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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: CAP-printed copy numbers on leaders?
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Frank Angel
Film God
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Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-13-2006 11:38 PM
It almost seems to be one of those "Protected by Ace Security Systems" signs you can buy for $1.50 at Home Depot. You stick them on your windows and it's supposed to scare off robbers. Seems to me the industry puts these huge blobs on prints in the hopes that it will be a deterrent for would-be in-theatre camcorder pirates. It is in the industry's interest to keep the hype out there that they've got security mechanisms in place that will catch anyone trying to copy their stuff, so you can't really believe the hype that comes from the people who have a vested interest in maintaining a particular perception. As for Time Mag, they listen to whoever is talking to them (read BAD journalism). Go back and read what they and the other news media who went ga-ga over Lucas's pronouncements said about Deeee-cinema in 1999. They talked to Texas Instruments and Lucas and pronounced as if it were fact that film would be replaced as the way we see movies in five years. So just because Time Mag says CAP codes are working doesn't convince me that they are.
Besides, the industry itself had that study done (was it AOL or American Express? some unlikely company as I recall) and they found that really GOOD copies of films -- the ones that the industry REALLY has to be worried about -- didn't come from off-the-screen shenanigans but from Academy members' Screeners and stuff right out of the labs.
LOTS of people who work on a movie have copies, some even before prints are even struck. I personally have seen a major blockbuster just a month ago on the laptop of someone who was involved in post-production. That report is what caused the furor about not giving out screener copies to Academy members, which the studios finally backed down on....the wusses. They would rather not offend their cronies but instead, mar the presentation of millons of the honest, movie-going people who pay to see a film.
To put those codes on every release print is, again, IMHO, a disservice to the movie-goer, not to mention the directors, cinematographers and all the craftspeople who work on a film.
So let me ask this: Say I do that idotic camcorder-off-the-screen copy, with its lousy image quality to say nothing of the sound....resulting in the lowest of the low type of end quality (it would akin to making a CD copy by putting a microphone in front of a BoomBox's loudspeakers and recording that sound, along with whatever ambient room noise the mic happens to pick up). So now I have this camcorder copy, now I dump it to my computer so I can burn my DVDs. Assuming I have enough technical skills to do any kind of manipulation in the computer to prep it for burning burning, what's to prevent me from editing out those few frames of CAP code? Surely I wouldn't be that quality conscious as to worry about loosing those few frames in every reel? And I am sure my anti-discerning end- user of my shit isn't going to bothered by a few missing frames either. So no matter how big the lab winds up making the dame things, unless they repeat them over and over in each reel (don't put it past them), how do the codes stop bootleggers if they can just edit them out?
The only REAL codes that make any sense would be a system that the bootlegger CAN'T see....not ones that are so huge that they almost shout "EDIT HERE".
If a system were designed so that the bootleger couldn't detect it, THAT would be worth persuing. But the fact is, it's all for naught because streetside vendors selling crap copies isn't what hurts the film companies. It's their own people leaking out master quality stuff. [ 02-14-2006, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Frank Angel ]
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Dominic Case
Expert Film Handler
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Posts: 131
From: Sydney NSW Australia
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted 02-15-2006 08:27 PM
quote: Frank Angel Maybe if they spent as much energy getting a sharp, focused image as they did sticking in Crap Codes, the film would have been better served.
Well if you have a concern about focus, you would need to talk to the cinematographer (or possibly the projectionist). Nothing in the lab process (contact printing) affects focus.
Labs put the antipiracy coding onto prints because the distributors insist on it. As John has pointed out, the earlier system was more subtle, but that was its downfall when digital cameras, compression and the internet came in. The dots need to be clearly visible in order to be detectable in pirated copies.
And, by the way, they are detected in pirated copies. So while there are some good quality clean pirate copies going out, there are still suckers who don't bother to remove the incriminating evidence, however easy it might be to delete a few frames.
Sure, copyright is also stolen by other means as discussed: but if the ship is leaking you don't just plug one hole, you plug as many as you can, as effectively as you can.
quote: Frank Angel To put those codes on every release print is, again, IMHO, a disservice to the movie-goer, not to mention the directors, cinematographers and all the craftspeople who work on a film.
It's surely a greater disservice to the filmmakers to stand by and allow their work to be shown in cruddy quality via a stolen image camcordered from the back of the auditorium, without trying to prevent it.
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