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."

Cameras filming cameras

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this going to affect my ability to bring in and drink beer at the movie theater?

Heh...

[krymsin01]

PirateEye(TM) detects the covert presence of camcorders in-theater and establishes their precise location without impacting the moviegoer's experience in any way. Yeah, cause you want the pirate to get the movie experience he/she deserves.

PirateEye....

[Zorilla]

...they misspelled "infrared"

Way to market to idiots.

Great technology.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It still won't work

[bigjnsa500]

This still won't work because all the good movies rips come from France or England.

Re:Bootlegging

[nwbvt]

"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."

I take it you have never been to a movie theater. Thats how movies there always are.

But!

[koi88]

...people chatter in the background, and there is invariably some big guy who takes a popcorn break right in the middle of the movie.

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.

Re:PirateEye in Action

[micromoog]

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.

Re:Simple solution..

[Gordonjcp]

Huge scrolling LED sign, behind the screen, that constantly scrolls the message "TAKE YOUR FUCKING CAMERA OUT OF HERE" all through the movie.

Re:Actually, this is meant for inside jobs too

[Marc2k]

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!

PirateEye?

[liquidsin]

Will the update system be called "EyePatch"?

Re:Something I've wanted for years ...

[DerWulf]

then stop emmiting photons. Your are the one polluting us with your sight.

Re:Actually, this is meant for inside jobs too

[Cecil]

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.

It detects giant popcorn bags

[fr2asbury]

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.

Make fun of them!

[AndreyFilippov]

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!

didn't Thunderbird One have one?

[SimonInOz]

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.

Re:How it works, really

[theLOUDroom]

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. [yahoo.com]
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.