Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: CAP-printed copy numbers on leaders?

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Film Handlers' Forum » CAP-printed copy numbers on leaders? (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Author

Topic: CAP-printed copy numbers on leaders?

John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 10-23-2005 10:08 PM

I haven't seen this before, but our print of Wedding Crashers showed up with CAP codes on reel 3, and with the copy number of the reel printed from 12'2f to 12'4f on the head leader.

Have I just not been paying attention, or is this new?

and zooming in:

--jhawk

[ 10-24-2005, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: John Hawkinson ]

| IP: Logged

John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 10-23-2005 10:25 PM

Unlike the original Kodak-developed CAP Code, each lab now has a proprietary system. You would need to ask them about any details.

Man-readable tracking numbers were an optional part of the Kodak system that I helped develop, usually printed along the edge of the film.

| IP: Logged

Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 10-23-2005 10:37 PM

For what it's worth, I've seen that a couple of times over the last year or so, but I'm not sure when it started.

| IP: Logged

Bruce McGee
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1776
From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular.
Registered: Aug 1999

posted 10-24-2005 07:15 AM

I'm noticing CAP codes. At first, I thought they were finger prints.

| IP: Logged

Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-24-2005 08:34 AM

If I remember correctly, I first saw this on "Rabbit Proof Fence," which means that it goes back at least to 2002. It's been around for a while, at least.

| IP: Logged

Bruce Hansen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 847
From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 10-25-2005 05:36 PM

I've seen this on a number of films as well. The number will be on the reel with CAP code. The other reels will have nothing printed in that "clear" box on their leaders.

| IP: Logged

Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-08-2006 08:50 AM

Question about the CRAP codes. Why is it necessary to place them in the MIDDLE of the damn frame? Since all those pirates with camcorders that that Hollywood thinks are lurking at every screening in ever cinema in every city in every country in the world aims his camera at the full screen, you would think placing the code somewhere OTHER than smack dab in the center of the frame would work just as well. Also, my guess is that with the sophistocated technology available it must take to generate these things, they could use some sort of light intensity sensing that would know NOT put the codes in bright scenes with big expanses of sky like I just saw in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. I mean, it couldn't have been in a worse scene and in a worse place. And why repetatively in three different places in the same reel? Isn't once enough? Do they think marring the image THREE times is more secure than once? Big brown blotches in the middle of an azure sky....nice going Technicolor and Focus Features. Maybe if they spent as much energy getting a sharp, focused image as they did sticking in Crap Codes, the film would have been better served.

I would love the industry to produce some HARD FACTS about how many "pirates" have actually been caught as a direct result of these codes, given the millions of honest, paying customers who have been subjected to inferior presentations because of them.

Loveya John P., but Cap Codes are an abomination.

| IP: Logged

Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 02-09-2006 03:02 AM

They're STILL doing this?? (Sorry, I haven't seen a regular movie since Revenge Of The Shit, and didn't notice it there.) As if there wasn't enough other stuff to support all the bad press about business being down.

| IP: Logged

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-09-2006 01:26 PM

John P. keeps saying that "it works," but I don't think I've ever heard any actual numbers or anyone actually being caught directly related to the CAP code or its similar cousins.

I too would like to see some iron-clad proof that it's really helpful to the industry for them to screw up our presentations on purpose.

| IP: Logged

David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-09-2006 02:15 PM

John has pointed out before that the original CAP code was designed to be a lot less intrusive than the egregious examples we see now on some movies.

| IP: Logged

Andy Muirhead
Master Film Handler

Posts: 323
From: Galashiels, Scotland
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 02-09-2006 06:50 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
John P. keeps saying that "it works," but I don't think I've ever heard any actual numbers or anyone actually being caught directly related to the CAP code or its similar cousins.

I too would like to see some iron-clad proof that it's really helpful to the industry for them to screw up our presentations on purpose.

Well said and I agree. Or is it not actually working?

| IP: Logged

Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 02-09-2006 07:01 PM

quote: Frank Angel
Why is it necessary to place them in the MIDDLE of the damn frame? Since all those pirates with camcorders that that Hollywood thinks are lurking at every screening in ever cinema in every city in every country in the world aims his camera at the full screen, you would think placing the code somewhere OTHER than smack dab in the center of the frame would work just as well.

That's just it, they often don't get the whole screen (and crappy theatres that let people pirate stuff probably have crappy screens that are cropped to hell too).

Anyway, the coding really covers about the middle 2/3rds of the frame, not just "the middle". Spreading them out any more would decrease the chance of enough of the code being captured thus requiring the code to appear more often.

quote: Frank Angel
Also, my guess is that with the sophistocated technology available it must take to generate these things, they could use some sort of light intensity sensing that would know NOT put the codes in bright scenes with big expanses of sky like I just saw in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. I mean, it couldn't have been in a worse scene and in a worse place.

Why that's the best place for them to show up in a crappy video recorded copy.

quote: Frank Angel
And why repetatively in three different places in the same reel? Isn't once enough?

To increase the odds of recovering the code.

quote: Frank Angel
Do they think marring the image THREE times is more secure than once?

Encoding isn't about security. That's what the platsic zip ties are for.

| IP: Logged

John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 02-12-2006 10:37 PM

The CAP Code originally developed by Kodak had very tiny dots, but was repeated up to several hundred times per reel. It was used since 1982, and few people ever noticed it (except for a famous director or two when the distributor had the lab print it on their release prints [Wink]

).

The larger dots of the newer codes are more likely to survive poor duplication and Internet transmission with compression. But they are more visible on the screen. Fortunately, there are reportedly some new and better ways of concealing the code compared to a few years ago.

Quite a few articles were written in the trade pubs and even Time Magazine, reporting the success of the original CAP Code in tracing piracy to the source.

| IP: Logged

Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-13-2006 11:38 PM

It almost seems to be one of those "Protected by Ace Security Systems" signs you can buy for $1.50 at Home Depot. You stick them on your windows and it's supposed to scare off robbers. Seems to me the industry puts these huge blobs on prints in the hopes that it will be a deterrent for would-be in-theatre camcorder pirates. It is in the industry's interest to keep the hype out there that they've got security mechanisms in place that will catch anyone trying to copy their stuff, so you can't really believe the hype that comes from the people who have a vested interest in maintaining a particular perception. As for Time Mag, they listen to whoever is talking to them (read BAD journalism). Go back and read what they and the other news media who went ga-ga over Lucas's pronouncements said about Deeee-cinema in 1999. They talked to Texas Instruments and Lucas and pronounced as if it were fact that film would be replaced as the way we see movies in five years. So just because Time Mag says CAP codes are working doesn't convince me that they are.

Besides, the industry itself had that study done (was it AOL or American Express? some unlikely company as I recall) and they found that really GOOD copies of films -- the ones that the industry REALLY has to be worried about -- didn't come from off-the-screen shenanigans but from Academy members' Screeners and stuff right out of the labs.

LOTS of people who work on a movie have copies, some even before prints are even struck. I personally have seen a major blockbuster just a month ago on the laptop of someone who was involved in post-production. That report is what caused the furor about not giving out screener copies to Academy members, which the studios finally backed down on....the wusses. They would rather not offend their cronies but instead, mar the presentation of millons of the honest, movie-going people who pay to see a film.

To put those codes on every release print is, again, IMHO, a disservice to the movie-goer, not to mention the directors, cinematographers and all the craftspeople who work on a film.

So let me ask this: Say I do that idotic camcorder-off-the-screen copy, with its lousy image quality to say nothing of the sound....resulting in the lowest of the low type of end quality (it would akin to making a CD copy by putting a microphone in front of a BoomBox's loudspeakers and recording that sound, along with whatever ambient room noise the mic happens to pick up). So now I have this camcorder copy, now I dump it to my computer so I can burn my DVDs. Assuming I have enough technical skills to do any kind of manipulation in the computer to prep it for burning burning, what's to prevent me from editing out those few frames of CAP code? Surely I wouldn't be that quality conscious as to worry about loosing those few frames in every reel? And I am sure my anti-discerning end- user of my shit isn't going to bothered by a few missing frames either. So no matter how big the lab winds up making the dame things, unless they repeat them over and over in each reel (don't put it past them), how do the codes stop bootleggers if they can just edit them out?

The only REAL codes that make any sense would be a system that the bootlegger CAN'T see....not ones that are so huge that they almost shout "EDIT HERE".

If a system were designed so that the bootleger couldn't detect it, THAT would be worth persuing. But the fact is, it's all for naught because streetside vendors selling crap copies isn't what hurts the film companies. It's their own people leaking out master quality stuff.

[ 02-14-2006, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Frank Angel ]

| IP: Logged

Dominic Case
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 131
From: Sydney NSW Australia
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 02-15-2006 08:27 PM

quote: Frank Angel
Maybe if they spent as much energy getting a sharp, focused image as they did sticking in Crap Codes, the film would have been better served.

Well if you have a concern about focus, you would need to talk to the cinematographer (or possibly the projectionist). Nothing in the lab process (contact printing) affects focus.

Labs put the antipiracy coding onto prints because the distributors insist on it. As John has pointed out, the earlier system was more subtle, but that was its downfall when digital cameras, compression and the internet came in. The dots need to be clearly visible in order to be detectable in pirated copies.

And, by the way, they are detected in pirated copies. So while there are some good quality clean pirate copies going out, there are still suckers who don't bother to remove the incriminating evidence, however easy it might be to delete a few frames.

Sure, copyright is also stolen by other means as discussed: but if the ship is leaking you don't just plug one hole, you plug as many as you can, as effectively as you can.

quote: Frank Angel
To put those codes on every release print is, again, IMHO, a disservice to the movie-goer, not to mention the directors, cinematographers and all the craftspeople who work on a film.

It's surely a greater disservice to the filmmakers to stand by and allow their work to be shown in cruddy quality via a stolen image camcordered from the back of the auditorium, without trying to prevent it.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.