Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The importance of encrypting EVERYTHING

This is topic The importance of encrypting EVERYTHING in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-05-2013, 01:43 PM:

While this is generally an open letter to all studios, I'm just curious if anyone on the forums can come up with an actual reason WHY the studios seem to think they need to encrypt everything.

First there are trailers. Really? Big deal. I can "sort of" see why they might do that for that one big event movie trailer of the year like Star Wars, but at the end of the day why not just remember that trailers are after all advertising for their product, and the more people that see them the better chance they have of making more millions!

Even if they DID encrypt that one trailer a year, once the big "release date" has passed for said trailer, why are they not issuing that same content unencrypted?

For you studios, I can assure you that there are LOTS of theaters that stick their middle finger up at you and just don't play your silly encrypted trailer. You may THINK everyone is, and sure lots of people do, but you would be wrong to think that everyone loads the keys and rushes to play your trailer with the additional hassle you are pushing onto them.

So that's one unnecessary annoyance, but it isn't the REAL reason why I started this discussion. Yes I'm talking about content that is already on video!!!

So the fact remains, it doesn't matter if you are renting Django Unchained from last year or Rocky Horror Picture Show from 38 years ago...the content is arriving encrypted.

You...studio heads...just what exactly do you think you are protecting? Do you not realize that almost everyone with digital systems has or can connect a bluray player up to their system and just run the silly bluray? Are you not aware that some theaters even run the bluray about a minute behind the DCP just in case something should go wrong with the server? Do you not realize when there is a problem generating keys for a repertory show that the theaters just run the bluray anyway?

YOU AREN'T STOPPING ANYTHING! THERE ISN'T ANYTHING TO PROTECT!

Back in the pre-digital days when the only way to run a repertory movie was to get a 35mm print, it made sense to be super paranoid about 35mm copies getting out into private hands, because at that point a theater owner with no ethics *could* run that print and not report the show. However you guys, yes you the studios, pushed for digital and now theaters can play anything on dvd or bluray with zero effort. There is no longer a reason to keep the same mindset, because it accomplishes nothing.

The content is already within everyone's grasp for $20 (or less) from amazon or Wal-Mart. Any theater owner that is going to mis-report (or fail to report) a repertory show is going to do it regardless of any encryption you put on the content...and no pirate is going to run and copy a DCP to put an old movie onto the internet.

Seriously. Could everyone maybe just wake up for a minute?

So what the studios are doing is creating MORE WORK. Wait, let me clarify. More UNNECESSARY work for everyone in the chain.

Oh sure the keymakers at Deluxe and Technicolor probably just LOVE it when you send them more keys to make, since they are getting paid for an unnessary amount of keys (an entirely different discussion).

So you are wasting the theater's time in having to load and validate keys for content readily available to the home market.

You are spending unnecessary money to "encrypt" content that freeware such as MakeMKV will do for free.

You are overloading the keymaker's systems, frequently making it so when we need REAL keys for first run stuff, it is "in the queue".

You are potentially going to overload the keystore in DCP playback servers, meaning your foolish antics in encrypting trailers, old content on bluray and 50 different versions of the same movie can actually CAUSE theaters to lose shows because the keystore is full and won't accept that new key for the big Hunger Games show on opening day.

And finally you are wasting your OWN money in having to pay the fee to have these keys generated.

Seriously...wake up. Once content is released on bluray its out there and there is NOTHING to protect. At that point the encrypted masters should just be tossed for unencrypted versions. What do you REALLY think you are preventing?

Somebody please explain this "logic" to me.

Posted by Antonio Casado (Member # 7592) on 11-05-2013, 03:03 PM:

There is no logic in that, you are right.

In fact, you can COPY a Encrypted DCP. You cannot play it, but hey, send it to your favourite hacker, and hop!, let´s see :-)

And about new releases...wait three or four months and you get the Bluray. Remux it and hop, there is the content free of charge for all in Internet.

Waste of time...

Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 11-05-2013, 03:33 PM:

Because the studios want control. If they lock their content, they can tell you exactly when you can and can't play it, and how you are allowed to use it. That doesn't necessarily mean they get that control, but it gives them the feeling that they at least did something, and I guess that's good enough for them. It's the same reason they encrypt the hell out of DVDs and blu-ray discs. There is a ton of software you can download right now to completely kill any and all of that protection on those, and it's been that way for years. Yet, they still encrypt everything (don't forget region-locking!).

At this point, I'm convinced that they just have a habit of locking down everything they can. Yeah, they could change that, but I'm sure we're all familiar with how well the entertainment industry reacts to change.

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 11-05-2013, 05:54 PM:

The rights to one rep title were changed after our booking was confirmed. We received the DCP from the previous exhibitor. The new rights holder could not issue a key. It took many international calls before a key was received hours before the first screening.

This title had play-in and intermission so the first screening was not a happy presentation.

You can understand that our patrons were confused by "to be confirmed" notices, then a little cheated by a not-quite-perfect presentation.

Why does this have to happen?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-05-2013, 06:11 PM:

They probably still think that CSS is an effective anti-piracy measure and that HDCP is secure. Given these (incorrect) assumptions, it makes sense not to provide unencrypted digital "content" to the world.

In short, the people who make these decisions are just out of touch with reality.

Who is sending out encrypted trailers?

Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 11-06-2013, 07:54 AM:

All IMAX trailers need their own individual KDMs, Scott.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 11-06-2013, 09:10 AM:

Brad wasn't even talking about IMAX trailers. I remember the trailer for Dark Knight Rises (not IMAX) was encrypted. I'm sure there have been others since.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 11-06-2013, 12:33 PM:

They probably just feel as if they're doing their part to combat piracy. Trouble is that it does nothing to combat it, and more than anything fuels more people to figure out how to copy. It's all a waste of time.

In the case of Blu-ray, I wouldn't have to re-purpose things if studios would get rid of dumb menus, pointless ads, and other things that make watching a film on the format a pain in the ass. There was talk once of a Dolby type server for Blu-ray consumption. I'd love something like that so I could just load a disc, select the film with proper audio, queue it up, and hit play. No menus. No ads. Just pure cinema.

MakeMKV and tsmuxer are life savers.

AJG

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 11-06-2013, 04:54 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
Somebody please explain this "logic" to me.

I've dealt with "content owners", including studios in the past regarding licensing for a VOD service. It was in the days just before the Netflix Online Streaming Service and VOD via IP became common.

Every studio wanted DRM on everything. No matter how old the stuff was, no matter that the content was essentially free for all via bittorent et all and easily ripped from the DVD.

To make matters worse, every studio wanted another kind of DRM. No piece of hardware/software combination that was even remotely affordable would be able to support all those different flavors of DRM.

Distributing encrypted trailers, is just brain dead. Even if it is this long-awaited Star Wars XXVII bullshit teaser trailer. As you told you yourself, a trailer is just advertising. Any form of encryption is just counter-productive for everybody involved.

But I do understand why they encrypt DCPs of even repertoire titles. DCPs are considered a premium format, the closest thing to the digital master you can get right now. Some DCPs might even be in 4K and there is no mainstream distribution of 4K content yet.

Studios want to sell you all your existing content at 4K, once that goes mainstream. So they will do almost anything to prevent those "premium formats" to leak out into the wild.

quote: Scott Norwood
They probably still think that CSS is an effective anti-piracy measure and that HDCP is secure. Given these (incorrect) assumptions, it makes sense not to provide unencrypted digital "content" to the world.

In short, the people who make these decisions are just out of touch with reality.

Out of touch? They seem to live in some kind of parallel universe, that just sometimes happen to intersect with ours and only if they open the portal from their side... That is also how they would like to deliver their precious content to us.

This is how MPAA supposes you should copy DVD content. Because, using any kind of CSS circumvention technique is actually against the law in the US.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-06-2013, 06:41 PM:

I think you're all over thinking it. It's just easier in a giant corporation to have one rule - encrypt everything - than to have to make a decision and pass it through the system for every film and every trailer. It doesn't cost them anything. All the work and inconvenience is passed on to the user, who is not in a position to do anything about it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-06-2013, 09:42 PM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
It doesn't cost them anything.

Yes it does. They have to pay for every KDM that is made.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-07-2013, 09:11 AM:

I'll concede I know nothing about what it takes to issue a KDM, but is it more than a rounding error on a multi-million dollar movie? Or more than it would cost to have a staff deciding and verifying which films will and which won't be encrypted? I'm still coming down on the side of bureaucratic inertia on this one, which a side dish of power control.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-07-2013, 10:36 AM:

Well, quite certainly it costs them money to create a new unencrypted DCP from a DCDM after three months of regular encrypted booking.
So why should they do it, they will rather use the existing encrypted version for repertoire bookings as well.

Trailer encryption, stupid.

- Carsten

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-07-2013, 12:22 PM:

That's the problem though, many of these repertory re-issues are NOT the original DCP that was ran during the theatrical engagement. They are re-masters at LOWER BITRATES!

They are already re-mastering it. What's the big flippin' deal to just make it unencrypted so KDMs are a non-issue for content readily available to any would-be-pirate anyway?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-07-2013, 01:24 PM:

quote:
They are re-masters at LOWER BITRATES!

Really? WTF? Why would the distributors go to the trouble and expense of re-creating something that had already been created, but then do it worse the second time? Especially when that is the version that may be held to be the "definitive" version of the "content" (not "film") for many years into the future?

Every time I think that content (not "film") distributors cannot be any more stupid than they already are, I hear about something like this.

With film, the director needs to approve of an answer print and a check print off of an IN. I assume that he now approves of the DCP used in the initial release as well. Does the director get to approve (or even see) the "crappy DCP" version, too?

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 11-07-2013, 01:56 PM:

quote:
many of these repertory re-issues are NOT the original DCP that was ran during the theatrical engagement. They are re-masters at LOWER BITRATES!

Say WHAT!? [Eek!]

Any examples?

Do people still do inspection reports for DCP screenings, like we (hopefully/presumably) all did for film?

In addition to aspect ratio, duration and credit offsets, I decided (earlier this year) to also start gathering data on things like resolution and file size.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-07-2013, 02:17 PM:

When we receive repertoire DCPs, that is, stuff from the previous 1-2 years, we can see from the filedates and stickers on the harddisc when they had been created/duplicated.

They may be stupid, but not stupid enough to waste money. If they have an encrypted distribution master, they won't spend the additional effort to create another encrypted distribution master from another new lower bitrate encoding. Especially not since the bookings are a lot lower for these repertoire bookings than for the initial run.

Different story when they have to create new distribution masters from 'real' repertoire titles that have never been issued as a DCP.

I have not the slightest doubt that some of these 'classic' DCPs are in fact not even created from a proper 1080p or 2k 'master', but in fact from a 'real' physical consumer BluRay. Simply because it is easier to source and convert than a 'real' master in some cases.

- Carsten

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-07-2013, 03:28 PM:

I can understand the importance of encrypting a classic repertory movie DCP if it's coming from a brand new high res scan and uncompressed digital intermediate source. It would seem especially valid if the DCP is running at a really high bit rate.

OTOH, if the repertory DCP is sourced from a Blu-ray encode, then there's little sense with encrypting it at all. Chances are the same movie is available on torrent sites, sans the menus and other stuff one deals with on the retail disc. They might as well just give the theater a .MP4 file to play. It's a waste of time converting an already lossy Blu-ray encode to DCP (and an additional level of lossy compression via JPEG 2000).

It's pretty easy to see how tempting it would be for distributors to use a Blu-ray encode as a source for a repertory DCP. The file size differences are tremendous.

A 2 hour movie on Blu-ray (just the movie and English 5.1 audio track) will use between 20GB and 35GB of disc space. Very few movies on Blu-ray use anymore than 40GB of space just for the movie itself. Out of the few movies that do, such as Saving Private Ryan or Braveheart, those movies are well beyond 2 hours in length and have extras put on a 2nd disc. AFAIK, there aren't any "deep color" movies on Blu-ray even though the format can support such a thing over newer versions of HDMI.

An uncompressed 2048 x 852 video master will consume about 1.4Gb per second in 8-bit color and nearly 2Gb per second in 12-bit color. It doesn't take more than a couple minutes of that stuff to eat more disc space than a Blu-ray encode. One 2 hour movie in uncompressed 2K can fill most of a 2 Terabyte hard disc.

A 30GB MPEG-4 AVC video file versus a 1.6TB 2K master. If you have to make a DCP and have either source, but not a whole lot of time to screw with it, which source are you going to choose? I think the AVC file is going to be the preferred choice even though it shouldn't be.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-07-2013, 04:17 PM:

quote: Carsten Kurz
They may be stupid, but not stupid enough to waste money. If they have an encrypted distribution master, they won't spend the additional effort to create another encrypted distribution master from another new lower bitrate encoding. Especially not since the bookings are a lot lower for these repertoire bookings than for the initial run.

Carsten I can assure you we have seen it on multiple titles. With our system being completely automated, we have a database of every clip ever played and it becomes really obvious when a movie has been re-authored that a theater has played before. Perhaps the distributors here in the US are just stupid? I could buy that answer. [Razz]

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 11-07-2013, 05:48 PM:

I've said it on here before and I'll say it again:

I have NEVER encountered a business more hell-bent on self-destruction than this industry.

If the rest of this country's businesses ran the way the film studios treat their own exhibitors, the US economy would have collapsed years ago.

How much longer can the studio's BS continue before the ship hits the iceberg and sinks?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-07-2013, 06:23 PM:

Oh I don't know...I first went to work in the business in 1976 and I can still remember my old boss back then griping endlessly about the "assholes" at the studios. Just different issues.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 11-07-2013, 07:01 PM:

Part of the problem may be lackey managers that are given a job to prepare a DCP and use some home video master instead. Probably all kids fresh out of film school who grew up on DVDs and think digital cameras are the PEAK of moviemaking...

All the cool and knowledgeable old guys and gals seemingly left...well a helluva lot of them. Hell, I'm not even technically in the biz anymore...I just sell tickets.

AJG

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 11-07-2013, 07:14 PM:

What are some examples of repertory DCP's that are being sent out with lower quality versions?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 11-07-2013, 07:33 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
Really? WTF? Why would the distributors go to the trouble and expense of re-creating something that had already been created, but then do it worse the second time? Especially when that is the version that may be held to be the "definitive" version of the "content" (not "film") for many years into the future?

That's just their way of simulating the "film experience" in the modern age. You know, movies are supposed to degrade in quality with age [Wink]

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 11-07-2013, 08:41 PM:

quote: Mike Heenan
What are some examples of repertory DCP's that are being sent out with lower quality versions?

American Beauty looked like shit. The Matrix was kind of meh, but not horrible.

Ghostbusters had nothing on the 35mm print I saw recently.

AJG

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-07-2013, 08:56 PM:

None of those titles were originally released as DCPs, though.

I showed a 70mm print of Ghostbusters in 2004-ish and it was grain-city. I don't remember what the 35mm prints looked like, but I'm guessing that they were not all that pretty, either.

(Not that I am defending crappy DCPs. Or prints, for that matter.)

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-07-2013, 09:07 PM:

Scott, I showed Ghostbusters in 70mm when it first came out, and it was grain city then.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-07-2013, 09:34 PM:

I honestly don't remember which ones they were. I do know one of them was a Wimpy Kid movie (not sure which of the 3 it was though). The one played a couple of months ago was HALF the size of the DCP that originally was released in theaters.