Hollywood ruining film prints on purpose (those red dots you're seeing) (1 Viewer)

[aldamon]

The MPAA should be emphasizing the positives of seeing movies in theaters instead of emphasizing or creating weaknesses. It is impossible to counteract the allure of free merchandise or the subculture of freeloaders. What you have to do is ensure your product is the better option even if it costs money. IMO, it's a no brainer. Downloaded movies are a waste of time. They stink. If the MPAA continues to press this issue, and continues to degrade its product, I still won't download movies. I'll just add them to the Netflix queue a little earlier. In the end, THAT is what the MPAA should fear, not camcorder captures.

 

[James Reader]

You know what strikes me about this.

For years the UK (and the rest of the world) has been told that it's too expensive to strike too many film prints. That means we have to wait until we can get second hand, degraded film prints from America shipped over before we get the bulk of our movies released. For example "Finding Nemo" has only just opened in the UK this past week. Not only do we get our films later, we also get poorer quality screenings.[*]

Of course while it may be too expensive to actually distribute their product worldwide, it's not too expensive to overpay the "stars" of the films by tens of millions of dollars.

Now I find out that the MPPA can, in effect, pay to have unique prints made for each theatre. One would assume that this would cost significantly more then a normal print.

I don't know about America, but I would guess the sort of people who buy cheap pirate DVDs/download films are unlikely to actually visit the cinema - they would probably be more likely to wait for tv showings or rentals. It's therefore debatable how much money Hollywood is 'loosing' in real terms. In other words every crappy pirate DVD sold does not equate to one lost sale of the authorised movie showing or DVD sale.

It's the professional pirates that are the ones Hollywood has to worry about. And they already manufacture copies that look 'real'. They easily have the technology to remove these dots and continue to sell their products to unsuspecting members of the public.

However in the UK (and one assumes elsewhere in the world) it's slightly different. Given the long waits for movies over here, many people are tempted to buy 'professional' copies of films - and do so knowingly. While in America I would guess only 10-20% of the sales to people knowingly buying pirate discs, I would estimate that this is closer to 40-60% in the UK. I'm also sure the vast majority of these sales would be stopped if Hollywood released their films abroad sooner.

If Hollywood really does want to stop piracy worldwide, they need to understand how the world has changed. Increased air travel and the internet has destroyed most geographical borders - while the UK may have been content to wait for their films 10 years ago, the public is a lot more informed of international developments these days (ironically, some of this information comes from the stuidos themselves). No longer can the entertainment business deliberatley withold their product - if you think about it, the entertainment industry seems to be the only industry that ignores demand.

The money spent on this system will end up being money wasted, IMOHO. They would be better off spending the money on striking more prints and getting a much closer global release pattern for their films. This will slash overseas piracy in an instant.

* Yes, I know Kill Bill has a pretty good international release. I'm talking about films in general.

 

[John_Berger]

Does anyone here know the mechanical process that is used to create the prints that are sent out to theaters and where/how these dots are implemented in that process?

 

[MarkHastings]

For example "Finding Nemo" has only just opened in the UK this past week.

Considering (if you had a region 1 player), you could buy the DVD in 2 weeks, this is really bizarre.

 

[James Reader]

Well, in fact, if I wanted to I could probably have a legitimate R1 DVD release of Finding Nemo now, these discs are distributed around America quite early, and companies shipping out of the country don't tend to honour street dates. I've been known to get some DVD's six weeks early. But I've ordered from elsewhere to save money.

Check out some of these release dates for the film:

Release dates for
Finding Nemo (2003)

Bahrain 1 October 2003
Thailand 3 October 2003
UK 10 October 2003
Belgium 17 October 2003
France 12 November 2003
Czech Republic 13 November 2003
Denmark 14 November 2003
Norway 14 November 2003
Sweden 14 November 2003
Austria 20 November 2003
Germany 20 November 2003
Hungary 20 November 2003
Belgium 26 November 2003
Netherlands 27 November 2003
Finland 28 November 2003
Iceland 28 November 2003
Spain 28 November 2003
Italy 3 December 2003

Prints don't really come into it for dubbed versions of the film, as they need their own copies of the film anyhow. There's no reason why any country would have to wait so long.

It just proves my point. The whole entertainment business has changed, but Hollywood still wants to stick to the business model of the 70's. Sound familiar? Oh yes, it's the same lack of foresight that is blighting the CD industry.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I think I just went into shock!

Wait, my blood is returning to normal. No, I don't believe any studio would go through that much work. Oh wait, I know why the dates are all scattered - they only have one plane!

Glenn

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Actually I think that you give a modest estimate, as I believe that about 75% of the regular contributors to those threads are addicts.

It's good being a statistic.....



Going back to the original purpose of this thread, this measure of ruining film prints is a lot like what Lexington is doing by requiring beer keg registration.

It's a baby-step solution. It treats the problem, but doesn't necessarily cure nor prevent the problem from happening in the first place. Of course, I hope the studios realize how much trouble/hassle would be involved in tracing those steps to the actual bootleggers themselves. I wonder if the issue of frame rate came into play on this. The only part that irritates me is that they're doing this at the movie-goer's expense. Or at least people who care and notice.

BTW, is the ruining "marks" the same as the "Predator" dots I see on the film print? I was wondering if that was it because I caught some on the print for Once Upon A Time In Mexico.

 

[Diallo B]

Apparently some of our worst fears have been realized.

Can other folks confirm this information below?

After watching Reloaded for the third time last night I have found these dots on the DVD.

During a frame in the Merovingian scene at 1:05:41 a series on yellow dots can be seen on the right of the screen to the left of the Merovingian. At first I thought that I was seeing things but I went back and checked each frame. Sure enough they were there in one frame. You have to check each frame in the 41st second.

I am dissappointed that such a beautiful transfer is marred by what I hope is an oversight to remove these dots. I am not sure why they would be on a consumer DVD.

djb

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

The dots are on the theatrical prints, not the negative elements used to make the DVD. I don't have TMR DVD, but I'll speculate that it's a defect on the original camera negatives.

 

[Diallo B]

The dots are on the theatrical prints, not the negative elements used to make the DVD. I don't have TMR DVD, but I'll speculate that it's a defect on the original camera negatives.

Of all of the examples I have seen of these dots , the ones I saw on Reloaded were identical in presentation. Of course they had their own pattern. And it was for only one frame.

I had a friend over watching it with me. They missed it the first time I saw it. Then I went back and showed it to them and explained what I thought they were. IMO, the fact that they hit only one frame and they were very clean in a certain pattern tells me that this was not a defect.

When someone gets a chance please check it out to confirm.

djb

 

[Diallo B]

Here is the frame in question. Once again it is on The Matrix Revolutions DVD at a frame during 1:05:41.

Look at the yellow dots around the Merovingian.

What do you all think?

 

[Vickie_M]

Those are very different from the dots I saw in Mystic River and Kill Bill, and the dots in the sample pictures at the beinning of this thread.

Odd.

 

[MarkHastings]

Diallo, Oh my! That sucks!

[sarcasm]Hey movie studios, why not watermark your logo over every other frame of the movie?[/sarcasm]





p.s. You know it'll eventually come to this. :rolleyes

 

[Jimmy Nugent]

faulty post... disregard

 

[Joe Schwartz]

I'm sorry I ever saw this thread. Now I'm seeing those damn dots everywhere!

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Joe, that's MSF. Don't worry about it. It should be gone by the end of this century.

Glenn

 

[Benson R]

I mentioned this in the discussion for the Alien DC thread but I thought I would also chime in here. I too noticed the dots again this weekend while watching Alien DC. Now why in the hell would the studio care about protecting a film from camcorder pirates when countless home video versions already exist. The dots don't completely ruin the print but it drives me crazy now that I know they exist. It also pisses me off that they have to add these in to a movie I paid nine dollars plus concessions to see on the big screen which I already own 3 home video copies of (soon to be 4).

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Saw Kill Bill this weekend. Saw them on four different occasions, all during the House of Blue Leaves sequence. Once on the bathroom screen. Twice in large white patches in the B&W section. One in the fight with O-Ren. Awful. Took me right out of the movie.

And they're doing it to the Alien DC? That is really stupid. Hell, in six weeks we'll all have it on DVD. It's mindbogglingly stupid to apply the dots to that film.

 

[TonyD]

so thats what those dots i saw on alien were.

i saw them at least twice as an L on it's side right smack dab in the very middle of the image.

 

[Carlo_M]

Crap I just noticed them on Matrix Revolutions in the theater - twice during Neo's and the New Oracle's conversation.

Damn, now that I know what they look like, I'm afraid I'm always going to see them.