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Audio Watermarks Could Pinpoint Film Pirates By Seat
Slatterz points out a brief mention at PC Authority of a story at Torrent freak about using watermarking embedded in movies' soundtracks to reveal the exact location of camera-wielding bootleggers in a theater; the inventors (here's an abstract of their paper) claim it's accurate to within 44 centimeters.
While this sounds cool from a technical perspective, it would be easy to circumvent by plugging a remote microphone into the camera.
Also, wouldn't the accuracy of this depend on the theater's dimensions and acoustics as well as the layout/calibration of the speaker system?
Well, outside of Oscar season the percentage of early-run pirated movies which are from in-theater cameras approaches 100%.
CAM shots (normally hand-held camera and the camera's microphone (which is what this procedure would target)) are often first, and I have seen plenty of bootleg DVDs which are this.
TeleSyncs often (but not always) come second. (Sometimes they hit the scene first.) They are normally tripod-mounted cameras and patch-in for the audio (hard of hearing feed, or direct feed if in the projection booth.) These would also qualify as in-theater cameras, though this technology presumably would not affect them, as the time-delay measurement-from-known-speaker-positions-technique would not apply.
Again, I have seen plenty of bootleg DVDs which are from this source.
It is true that DVD rips are the gold standard of "pirated" movies, but it is quite common for those to be the third or fourth release (after TeleCines or R5s or Screeners sometimes.)
I guess my point is that in-theater-camera releases may not be the most popular on bittorrent sites, but they are very prevalent, in my experience, on the streets of Pacific nations.
Prerelease screenings are complete clusterfucks. I've seen security people come up into the projection booth to make sure you're not telesyncing, and security people with hand held metal dectectors for video cameras, etc but there's absolutely no assigned seating, except maybe the first or second rows of the stadium seating (below that are the nosebleed floorseating) for the director and PR people. Most tickets are free and to top that off, most (modern) movie theaters don't even have seat numbers. Hell ask a theater employee and you're lucky if they can tell you within 100 seats how many people each theater seats.
moox. for a new generation.
It's actually a sliding scale. The first 2-4 weeks a film is out the studios will keep upwards of 70% of all ticket sales. In the case of a hotly-anticipated film such as a new Batman or Bond, the percentage will go even higher to 80% or above. Each week that a film plays the scale will adjust slightly in favor of the theatres until it's almost an equitable split, but since most movies make almost all their money within the first month they're out that really doesn't benefit first-run theatres much. What it really *does* benefit are the bargain theatres that show whatever came out 6-8 weeks ago. The studios look at them as a marginal market, so they actually do pretty well compared to the big multiplexes. In the case of my local $2.50 cinema, the popcorn's fresh, the movies are just as good as they were a month ago, and teenagers on their *#&$ing cellphones get kicked out. The only thing I'm missing is 64-channel Dobly Digital, which I'll give up any day just to sit in a theatre full of people who are there to watch a movie and not sit and IM all night.
Citation please.
This smacks of someone just making up crap to support their viewpoint.
He is exactly right, and there is no citation for what goes on in the scene and the street.
If you have spent any time in the scene, even as a leech, you will know that there is fierce competition
to be the FIRST. The timeline is exactly as he said: cams first, telecine and r5's next,
then DVD screeners and finally official releases. If you are the group with a first in any
of these categories, you win. Cams are usually made in the first week of release, and make
it to the street very shortly thereafter.
The street follows the scene. If there is a cam out on the scene, you will see it on the street.
DVD Screener hits the scene, expect it on the street less than a week later. I live in new york
city and they sell boots everywhere, and they cost next to nothing. They sell them in the subway,
laid out on sheets in the street, guys with duffel bags walk around selling them, etc etc.
There is no shortage of bootleg everything here, starting with mass media, i.e. music software and movies.
music lover since 1969