System Blocks Unwanted Video & Still Photography
 

CMOS rules!

Sounds like some folks will get ahold of this and get sued for damaging someone's camera.

Worse still, if that laser ends up damaging someone's eye!

This sounds like a system that's easily defeated. With a split-beam mirror the detecting beam could be diverted and the detector would never see a reflection off a CCD.

Wasn't there a camera detection system on that old marionette series "Thunderbirds"? They didn't want their flying machines photographed and was able to detect cameras in the vicinity. Except theirs could detect film cameras.

Then again, it was just a kids' show...!

Sure it can help stop people ripping off theaters, but still what if its something we should see, but are being blocked off from.

Reminds me of that recent bank robbery movie, "inside man". When the bank robbers shine their special flash lights at the security cameras to block them out.

The Devil has work for idle hands! There needs to be a new, fancy word in our vocabulary. If you're opposed to any new technology, you're a Luddite and if you embrace things from the past, you're an Anachronist. What would we call those who invent technology to sabotage other technology? This sort of thing could be the home video equivalent of a Star Wars defense system. The next counter-invention will be a polarized type of filter that allows only one-way light passage.

Can you imagine Sony Corp squaring off for an internecine war over this? The electronics divisions, that want to make their gadgets as useful and attractive as possible, would be up against the motion pictures division.

People can invent ways around this. I don't think it is practically safe for anything apart form maybe military installations etc, there are safer ways for theaters.

People can also just copy the DVD or film it off the TV. I have heard that the quality of footage these people get, is not worth it (Though something like eh Sanyo HD1 pocket camera is another thing entirely, but there is still a narrow range of devices to lookout for).

Simply having user cameras at 25 or 30 fps, and the film at 24fps, is enough to frustrate the image the average person gets. For talented copiers though, they can figure a way around it, but they are so few (rare) that they have insignificant impact unless they go commercial which makes them much easier to track down (if the industry wants to do it).


People solved the problems of electronic surveillance bugs during the cold war, by using devices to sense the EM form the working circuits in them (though you could get around this). This is a easier way to narrow down who has active devices, combined with internal cameras the placement of the items can be gathered (unless there smart enough to conceal it). Video requires a certain data rate that also is high enough to distinguish from an inactive mobile phone etc. If in doubt, a staff member can take a detector and ask them to show what they are carrying.

Cost of R&D: $1.2 million
Cost of each unit: $24,000
Number of screens in a typical cineplex: 10
Number of days lost installing and training staff: 2
$10 lens filter work-around posted on eBay the next day: priceless!

On the upside, looks like the Minox stock got a little boost...

;) Please show me the link?

Right off the top of my head I can think of an easy fix: filters made of one-way mirror glass. Or a polarizing filter. The future versions, they say, will use infrared, so why not slap on an infrared filter? The idea rings true, but the concept is silly. This just means more money will be spent on both sides, and according to the article, the pirates have a 3 billion dollar bankroll.

there is thousands of "wonderful ideas" which are in the line waiting to sell them. Invent it's easy, now sell them! Especially if you know that your rival doesn't have such degenerational feature.

This system could improve the quality of black market movies.

First the system gets installed in all theaters, theaters without it cannot get prints. Now people casually shooting in the theaters are prevented from shooting, so the natural thing happens. Someone who was already selling tons of movies finds an underpaid theater eployee, pays him to let him shot the film. The kid stays late "cleaning up trash", and plays the movie with some electrical tape on the optics of the anti camera system.

Result: people with cheap cameras are blocked. The guy who does get to film it does it with a nice camera, good mics, or a feed off the sound system. Tada, better black marcket movies.

Thanks guys!

As a side note: I saw an article about Apple Computers working on a two way screen. The LCD screen used as a monitor for your computer will also work as a camera.

http://www.digg.com/apple/Apple_Pate...Behind_the_LCD

Better article is at:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9059

What this means is an easier way to capture you capturing pics of something illegal. Where's Max Headroom when you need him.

More likely, the bootleg movies would be shot by the underpaid theatre employees, themselves. If there's money to be made, no product is safe from inside thieves. If the cost of seeing movies in theatres and buying legitimate DVDs continues to rise, pirate DVDs will sell even better. If their usual sources of copies are blocked, the pirates will make lucrative offers to those higher up in theatre management.

Existing piracy takes just a small token off the bottom-line profits of movie makers. But, the paranoia they have about it, will spawn even more losses for them. Their efforts to thwart piracy, will stimulate the intensity and increase the technological level of bootleg activity. If the producers made their product available at a reasonable price, piracy would diminish greatly and their audiences and revenues would expand. As usual, this principle of business is too simple to be understood by the greedy.

This points out one of the advantages of having only dial-up service.