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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."
Is this going to affect my ability to bring in and drink beer at the movie theater?
stuff
...they misspelled "infrared"
Way to market to idiots.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
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.
I take it you have never been to a movie theater. Thats how movies there always are.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
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.
I believe that's a monacle. The guy also has a large canvas bag with "$" marked on it in the seat next to him, under his top hat.
Huge scrolling LED sign, behind the screen, that constantly scrolls the message "TAKE YOUR FUCKING CAMERA OUT OF HERE" all through the movie.
Simple, I learned this from Murdoch on the A-Team.
All you need to do is take a polaroid of the movie theatre from the detector's perspective, then affix something to prop up the polarioid in front of the detector. Voila!
--- What
Will the update system be called "EyePatch"?
do not read this line twice.
then stop emmiting photons. Your are the one polluting us with your sight.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
If it's tampered with, a call center is notified.
I guess the pirates have nothing to be afraid of then. Nothing useful ever came out of talking to a call center.
Random and weird software I've written.
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.
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!
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"
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.
Do you actually have one?
I would be doubtful as to the usefulness of that product given the only other item for sale is a high power laser pointer for ticking off birds.
WTF!?
They call it an "Avian Dissuader®" but I call it FRICKING HILARIOUS!
So is their write-up:
It is a Class IIIb laser with the right optics to create a concentrated beam that does not leave birds guessing.
What do they mean it doesn't leave birds guessing? It sure leaves me guessing.
Just what exactly do they expect the birds to do after you blind them with a laser? Fly south?
How exactly is the bird supposed to have any sort of stimulus-response reaction? It's not as if they know where that laser is coming from.
Life is too short to proofread.