HOLLYWOOD – What you see and hear inside this darkened theater doesn't seem out of the ordinary: A seated audience of reporters, Hollywood studio executives and Motion Picture Association of America representatives is watching a movie projected on a large screen.
What you can't see or hear – with unaided eyes or ears – are the new anti-piracy technologies at work. This theater is in fact a movie tech lab – the University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center. And here, representatives of Trakstar, a Florida-based tech firm, are demonstrating what they claim is a solution to in-theater movie bootlegging.
The company's anti-piracy offering comprises two technologies. The first, PirateEye, detects camcorders and pinhole cameras in the act of bootlegging movies, according to Trakstar. The remote-controlled device looks like a mechanical replica of Darth Vader's head. Perched on a stand directly below the movie screen at the front of the theater, the small black box shoots brief, almost invisible pulses of light at the audience.
Offending camera lenses bounce back a telltale reflection that the device senses, then records on a digital snapshot captured with a built-in digital camera of its own. If the machine spots a suspected pirating camcorder in the audience, it then sends out an automated alarm to in-theater security or law enforcement.
The second part of Trakstar's system is a forensic audio-watermarking technology called TVS.
The TVS device sits between the theater's cinema processor and audio-amplification unit, and generates inaudible sonic tags that can later be used as evidence to trace the date, time and theater at which a pirated file originated.
The watermarks can be unlocked and read with the help of proprietary software keys. The system relies on multiple forms of security, including wireless GPS sensors that trigger the unit to flush the watermarking algorithm from its memory if the TVS box is moved from its designated location.
Trakstar Chief Executive Howard Gladstone said the company might incorporate additional forms of physical security into future iterations of the TVS device – for example, pouring liquid epoxy over the controlling chip inside, which hardens to a virtually impermeable shell when it dries. "That can only be removed with a laser etching tool," he said, "not the sort of thing the average movie pirate has in their kitchen."
The underlying technology in Trakstar's dual-component system was developed by partner company Apogen Technologies. Some of the company's staff members have backgrounds in military and defense technology, and the PirateEye camcorder-detection system they built was derived from technology originally created for the Defense Department to detect sniper scopes and land mines in combat environments.
During the recent Hollywood demo, not all of the camcorders and pinhole devices planted by participants were spotted by PirateEye during the first demo attempt. Subsequent rounds appeared to locate all of the devices, but also caught more than one "false positive," including one participant's cell phone, which contained no camera, but a light-emitting display. Gladstone said future refinements to the system, which is still in development, would improve accuracy before commercial release.
But because the PirateEye system photographs the area near any object that triggers a positive response from the system – and that area may include innocent audience members who simply happen to be seated next to the suspected device – the technology will likely generate protest among privacy advocates.
"We are not a surveillance system," countered Gladstone. "I believe there should be an expectation of privacy in theaters, and we only generate an image when the algorithm establishes that there appears to be an active camera present.
"Other solutions could involve focusing an infrared camera on the entire audience at all times, or planting security guards with IR goggles throughout the theater," Gladstone said. "Either of those would be far more intrusive."
The system is designed to ignore camcorders that aren't in use. "If they're turned off, not aimed at the screen or not in focus, we won't find them," said Apogen Vice President James Lynch.
The camcorder-detection system is intended to be effectively invisible to moviegoers. PirateEye's light-emitting diode and on-board digital camera will scan the audience in a random sequence and avoid hitting any one person more than three times.
The PirateEye components in the demonstration were connected by cables, but the company is considering use of a Wi-Fi network to connect components once the system is commercially deployed.
The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood's seven major studios, is reviewing a commercial-feasibility study for the two-part Trakstar system. If approved, the new anti-piracy tech may be coming to a theater near you as early as mid-2005.
But the MPAA did not discuss what it would cost to install the systems, or whether it would force movie theater owners to do so. Theater owners and chains have been suffering financial losses and bankruptcy in recent years, so the MPAA might have a tough time convincing them to install the devices if it refuses to pay part, if not all, of the expense.
MPAA technology chief Brad Hunt, who attended the Hollywood demonstration, said that while Trakstar's system was "very impressive ... it appears there's more work to be done."
"Camcorder piracy is a major problem for the studios because it occurs at the beginning of a movie life cycle," Hunt said. "That has a major impact on downstream revenue possibilities if a pirated copy becomes available while the movie's still in its theatrical window." Because of this, he said, the MPAA is particularly interested in anti-piracy approaches that promise to stem the problem at its source.
The system demonstrated by Trakstar is one of a growing number of anti-piracy products. "Cam-jam" systems, such as those developed by Dolby Laboratories subsidiary Cinea, prevent video cameras from capturing desirable content. Some of these could work by jamming the camcorders with electronic signals; others modulate projected light so that copies of movies illicitly captured in a theater are degraded.
In addition to Trakstar's TVS, other companies are developing forensic data-embedding systems that promise to create evidence trails leading law enforcement back to the source of an in-theater piracy incident.
