Camcorder Jamming Devices Announced

Adam Carrington writes "I'm definitely not behind things like DRM, but Virginia-based Cinea has an idea that I do support... jamming camcorders in movie theaters. CNET has some interesting details on how they plan on going about it. They even throw an unrelated jab at Microsoft." This might be the technology that drives the stake in analog projection.

Great for Kazaa!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ending this form of piracy will result in the Hong Kong pirates coming up with better ways to steal movies. Hopefully the next time I download a movie off Kazaa it will be better quality than the last one I downloaded which was made from a camcorder. While I could wait for the DVD rip I prefer watching recent movies without paying

Bravo. Telesyncs blow.

[Faggot]

This will deal a well-deserved shot to the disgusting practice called "telesync". Let us pray that from hereon in, all our pirated movies will be DVD rips.

Telesyncs are *SO* 1985.

Different Jammer Needed.....

[echucker]

... one that turns off the timestamp and REC on the LCD. They always get in the way! ;-)

Frees bandwidth...

[orionpi]

Just think of how much bandwidth will be saved by people not bootleging StarWarez Episode III, at least not till the screeners come out.

From the article

[chazzf]

The movie studios have been in search of a new DVD encryption scheme since the industry standard, known as CSS, was cracked by Linux programmers in 1999.

I'm getting out of the way right now before the flames hit. Trolls and Editors first! Run for your lives!

~Chazzf

Subliminal Messages

[sam_handelman]

I want to see "They Live" relreased in digital format.

No, subliminal messages don't work, but you could still print messages on the screen (invisible to the naked eye) using this system, and then only people trying to pirate the movie with a camcorder would be treated to the messages like:

OBEY

NO ALIENS LIVE AMONG US

and so on. Then, they turn themselves in when they reveal the subliminal messages to the press! Pure genius. Alternatively, you could sell sunglasses that let you read the subliminal messages (they'd have digital camcorders built in with displays on the inside of the glasses,) AND let you see that hilarry rosen is really an alien.

Re:What about lasers blinding cameras?

[docbrown42]

Simple. Have a theater employee sit in a booth above the screen, facing the audience. When the lights go out, he puts on night-scope googles and uses a laser pointer to blind any camera he finds.

How to get your story posted on Slashdot.

[alexmogil]

They even throw an unrelated jab at Microsoft.

Instantly, the story was rushed to the forefront of the other waiting stories. I can see this put to use:

WarCraft IV Announced; Microsoft Sucks!

Matrix 2.0 Details; Bill Gates hit in face with pie

NPR reports bin Laden dead; New Microsoft IIS bug found

Ah, Slashdot.

I wouldn't be shocked...

[Anonymous Coward]

if it's later discovered that this screen interference can be removed by drawing a line along the bottom edge of the screen with a .39 cent magic marker.

Somehow better mousetraps just don't seem to be the answer.

But but but?!

[LordYUK]

But if people can't record movies, then how am I going to download my 100 movies a day off of KaZaA???

License...

[dex22]

This ticket is a license to watch one movie. You may occupy one seat. Due to recent problems with piracy, this cinema has installed a DRM enforcement facility. Your memory of the film will be erased when you leave the cinema, to prevent you violating our intellectual property rights by telling people what you saw. The wearing of hats or sunglasses constitute use of a circumvention device, the penalty set forth being life imprisonment.

Enjoy your film.

No Problems!

[Tuckdogg]

Just line the outside of your camera lens with Post-It notes and you'll be fine...Wait a minute! Did I just violate the DMCA??? Please disregard the previous statement.

Re:Frees bandwidth...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought a screener was a movie recorded with a camcorder in the theater??

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[ksw2]

Yeah, I'm sure the vibration of my phone ringing is a real nuisance to you.

Now, a screaming baby jammer, that I can agree with.

bad!

[DrSkwid]

I made the mistake of reading your post. It was such low quality. It bad phrasing and not much point. Even the spelling was poor. With digital dictionaries available on the 'net there's no need to do that any more. I saw the English version (substandard) while it was still dynamic.

That reminds me of a time..

[Jonny Ringo]

My friend lived in New York and he bought a bootleg copy of the movie "Ghost", yeah the one where they mold clay (don't ask why). Anyways it was still in theatres at the time, and when he got home he put it in the vcr. Well all it was was some guy with a sheet over his head making "ohhhhh" sounds for 20 minutes. Super funny the fact that the guy who sold the bogus bootleg went to the trouble of filming himself for 20 minutes being a dumbass! ahhh it can only happen in New York.

tell me about it

[Frothy Walrus]

flash back to watching my first rip of LOTR... gorgeous love scene in the woods... Liv Tyler looking stunning (in an elven sort of way)...

and the cameraman burps. gawd.

MPEG artifacts, I can deal with. but please no more of this.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[Didion Sprague]

We went to see XXX not long ago and a couple of losers sat down in front of us with an infant. The kid mighta been six, eight months old. An infant.

He/She -- whatever -- cried through the whole first part of the movie. Then something weird happened. Some noob in the projector booth flipped the volume switch up -- way up.

The move was painfully loud. My buddy Winky, ordinarily not a do-gooder, started mumbling about the annoyingly loud sound and wondering if it's actually *safe* for the baby to be there.

My other buddy, Drummer Todd, said it wasn't our business and we should just sit back and chill. In the Impala on the way over, we *did* say that we wanted a loud fucking movie with a lot of explosions.

Well, with the sound jacked, it was a loud fucking movie.

So Winky actually got up, went out into the lobby, and -- we learned all this later -- told one of the people at the popcorn booth that there was an infant in the movie and that with the sound as loud as it was, it might be a good idea to (a) turn down the sound, and (b) eject the infant.

So a few minutes later Winky comes back, sits down, and a few moments after *that*, a manager and a little guy in a red vest come looking for the info. They're shining their little light sticks all over the place trying to figure out where Winky was sitting.

Drummer Todd is telling all of us to shut the fuck up and chill, that the sound's fine, that the baby's not our business. Winky starts signalling for the ushers and a guy two rows behind us tells Winky to sit the fuck down.

Winky ignores him and nearly trips over Drummer Todd trying to get out in the aisle to flag the ushers. The couple in front of us -- the couple with the crying baby -- actually turn around to see what's going on and tell me -- me! -- to quiet down.

All this is going on while Vin Diesel has just let on that he really *is* a secret agent to the hot Russian chick while they're sitting in the cafe. She's explaining to him that there's a sniper outside and is about to cap him when he walks out. So they get up, walk over to the waiter, and whack the silver tray out of his hand. Now, it's a fine scene -- a pivotal scene in the movie -- but imagine this scene with the sound turn up so fucking loud you can't really hear anything. And then imagine a metal tray clattering and bullets flying -- all in 6.1 DTS -- or whatever they have. It was absolutely mind-numbingly loud. Truly, the single loudest experience I have *ever* had in my sixteen years of life.

Anyway, the ushers locate Winky, head on over to us, and ask the couple with the infant to please leave. They don't want to leave and it looks like a confrontation is gonna happen. All the while they're arguing with the ushers, the kid -- the fucking infant -- is balling his/her -- whatever -- head off. Balling and balling.

Finally, common sense prevails. The couple get up, glare at Winky, and -- with the infant in tow -- leave the theater. The ushers nod toward Winky, Winky nods back, and Drummer Todd tells him to sit the fuck down.

And a few moments later, the sound drops back down to normal.

And that was that. Very weird.

But I agree: forget the camcorders. Turn off the mobile phones.

And for the love of god: don't bring infants into films like XXX. It's insane.

Quality and Cell phones

[hether]

I really don't think further deterioration in quality is going to hurt the pirates. Its not as if their current versions are without considerable disruptions. The only way to effectively stop people taping movies is to find a way to completely disable the ability of a camcorder or other recording device to function. And to be effective it would have to work in all types of theatres, and be cost effective enough for even the smallest theatres in remote countries to afford. Or maybe even give the technology to the them for free.

While they're at it, I hope they block cell phones too. The last couple of movies I went to, people actually took calls throughout the whole thing. One guy took five of them!! And of course he had one of those cutesy ring tones.

Re:jam camcorders? blargh, start with mobile fones

[JordoCrouse]

Beleive it - in Utah, where its painfully normal for early 20 somethings to have babies, they always bring them to theaters.

To paraphrase Chris Rock: you can either get your kid on, or your movie on, but not both. If you decide to spit out a kid at the age of 22, you pretty much give up your ability to do anything but sit and look at the walls for the next 6 years.

Jamming Screaming Babies

[looseBits]

That's easy, just increase the O2 content in the room. As I understand the process of screaming implies hyperventalation. Can't do that in an 80% O2 environment. Might even make the movies seem a little better. No smoking, please :)

Re:If people would just SHUT UP!

[aridhol]

go during a working day, they are generally less crowded

You know, I would try that, except that, in order to get the money to watch the movies, I have to go to work. Go figure.

All you need is two black markers...

[Anonvmous Coward]

I can get around this protection scheme with only 2 black markers. The first marker is for taking dictation, the second is for rapidly drawing pictures of what's on the screen.

They'd have to blink the film A LOT in order to break that scheme.

Re:That reminds me of a time..

[dr_dank]

Have him play it backwards. It'll say:
"Kill your parents, worship Satan, and dude, you're seriously gay".

Re:They'd use IR

[clockworkbox]

Why not an IR strobe light directed at the screen or an IR lamp focused on screen with the words "you suck" emblazened accross the screen. Or an IR laser scribling accross the screen "Drink Coke".

Re:Oh, give it a rest.

[MonkeyDluffy]

So, by ripping a new Britney album, it reduces the incentive for her to make the next one. So what is the downside to that? -MD

Re:Here we go again

[NDPTAL85]

You can't dismiss morality by calling it a troll. Stop running away from the way of the moral lifestyle. Embrace the way of the light! Choose the side of the LAW ABIDING LIGHT!

Will it be raspberry?

[miTTio]

Radar Tech: Sir. The radar, sir. It appears to be...

(Jam starts running down the screen.)

Radar Tech: ...jammed.

Helmet: Jammed? (takes a taste of the jam) Raspberry. There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry. (pulls down mask) Lone Star!

Shhh...don't tell them about ...

[johnlcallaway]

It has been discovered that some people that go to movies don't pay. They have friends that work at the theaters that let them in for free, or go see more than one movie after getting their ticket. Some have even gone as far as hiding in the trunks of cars at what few drive-ins remain.

To combat this piracy threat, estimated at 20 million samolians a year, theaters will require all persons entering the theater to have barcodes branded on their foreheads. They will be cross checked against a central database to ensure that they only see the movie they paid for, and that only one person with the unique bar code is in any theater at the same time.

Since every major cinema will have different standards, the FCC will use an auction to allocate the portion of your forehead to be branded. Those sections in the middle region, which are flatter and easier to read, will of course bring the highest dollars.

Privacy advocates are already concerned that the 'movie police' will now be able to tell what movies each and every person in the world have seen, and began lobbying for legislation prohibiting this practice. But since it was released that Ralph Nader often visits www.goatse.com, all lobbying efforts have mysteriously ceased.

In other news, following recent examples of airport security checks, movie theaters are installing food detectors at all entrances to ensure no dangerous food items are brought into the facility. The theaters will provide certified safe foods at concession areas for those that wish to eat or drink during a movie.

Divx

[lostchicken]

Founded by the same world class engineering team behind the highly regarded Divx(TM) encrypted DVD system
Yeah. I'd really be bragging about that.

Re:Why embed the signal into the picture at all?

[t]

That would work great until someone gets the bright idea to turn the camcorder at the audience and video everyone seemingly naked.

"Hollywood helps voyeur-porn industry!"

Re:That reminds me of a time..

[SeanAhern]

What really gets me is that you know that he did it for 20 minutes. Watched it all the way to the end to see how that plot twist resolved eh? ;-)