Hollywood has unveiled a powerful new technology which it hopes will help kill the pirating of movies. The system relies on sound – not vision – and was unveiled at a conference held by the international DVD Forum in Paris, France last week.
The opportunity for a novel copyright protection system arose because the Forum is now finalising the standards for the new High Definition DVD system that goes on sale early in 2006. The details of the system were explained by Alan Bell, executive vice-president of advanced technology with Warner Brothers in California, US.
All HD-DVD players will have a sensor that looks for inaudible watermarks in the soundtrack of movies. The watermarks will be included in the soundtracks of all major movies released to cinemas.
If a DVD player detects the telltale code, the disc must be an illegal copy made by copying a film print to video, or pointing a camcorder and microphone at a cinema screen. So the player refuses to play the disc.
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New DVD watermark has pirates in its sights
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