[They want to exploit human persistance-of-vision vs. camcorder pixel
differences.
Seems to me that one could process the captured frames to eliminate
artifacts, though that
*is* another step required. In any case, insiders will have access to
the playback codes
opening the bits to duping.]
Jamming camcorders in movie theaters
By Evan Hansen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
October 10, 2002, 4:00 AM PT
As one of the key architects of the discontinued Divx
DVD system, Robert
Schumann knows first hand how hard it can be to sell
copyright protection to the
masses.
Still, some three years after Circuit City pulled
financial support for the
limited-use DVD technology he helped build, Schumann
and a group of
former Divx engineers are hoping for a second act in
Hollywood with the
advent of digital cinema.
Herndon, Va.-based Cinea, the company Schumann
co-founded after Divx
folded in 1999, is close to unveiling a beta for its
Cosmos digital cinema
security system that will help movie distributors
keep track of how their products are used
while protecting them from piracy.
Meanwhile, Cinea this week
scored a $2 million grant from the
National Institute of Standards
and Technology's (NIST)
Advanced Technology Program
to develop a system that it claims
will stop audience members from
videotaping digital movies off
theater screens.
The company "will modify the
timing and modulation of the light
used to create the displayed
image such that frame-based
capture by recording devices is
distorted," according to an
abstract for the winning NIST grant application. "Any
copies made from these devices will
show the disruptive pattern."
In an interview, Schumann compared the process with
distortions that appear in videotaped
images of computer screens, which may show lines that
are invisible to the naked eye.
Rather than produce accidental disturbances, he said,
Cinea plans to create specific
disturbances that it can control.
"Machines see the world more closely to reality than
humans do. In the case of computer
screens, if you track the energy from a phosphor
coating (a light-emitting chemical used in
cathode-ray tubes), you find that it begins with a
strong burst followed by a period of
decay and then another burst, and so on. But people
see it as a single intensity," Schumann
said.
Cinea, a privately held company with backing from
Tysons Corner, Va.-based venture
capital firm Monumental Venture Partners, expects to
have a working prototype within two
years. It is partnering with Princeton, N.J.-based
Sarnoff, which will conduct research on
image manipulation and analyze distortion and
possible countermeasures. The University of
Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center
in Los Angeles will evaluate the
system in testing with human subjects.
"There's a difference in the way a camcorder and the
human eye see the world," Schumann
said. "We've figured out some ways to exploit that.
The trick is to make sure there is no
negative impact on the viewing experience for the
audience."
<snip>
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961484.html?tag=fd_lede2_hed
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