So is ROTK marred with Crap Code?
 

Do the prints include this new anti-piracy distraction as many have predicted?

I think I saw one, in the middle of the Minas Tirith battle scene, but I didn't notice too much...

i think i saw it at that point too, it's overlayed with one of the catapults (iirc)

saw plenty.. oddly enough they like to put them against scenes that have 90% white.

Just like Snowlarbear, I saw the cap dots over a catapult during the Minas Tirith battle.

It was too fleeting I'm not even sure it was one, but yeah, during the siege as well.

I never noticed any. I have noticed them in other films. I must have been too absorbed.

I go to the movies all the time, and I still have yet to ever see one of these silly dots everyone keeps talking about.

yeah, noticed quite a few... i saw the trilogy and the cap code was extremely bad in both Fellowship and Two Towers EE... why would they even bother? No one would go to a theatre to pirate the EE's when they could just rent the damn dvd and rip it!!!

MATT

I didn't notice any...at one point I thought about it and looked for a bit, but then I got back into the story. I think they almost ALWAYS appear against a white or bright background...or maybe that's just when they are most noticable.

Just as long as they don't start putting these on the DVDs!

I had never noticed them before in any other movie, but they were there during the catapults. Didn't see them anywhere else though. Noticeable enough for me to be somewhat distracting

At the Triology Tuesday showing, I think I caught every one in Fellowship and Two Towers, but didn't see nary a one in Return.

Maybe because it was all new? I dunno.

I really effing hate those damned dots, tho. Another reason, aside from $14.00 tickets, $7.50 popcorn and idiots who pay good money to sit in the dark and talk, to avoid going to the theatre.

Isn't ROTK supposed to be the first movie with the next-generation Carp Code, that places small fish in random scenes?

I noticed them a few times in ROTK, most notably during the siege of Minas Tirith. They were really only visible because of the bright background of the white city, otherwise I probably wouldn't have seen them. I noticed them mostly in FOTR and TTT, but I was so absolutely engrossed in ROTK that I barely noticed them when they popped up onscreen.

the place i went to had some error with the movie, and the screen kept flashing red, and the sound would dim out, then as it ended, there was a big red dot cross right in the middle of the screen

can someone give me a link to read about this? It has eluded my horizon of knowledge completely so far ...

when I read the subject line, I thought it had to do with some weird flicker I could see sometimes in some scene .. very subtle ... but i could imagine that it could be used to screw up the frame rate of DV cams ...

I didn't notice any, but there was an ad before the show telling people that piracy was bad, so maybe they figured they didn't need CrAP codes. ;)
The only other movie I've seen in the theater since I started hearing about CrAP codes was Kill Bill, and I think I only saw one during the whole show.

I'm seeing Master and Commander tonight, hopefully it's just as CrAP free as RotK and Kill Bill.

Brian

The crap codes only show up for one single reel in the entire film. That's around 9 minutes where the red dots may show up in one film.

The concept seems pretty silly to me. I don't think someone who has a pirated handheld capture of the film is too worried about some dots. The picture is already going to be out of focus, fuzzy, missing some of the frame, poor audio, etc...

I'm glad to see there's a thread on this already. I SAW THEM EVERYWHERE.... Red Dots. The worst part was i only saw them during crucial scenes, and i saw them on characters faces. So frustrating. Totally takes you out of the movie. I remember seeing them at least 3 times. During the big battle (on the catapult, but also at another point in the battle), the scene with "her", and the ceremony at the end.

Patman, Are you sure about the one reel thing? Cause i KNOW i saw them on the catapult, and also during the ceremony.. easily on two different reels. Maybe i'm just misunderstanding you?

Horrible idea. It has absolutly no chance of ever decreasing piracy. It just adds to the distractions that can take you out of the film.

I'm glad I've never noticed these in any film. I'm not about to do research into what to look for either.

Ignorance is bliss. :D

I wonder if all prints have the code or if they just pick and choose, because I didn't really notice any at all during ROTK, but I saw every single distracting one of them during Master and Commander (at the same theater).

The dots aren't there to make people who buy bootlegs throw their hands up in frustration, they're there so studios can tell which bootlegs came from which theater. Each print is imprinted with a unique set of dots (how much this must cost, I don't know), and when the studios get a hold of bootlegs, they can tell which theater it came from. This is supposed to help them, somehow.

And, for the record, I have seen the dots on every film I've watched since Kill Bill came out. It seems to be widespread now. I definitely noticed them in both LOTR EEs and ROTK.

Every film that I've seen the red dots in them (and I see pretty much all the new releases at the theaters), they are always confined to one reel in the film.

Think about it: If you wanted to scar each print individually for tracking purposes, it makes sense to only do one reel of each film released (consider the logistic involved as well). Why scar more than one reel if you don't have to do so?

I didn't notice any. I've only noticed it once before though, in Kill Bill's black and white scene where it was painfully obvious

Me too. I noticed it a hell of a lot more in the Two Towers EE last weekend but it barely registered this time.

I've thought about it.

Many films have them sprinkled liberally throughout and not confined to one reel. Thank you.

I saw two. One when they closed a book, and the other on the catapults mentioned previously. Kill Bill still is the king of this code. I saw about ten! Awful!

i have seen kill bill 3 times on the big screen and have 'enjoyed' several online versions (workprint, telesync .... i can;t wait to shell out money for the real DVD)

and i have not noticed any red dots or blibs or whatever (the only red dots i saw where BLOOD :D )

What do you want, some kind of award for not paying attention? Congratulations.

Ok .. let me work on my acceptence speech :D

I think that maybe the people who cooked that silly idea up were somewhat right with their whole concept of "it is subliminal" ... and that may be the reason why i have not seen it .. because i had never even heard of it before .. now that I am aware of them, i think i noticed something in "Last Samurai" ... not sure though ...

anyways ... in a couple of years we will be all strip and cavity searched upon entering and leaving a cinema ...

I've never seen them in any film I've been to, including Kill Bill and ROTK. But then, I'm usually too engrossed in the story to notice something like this, especially when the prints themselves get scratched and otherwise marred from normal wear and tear. Not that I don't believe it exists, just that I've got better things to do than look for it.

seems this Coded Anti Piracy (CAP) code is not such a new idea at all

http://tig.colorist.org/pipermail/ti...er/004188.html

Probably because you pay attention or get engrossed. I do, that's why I don't notice them unless I start looking for them. I enjoyed the movie too much to let such things distract me. On a side note I only noticed one.

As he said in the article, the original CAP code was so small (and black) you couldn't see it, this new capcode is in bright orange-red and is much larger. You'd have to be blind to miss it once you've seen it once.

Those of you who haven't seen it, consider yourselves lucky, but shut it about, "you haven't noticed because your engrosed." You're trying to slander those of us who notice CAP code as people who don't "watch" the film and are too hung up on technical issues. That's BS. Besides, your "oh well, I'm having too much of a good time to notice", is only going to make the studios feel free to do this as much as they want.

CAP code is bullshit and it should end now. For $10 I demand a flawless print on opening night, they aren't delivering it, something needs to change.

Flawless print? You call watching a movie in a movie theatre flawless? Ya that constant grainyness is flawless. The only "flawless" print you see is watching the DVD on your 42 inch HDTV.

I could really care less about them. Your at a movie theatre in a cramped seat drinking watered down soda with a bunch of dumbasses talking everywhere watching a grainy version of the movie. Some dots that show up for a splint second once an hour don't really bother me. I think about them for about a split second and then back to the movie if I even notice them at all.

Crap Code? Yes.

The experience could be flawless. And as disruptive as some audiences can be, films are meant to be watched in a theater, with an audience, projected on 35mm (unless of course they were filmed in some other format). HDTV is a great compromise for home use, but nothing compares to the quality of a properly timed signature print (I don't think these even exist anymore) projected properly on a clean screen by a projectionist. The problem is that this is nearly impossible to have these days.

It's just a little sad to me to hear people say that a 42" HDTV is superior to the theatrical experience. I love the quality and privacy of my HT too, but I would never speak ill of 35mm.

Re: So is ROTK marred with Crap Code?
 

I came across this old thread and I wanted to bump it because I haven't seen any CAP code in a long time. Did the studios come to their senses and stop using it?

Re: So is ROTK marred with Crap Code?
 

I haven't seen a 35mm print in a long time- last one I saw was "There Will Be Blood", which appropriately enough had been platter-scratched. Most theaters are digital now, and I haven't seen any such nonsense on that. I still don't think the picture is as good as film done properly, but I don't miss the crap code or the changeover cues, or having the ending of the movie ruined by some automation tape put on the film to bring the lights up at the end credits.