Petteri Pyyny
11 Oct 2002 15:04
One of the brains behind the now-defunct DIVX system (which was basically a pay-per-view version of DVD, not the DivX -- note the caps -- that we know nowadays), has set up a new company called Cinea that aims to block people from using camcorders in movie theaters.
The system is aimed towards digital cinema and it will control the digital cinema projectors in a way that when someone from the audience tries to capture the movie from the screen using camcorder -- whether digital or analog, it doesn't matter -- that is based on specific framerates, like everything nowadays is, he/she will only record blurry picture. Pretty much similiar effect will happen when you use camcorder to record something from the PC's monitor (distorted lines and off-synch effects).
The product, which is about to debut by end of this year or in early 2003, will play probably a kinda big role in order to convince studios and movie theater chains to switch to digital cinema. According to various figures, movie industry loses around $3 billion a year due movie piracy and most of the new pirated movie copies originate from camcorder copies made in movie theaters (also called "cams" in piracy scene).
Source: CNet