Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

[theprez98]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...e-pirates.html

The idea is kinda cool, but the application is just silly. And totally unworkable.

[streaker69]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...e-pirates.html

The idea is kinda cool, but the application is just silly. And totally unworkable.

I have a better solution, and it's free to anyone that wants to patent the idea.

Just line the sides of the screens with High Output IR Illuminators, have them strobe at random times during the film. Human eyes won't pick them up, but the CCD's of the cameras will and it will ruin their recording.

[theprez98]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

I have a better solution, and it's free to anyone that wants to patent the idea.

Just line the sides of the screens with High Output IR Illuminators, have them strobe at random times during the film. Human eyes won't pick them up, but the CCD's of the cameras will and it will ruin their recording.

Don't cameras typically have IR filters? And if they don't, couldn't you simply add one?

I know a couple of webcams that I've taken apart had IR filters in them.

[beakmyn]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

Don't cameras typically have IR filters? And if they don't, couldn't you simply add one?

I know a couple of webcams that I've taken apart had IR filters in them.

Yes and yes. but you'll still see the IR. Just point your tv remote at your camera and you'll see it. It is a good idea though. If were me I have it strobe morse code the address of the theater and date/time.

[theprez98]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

Yes and yes. but you'll still see the IR. Just point your tv remote at your camera and you'll see it. It is a good idea though. If were me I have it strobe morse code the address of the theater and date/time.

This is far too easy of a solution. The movie companies need to craft something more complicated that doesn't work as well.

[streaker69]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

I've been wondering for a while if the main source of screeners is people sitting in the theater or an employee doing it from the filmbooth or after hours. Some of them just look too good for someone to be sitting there amongst the steaming masses.

[theprez98]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

I've been wondering for a while if the main source of screeners is people sitting in the theater or an employee doing it from the filmbooth or after hours. Some of them just look too good for someone to be sitting there amongst the steaming masses.

I suspect employees are a very common source. I prefer R5 DVDs released at the same time as the movie.

[bascule]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

People actually watch cams of movies?!?!

Haven't they ever heard of DVD screeners? Or failing that, telesync?

[streaker69]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

People actually watch cams of movies?!?!

Haven't they ever heard of DVD screeners? Or failing that, telesync?

What's even more amazing is how prevalent the pirated copies are in society as a whole.

I was back in our maintenance department breakroom over lunch a couple months ago. No one back there is terribly computer literate, but they were watching Gran Torino a couple of weeks before it hit the theaters. It was a pretty good copy too.

[Dallas]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

I used to buy the movies over in Chinatown, but it got to the point that they were so crappy and the DVD's were very fragile, I just went to the Torrent option. But generally, I prefer to watch the movies in high quality.

Its silly to try and catch folks, Hollywood needs to get to point that we can just DL the movie the day its released. Personally, I dont mind paying for a Movie, its the $ 20 addon for snacks which suck. (I bring my own).

Just let us DownLoad them!!

[goathead]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

I wish it could be that paying a premium admission means that there would be no commercials but that isn't likely.

I wouldn't assume cams to be high impact to the studios. The ease of duplication in the production process and the high quality of digital assets makes for files, that once propagated, would be easily available and could encourage many people to watch the movie locally instead of paying a fee.

Clever insertion of marks within the production process can narrow down the scope of the leak but anyone with a little know-how, usb stick, and a small window of opportunity can steal assets, blur regions with obvious marks, and seed the file. At some point marking isn't an option as the movies are distributed for various marketing purposes which then means pristine copies of the movie floating around on an industry standard format.

In the dark days of digital imaging, the piracy (from what i hear) was inhibited by the inability to handle the magnitude of the data much less trans code it. In these times when people can burn media as fast as they can download it and trans coding is accelerated for the DVD media, the time to duplicate formats with higher density does slow up the process but is still completely possible. If the studios produce using off the shelf tech, then people will easily reproduce their efforts using the same tech.

So perhaps instead of trying to determine where a movie was pirated after the fact, they could use the tech sooner to deter people talking on cels in the theater.

[streaker69]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

So perhaps instead of trying to determine where a movie was pirated after the fact, they could use the tech sooner to deter people talking on cels in the theater.

I actually like this idea. I understand the reason why theaters cannot actively jam cell phone, but I don't think there's any legally wrong with passively blocking the signal. I'm sure an reasonably priced solution could be implemented, along the lines of grounded screen embedded in the fabric that they use on the walls of the theater.

[bascule]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

I was back in our maintenance department breakroom over lunch a couple months ago. No one back there is terribly computer literate, but they were watching Gran Torino a couple of weeks before it hit the theaters. It was a pretty good copy too.

It was quite likely a DVD screener. I believe DVD screeners of all Oscar candidates (at least for best picture) are sent to every member of the Academy. These quickly wind up on the Internet. They've tried watermarking the films with uniquely identifying patterns, however all it takes is for the person pirating the video to load it into their favorite non-linear editor and blur out the watermarks. Another popular way to defeat this approach is to make the video black/white for the duration of the watermarked segment (since at least at one point the watermarking involved colored dots)

Cams (someone actually sitting in the audience with a video recorder) are by far the lowest quality pirated copies available. The audio quality is terrible as it's being received by the portable camcorder's microphone. Any ambient noise (people next to you coughing or loudly munching popcorn) is captured as well.

That's all this approach could work against. The bottom-of-the-barrel, most horrible way to pirate movies. And what good is knowing which seat the person was in? Are they going to make you show your ID at the door and assign you a seat? Are they going to put the whole audience under video surveillance and hope they'll be able to identify your face from that?

Telesync, which usually involves a camera on a tripod filming the screen from the projection booth, patched directly into the audio output from the projector, is the most common method for producing decent-quality pirate copies from films. All it takes is for a teenager running the projection booth to set it up. This approach would completely bypass any system which looks for your spatial position from the audio.

Trying to use technology to deter piracy just doesn't work. Any mechanisms they come up with are costly, complex, and easily defeated.

[theprez98]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

Some studios are actually releasing cheap, but legitimate, R5 (Russia) DVDs at the same time they release the movie. Somehow this is supposed to reduce piracy...

[facon12]

Re: Audio trick lets authorities watch the movie pirates

Well given how well DRM has stopped video game piracy....wait a minute. I think industries with products in a digital form need to realize piracy to some extent is going to happen, given the amount of money spent developing DRM and all the lawyers these industries pay to sue people and go after the pirates I almost wonder if they aren’t costing themselves more money in trying to fight/stop piracy than piracy actually cost in lost sales. By lost sales I mean how much money they would have made if piracy didn’t happen, not the silly giant damages claims they make in court and whatnot.