice tidy profit.
Of course, the movie theaters will have to raise their price to consumers to cover the costs.
Let's see:
Admission: Adult $35.00, Child $32.00
Popcorn : sm $14.95, med $21.95, lrg $38.49
Soft Drink: sm $8.95, med $12.95, lrg 19.95
So now all movie houses will know that anyone actually paying the price to sit and watch the crap flowing from Hollywood HAS to be a PIRATE.
Say you put a periscope on the camera with an IR filtering mirror. The mirror points down, so it's not like it'd reflect anything at the detector. This also solves the pulsing IR light problem, provided the filter works well enough.
:(
Just a thought.
The alternative is to wait for it to come out on DVD and copy that... I'm about 3 years behind on theatrical releases anyway, once it goes off "new release" at blockbuster, it's still new to me
Potential camcorder lenses are indicated on the computer screen with tiny red dots.
Is a piece of tape all it would take to get around this system? If so, I would have thought these people had more friggin' sense than that!
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Most IR filters work by reflecting the IR light away from the camera, which is how the system detects a camera in the first place as most cameras are sensitive to IR light and require a filter to be usable in normal conditions. There are IR filters that work by absorbing the IR light rather than reflecting it, but they are much more expensive. The increased cost is why most camcorders use reflective IR filters rather than absorbing IR filters.
This technology probably works. It just won't be deployed. And it won't take long for someone to circumvent it. People are very creative.
That's fine with me, as long as these absolutely ridiculous and draconian prison terms are dropped. 5-10 years? for fucks sake you could be filming yourself raping someone and get less time! If you have camera detection then you certainly don't need any sort of sentence for people who try and get cameras in. BTW didn't the Thunderbirds have a camera detector?
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A laser pointer will blind a CCD camera. Im too lazy to look for a link, but shine your laser pointer at your webcam and see what happens. Works great.
another way to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Many of the "bootlegged" movies I've seen I'm convinced are actually leaked by the industry for movies that don't push a lot of advertising for it. That aside come on movie industry, the movie trading hobby is just that - a hobby it doesn't keep us from seeing the movie especially when you consider the quality they usually are. If anything it makes more people interested in multimedia professions just like cracking games led people into programming careers and so on. What's next? Will they start confiscating people's cell phones when they enter the theatre because they may have a camera on it?
"According to Gladstone, the audience does not notice the scanning progress. "The impulses are only 20 ms in length. Neurons in the brain need about 40 ms to recognize the light source. And the head normally will turn after 200 ms"
An electronic camera flash strobe has a duration of about 40 microseconds, about 1000 times shorter than the time the "nuurons in the brain need to recognize the light source". Last time I checked, I can certainly see a camera flash when it goes off. I have built a stoboscope that pulses LEDs for 20 microseconds at a few hertz to a few hundred hertz. It is very visable.
Yes, I'm sure - the Thunderbirds all had camera detectors! I remember. They beeped if you pointed a camera at them - I'm sure I remember an episode where it happened. (I looked - try "Martian Invasion" .. you can look it up yourself if you like.
They could save a bunch of money and get on from Tracy and co.
"Cats like plain crisps"
I worked for several years for a post-production facility that had strong ties into the film industry. For review purposes they would crank out videos in NTSC and PAL formats to send to reviewers who could not attend viewings. We were all told that if anyone found out that we had copies of these (not yet in theaters) films, we'd be fired.
I was never tempted. I did see a lot of very new films at the facility as we also screened films for critics and I could go in to a screening whenever I wanted (BTW, a private screening is very nice as the print has been treated with kid gloves and the facility is ultra-comfortable).
While some of the material out on the streets is, indeed, taken from theaters with amateur mini-DV cameras, there are industry insiders who have much better access and it is those people who most probably do the most (and highest-quality) bootlegging.
The increase in bootlegging is driven by the decrease in the costs of copying media, not in more "artful dodgers."
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Hmmm, well I'm not sure if a can of spray paint or even some black tape count as far as tampering, but as far as killing detection it's just as effective (and unless they're monitoring with a person realtime, likely more effective).
Seeing that a mjority of the phones today have video recorders in them. How will that affect the scanning devices? Wouldnt that put in a false call the to center it notifies?
To rational folks, this system is retarded, because the best-quality movies you can download off of Suprnova or wherever are DVD rips made by the employees of the production and distribution companies, from DVD copies that are produced internally for various purposes. Some of these copies don't even identify themselves as screeners, so for all intents and purposes, they're perfect copies.
Camcorder rips are crappy by comparison, but the general public can create them, so the studios loudly go after them. This makes them look good to, well, someone, I suppose. I hope they're making the same internal efforts to prevent their employees from committing piracy, but I don't think they've got a chance in hell of ever actually stopping it.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Okay... so how do they keep it from triggering on the eyes of everyone in the theater? All eyes are are biological cameras --- all cameras are are mechanical eyes.
You should update your signature. Discussions (including journal entries) are archived after a week or two and posting is not allowed anymore after that time. Currently, nobody would be able to "sign" your proposal (which is a good proposal, btw).