posted 09-23-2003 11:49 AM                       

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...the Academy could at least help out by setting up real screenings of nominated films in the weeks before voting (maybe this really happens? i don't know.).

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Yes, it really happens. Special Academy Screenings are held in theatres in the key production cities. AFAIK, Academy members are also allowed free admission to any theatre upon presentation of their membership card (it's usually indicated in the movie ads during that time).

If I was a member of the Academy, why would I ever want to see a film on television rather than in a really good theatre?

Of course I wish that anyone that has received an Academy Sci-Tech award would be eligible for this privilege.

http://www.film-tech.com/trailers/filmtechpytlak.html

posted 09-25-2003 01:43 AM                 

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Bye bye screeners

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posted 09-25-2003 03:30 AM                       

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Variety/Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. said:
The majors have weighed alternative plans, including disposable DVDs (which are unviewable after a limited amount of time) or "fingerprinted" copies (which include initials or a number on the screener, making the source easier to trace). But, for various reasons, those have been rejected.

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John Hawkinson wrote on page 4:
Back on page 3, Joe says "There aren't any codes on screener tapes and DVDs, except to say "please don't copy"."

How sure of this are you?

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posted 09-25-2003 10:16 AM                    

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Reston Firm Sees Future in Fighting Movie Piracy

By Ellen McCarthy
Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page E01

Cinea Inc. is only three years old and some of its ideas about video and film piracy protection are years away from commercial use. But the film industry's growing alarm over piracy put Cinea squarely in the sights of acquirers.

This week, Dolby Laboratories Inc., a firm that created the digital standard for film sound and is eager to exploit the revenue possibilities of digital film, bought Reston-based Cinea. The deal between the private companies (neither would disclose the terms) was as good an endorsement as Robert Schumann, co-founder and chief executive of Cinea, could have hoped for.

"From our perspective, [Dolby is] the best way to move this business forward," Schumann said. "They bring expertise, financial resources, but mostly they bring great relationships in Hollywood and in the consumer domain around the world."

Internet piracy is a far less pressing problem in the movie industry than it is for music companies, but that may not hold true for long. Theater executives fear that as high-speed Internet connections become more prevalent, the exchange of pilfered movies could skyrocket.

"It's something that studios not only are taking seriously, but it's got to be one of the main initiatives. We're all doing everything we can to avoid the fate of the music industry," said Ronald C. Wheeler, senior vice president of content protection for Fox Entertainment Group. "We're definitely afraid it's going to come to that, and more quickly than people realize, unless we take action now."

Dolby's purchase gives Cinea the money to develop and market its products, Schumann said, and something potentially more valuable: Dolby's Rolodex of contacts in a worried movie industry.

Schumann is a veteran of Digital Video Express, a Richmond subsidiary of Circuit City that tried to sell encrypted DVDs. The special discs could be viewed for a certain period of time and then shut off, allowing viewers to pay a lower fee to watch a movie without having to return it to a rental store. The technology never took off and Digital Video closed in 1999, but the industry's struggles with piracy continued to interest Schumann.

Rather than continue to focus on protecting consumer copies of movies, Schumann decided his new firm would offer products that shield specially screened versions of films for large audiences. Cinea's first product encrypts videos shown on airplanes and in hotels so that they can be played only on equipment sold by the company. If, for example, an airline employee tried to make a copy of a movie, the copy would not play on a normal DVD machine.

The company, funded by a $2 million investment from Monumental Venture Partners LLC of McLean, also developed a "lock-and-key" technology so that movies transmitted to theaters digitally can play only on approved machines at predetermined times. The system protects movies from being hijacked during satellite transmission, or downloaded from theater computers.

Cinea's latest product, which it expects to test this fall, puts individual tags on DVDs sent early to screeners or reviewers, so that if copies are made and put on the black market, they can be traced to their sources. Schumann said several major studios are already using its technology.

The product that could put Cinea on the map is several years from completion. But if it works as Schumann hopes, camcorders in movie theaters -- a low-tech but nettlesome form of piracy -- will become a thing of the past.

Last year Cinea won a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create a system that distorts the images recorded by camcorders. The company is working on a special projector, called CamJam, that takes advantages of the differences between images visible to the human eye and those captured by the recorders. Many movie theaters still play reels of film, but the industry increasingly is moving toward digital technology. Cinea's projector, designed to work with digital movies, would emit rays of light and other images that are invisible to viewers but make stolen copies worthless.

"Your video would have a bunch of disturbance, flickers, motions. We're trying to disrupt the value of that image," Schumann said. "No venture capitalist would pay for the research that needs to be done, but if we can get this research done -- and we believe we can -- then the technology will have tremendous value for American industry, particularly Hollywood."

The industry is clearly eager for a solution, claiming that piracy deprives it of aftermarket revenue that can make the difference between a film being profitable or unprofitable.

"It's a problem for all major studios, the directors, writers -- but most of all the people who work in the business in post production and at Blockbuster stores. People who are not high-wage people -- their livelihoods are put to hazard if we can't find a way to deal with this thievery that is going on," said Jack Valenti, president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America.

For Dolby, the acquisition is a departure from its traditional lines of business. The San Francisco-based company mainly holds patents on audio technologies, especially noise-reduction equipment. Its Dolby Digital sound system is used on almost every major studio film.

"We see content security as just becoming ever more important in the areas that we do business," said Tim Partridge, vice president of Dolby's professional division. "Our studio customers keep telling us that piracy is their biggest issue of the day. . . . We want to continue to be a major player and we believe that in order to do that, you need to be familiar with security.

"The more we became involved with [Cinea], the more we realized that they had some real expertise, as well as some interesting technologies," Partridge said.

Cinea will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolby and remain in Reston. Schumann will be president of the 15-employee subsidiary. Executives Laurence Roth and Jeffrey Segal will also stay.



Robert Schumann, chief executive of Cinea, demonstrates the company's technology for discouraging people from using camcorders to make copies of movies in theaters. (Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)

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