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Author Topic: Print security gone too far? Alex Cross Film Handler Posts: 34 From: Eccleshill, Brafdord, West Yorkshire, Registered: Dec 2005 posted 10-20-2006 06:58 PM                     I appreciate the guy was only doing his job, and as he said, he was getting paid to sit around and do nothing for hours! I've not got a problem with that at all. I do think split shipments should be in order 1-3/4-6. We're hardly likely to copy one half, then wait for the other half. My problem with split shipments is.... There's always going to be a problem wth one reel! And you're on screen the next day, and highly unlikely to get a replacement before the first show! I recall a green reel of the Departed... Took a week before we got a replacement. And that was only because I complained again that the customers were complaining! Regarding taxi's/white van man... We play Bollywood films weekly. Some bloke turns up, here you are... One film. We're lucky if it has a BBFC certificate. I once recieved a Bollywood film in 2 metal transit cases with padlocks.... And the keys for which, were still in India!! But, I'm glad to see it's not just us. Thanks to everyone who responded. Alex  |  IP: Logged David M. Graham Film Handler Posts: 3 From: Hermitage, TN USA Registered: Nov 2006 posted 11-15-2006 05:48 PM                        Heck, Look at the security on digital prints! Typically, they email the keys to the theater. If your company doesn't have the ability to handle email attachments inhouse, they'll email them to any old address just to get them there. Far from secure, as once the keys are released into the wild, there is a huge number of people capable of retrieving the attachment and using it. Talk about pointless.... David  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-15-2006 06:02 PM                     Those D-Cinema keys are good only for a limited amount of time, usually 1 or 2 weeks. Then the movie goes dead. No consumer computer hardware can play back those movies. I'm not even sure if something like a high end Avid suite could even open and edit such movies once they are encoded in the JPEG2000 format. As far as e-mailing keys goes, you have to set that up directly with your content provider. In the case of Carmike, a manager would have to talk to someone at AccessIT. That company isn't going to blindly e-mail things like security keys out to just anyone. The screener DVDs are what the pirates want. Those are far easier to duplicate and sell or simply upload to the Internet.  |  IP: Logged Phil Ranucci Expert Film Handler Posts: 236 From: Carpinteria,CA, United States Registered: May 2006 posted 11-16-2006 12:44 AM                     Our keys are sent on thumb drives and arrive with the drives for the feature. Remember that the keys work only in the server that is installed in that theater. They only e-mail keys if there are problems with the drives.  |  IP: Logged Glen Rich Film Handler Posts: 55 From: Nedlands, Western Australia Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-19-2006 07:34 AM                     "A Good Year" was screened for media at a distributors venue, afterwards one of our PR people was to get the print and bring it me to be re-made up, for another media screening. The projectionist gave her the boxes with the print in, then a large, somewhat overbearing security guard opened the second box and removed the 6th spool, telling her it would arrive an hour before the due screening. Two hours before the scheduled screening the last spool arrives with 2 security guards, and is added to the end of the print on the plate. (noted that it could have been worse, it could very well have been spools 1-4, and have arrived 5 minutes before time). As the screening starts another security guard arrives, and all 3 stand in the corners of the cinema watching the audience. You're going to love this last bit... Once the screening was done, the film was broken down, the 3 security guards left, and the boxes containing the whole print were put in the managers office, where it stayed unguarded for 2 days before going back to the distributors.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 11-19-2006 11:00 AM                        Many chains have a policy of "no outsiders" in the booth. That includes security folk. As regard security on Digital TV "prints," I have been assured that ANY system can be "cracked." Better systems just require a higher quality of work "Bigger lock needs bigger key." I do not myself have any of this knowledge, but my friends in computer research and cryptology laugh when I tell them that the film industry has secure encodings. Louis  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-19-2006 11:25 AM                     It's true any system can be cracked. At the very least, the DCI system for digital projection makes it pretty difficult. Even if the system can be cracked, the hacker is left with a GIANT sized set of video files that are not compatible with any kinds of regular computer video editing gear. The hacker would essentially need some kind of digital cinema setup of his own to play back JPEG2000 movies at that high bitrate AND have some way to down-sample the video streams to formats that are compatible with average DVD or HD-DVD equipment. The hacker may be faced with writing his own software to do the job and shell out a lot of money for high end equipment to handle the files. For all the extra work involved, I think that will make the DVD screener discs most pirates use even more desirable. All the more reason to put very serious restrictions on DVD screener discs and put together really harsh penalties on those who allow them to wind up in the hands of pirates. IMHO, movie studios should just get rid of the screener discs entirely. It isn't going to break any movie star's ass to watch the movie in a screening room on the movie studio lot.  |  IP: Logged Caleb Johnstone-Cowan Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 593 From: London, UK Registered: Mar 2006 posted 11-19-2006 08:18 PM                     quote: We play Bollywood films weekly. Some bloke turns up, here you are... One film. We're lucky if it has a BBFC certificate. I once recieved a Bollywood film in 2 metal transit cases with padlocks.... And the keys for which, were still in India!! We were lucky if the films came in metal transit cases, usually straw boxes. Also our film dump was full of Bollywoods from the 2 years the site has been open, distributors had no storage space and didn't want to send prints back to India so never collected them. As for BBFC certificates, had one distributor cum delivery guy who didn't know what they were, put the roll of film in his pocket! Considering more Indian films are shown than British ones in the UK now there will have to be a point where the distributors take a leap into some sort of ordered system for prints. quote: Bobby Henderson Those D-Cinema keys are good only for a limited amount of time, usually 1 or 2 weeks. Then the movie goes dead. The keys we had worked for ages, Cars for example was maybe 7 or 8 weeks and most seem to be a month at least.  |  IP: Logged Ron Curran Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 504 From: Springwood NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2006 posted 11-19-2006 08:23 PM                        Our print of The Devil Wears Prada has very visable crap codes throughout but, according to posters' reviews of Casino Royale, there are no such codes in D-cinema. So it is impossible to copy digital images?  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-19-2006 09:41 PM                     It's been purported that in digital cinema, the actual movie is modified in various copies (e.g., red flower pot in the left on the background, smiling extra in a restaurant in another, etc.), sufficient to uniquely identify the theatre. I don't know if this is actually happening. (As for the math, it only takes 12 such possible things to distinguish between 4000 theatres -- log_2(4096) => 12 -- so it is certainly feasible to do such a thing, though it's not obvious that they go to the trouble; I guess there aren't that many dcinema theatres. log_2(512) => 9). --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-20-2006 12:01 AM                     My understanding was D-Cinema movie files had a far less visible form of watermarking encoded into the imagery. If that's the case, the watermarking sure doesn't show up like Crap Code on a 35mm film print. It's pretty easy to see some red dots tattooed on white areas of a film image during some flashy action sequence. They might as well just stamp the print number all over the frame.  |  IP: Logged Charles Greenlee Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 801 From: Savannah, Ga, U.S. Registered: Jun 2006 posted 11-20-2006 12:20 PM                        quote: Bobby Henderson It's pretty easy to see some red dots tattooed on white areas of a film image during some flashy action sequence. I've seen those too, but I had just assumed that it was caused by something during printing. A minor flaw.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-20-2006 05:47 PM                     Umm...no. Search for "CAP Code" and "CRAP code." --jhawk  |  IP: Logged

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