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Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

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Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The minimum difference in scene length allowable would be a single frame.

Do you actually know that or are you speculating? I wouldn't be surprised if MP4 (or other video formats) provided a mechanism for tweaking the timing of a given frame. Of course, if you're using such a primitive watermark you might as well just add a note in the metadata...

its very straightforward. video comes in frames, what happens in between frames is that the same image is being displayed for that whole time. there is no way to end a scene half way through the frame - there is no visual cue or anything.

not to mention how you would go about defining the ends of scenes...

no standard format that i am aware of has variable framerate. it makes no sense.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not realize how complex the workflow pipelines are for a film or TV series of any kind? And how shows involving a lot of special effects like GoT are orders of magnitude more complex? For the publicity and marketing side of things we like to send actors out on talk shows to talk about character and costumes and drama and so on, and maybe show a few shots of a giant camera on a greenscreen stage to talk about h…

I am hooked on GoT, my response to HBO is thus: "Dear HBO, as a subscriber to HBO since 1983, I am saddened for this leak. As a huge fan of GoT, I am delighted, thank you, I will still watch all episodes in HD and DVR them every Sunday." --- HBO should allow for HBO GO users to see the whole season at a time - the same way netflix does. There is no reason to meter out the story. Netflix dumping a whole season on the…

I personally prefer the Netflix format of all at once (especially with how little each plot line moves forward each episode) but I can understand a metered approach. You can generate much more hype and social media buzz if you trickle it out over time.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#273

"A few milliseconds" won't work - you must do it in units of frames.

came here to say the same thing.

the same ideas apply to frames, if you drop one from a scene you'd have to add it back elsewhere.

it just means comparing two copies would be easier to check for this technique than with a ms-based approach.

i think it also reduces your problem space as cutting a scene by over a few frames would be extremely obvious in most shows with competent editors.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. Ever since Game of Thrones started, I have gathered with various groups of friends nearly every Sunday to watch the episode as it airs. Watching Game of Thrones has become a social event primarily because the release structure forces everyone to always be at the same point (even if some have read the books). In contrast, after House of Cards s3 was released and we watched a few ep…

Linear TV is over though. You can easily setup watch clubs or movies without having some exec throw your series around and invade your schedule and stretch it across a season. Entertainment, in such a busy world, should be available at the leisure of the viewer, not some game rigged to keep interest over a time. Personally I'd rather watch the whole GoT season now to avoid seeing spoilers. I think because of binging,…

> Entertainment, in such a busy world, should be available at the leisure of the viewer, not some game rigged to keep interest over a time.

Well, it can't be. It has to be made first. No matter what, there will always be some kind of a delay in when you can watch the next X of Y, simply because we haven't invented time travel yet.

And I absolutely agree that the broadcast model -- where you see the thing only if you're at your TV at the right time -- is a thing of the past, but there's no reason that means serialization (which is what I think you mean by linear) should go away.

> I think because of binging, better quality content is being created that is more complete and movie like.

I won't argue, by any stretch, that scripted serialized storytelling (non-film) hasn't gotten markedly better over the last few years, but this kicked off long before Netflix dumped an entire season of HoC into your lap and can largely be credited to the shows that really raised the bar, like The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc. All of those were serialized. Netflix is a johnny come lately to this trend.

And there is actually value in having time to digest what you just watched. You're more likely to think critically about it and less likely to just swallow it as some giant mass of stuff. The social aspect of being in sync with other people -- even people you just met -- can mean finding new ways to think about the story that you didn't have before.

All the netflix model does is make it so our episodes of TV are impossibly long, and their impact on popular culture much much less. People absolutely talk more about shows they're actively watching during a season.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#275

Next iteration would be changing the length of each scene by a few milliseconds. One can count that the first episode holds s=18 scenes. Each scene lasts several minutes. Once again each copy can be made shorter or longer by a couple milliseconds, providing a unique fingerprint for each version sent. This sort of thing makes it hard for me to take any of the article seriously. The author doesn't seem to know the firs…

The idea that there are only 18 scenes or that you are free to add or remove a few frames between transitions is simply hilarious IMO.

Plus there are plenty of least significant bits or even non-significant bits everywhere in a file to implement solid watermarks.

There are even watermarks technologies that are said to be re-encoding resistant.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#276

Next iteration would be changing the length of each scene by a few milliseconds. One can count that the first episode holds s=18 scenes. Each scene lasts several minutes. Once again each copy can be made shorter or longer by a couple milliseconds, providing a unique fingerprint for each version sent. This sort of thing makes it hard for me to take any of the article seriously. The author doesn't seem to know the firs…

I understand your point. But I think you are overestimating the power of artists to control content over business interests.

Syndicated shows on cable like "Friends" on TBS are already being sped up massively in order to fit more ads into a show.

I think we can pause on a Tyrion stare for 1/2 second more without ruining the show. And EVEN IF IT DOES RUIN THE SHOW, it is still very possible that HBO could use this strategy.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/cable-tv-is-speeding...

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. Ever since Game of Thrones started, I have gathered with various groups of friends nearly every Sunday to watch the episode as it airs. Watching Game of Thrones has become a social event primarily because the release structure forces everyone to always be at the same point (even if some have read the books). In contrast, after House of Cards s3 was released and we watched a few ep…

Linear TV is over though. You can easily setup watch clubs or movies without having some exec throw your series around and invade your schedule and stretch it across a season. Entertainment, in such a busy world, should be available at the leisure of the viewer, not some game rigged to keep interest over a time. Personally I'd rather watch the whole GoT season now to avoid seeing spoilers. I think because of binging,…

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/17/393596736/forget-binge-watchin...

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the leaker would be blacklisted from all future HBO (and possibly partner) pre-release materials.

Do you know for a fact that the leaker is the same person (organisation?) that has received the official HBO material? Maybe it is more like this: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/expendables-3-online-leak-two-arres...

Maybe so, but HBO isn't obligated to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Arguably if someone can't keep the screener secured from internet thieves they're still not a trustworthy guardian of the content.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any steganography solution on the market today that is worth its salt would actually be robust against this. The amount of different sources you would have to combine to protect against this is higher than you'd realistically be able to find. Disclaimer: I used to work at one of the leading companies in this field.

That's very interesting. I always assumed averaging (maybe with varying weights across frames and time), or applying a few rounds of other steganography, would degrade the encoded message into noise. Could you link to some papers? If you try to encode lots and lots of messages with different keys into the video, does it ruin the quality before ruining previous messages?

I'm not sure in how much details I can go since a lot of this is behind patents and NDAs and whatnot, but just googling for "video watermarking" should already yield quite a few interesting details for you.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#280

Next iteration would be changing the length of each scene by a few milliseconds. One can count that the first episode holds s=18 scenes. Each scene lasts several minutes. Once again each copy can be made shorter or longer by a couple milliseconds, providing a unique fingerprint for each version sent. This sort of thing makes it hard for me to take any of the article seriously. The author doesn't seem to know the firs…

Anyone who was going to get hooked on Game of Thrones is hooked, and anyone who is still on the fence isn't likely to torrent the leaked episodes. Incompetence is a better explanation, I think.

Only discovered GoT a year ago, and caught up by binge-watching all the episodes in less than 2 weeks.
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