If you haven't heard of "Cinavia", you certainly will be hearing about it soon. Cinavia is an audio "watermarking" process to be used on some film prints and Bluray discs. A chip to detect this watermark has been mandated(by the Bluray patent holders) for Bluray players to be shipped by the manufacturers from February 2012 onwards(machines with a manufacturing date from April 2011 onwards), and Sony has been including such a chip in their Playstation 3 consoles marketed from 2009 onwards.The process works by creating a pattern of "modified signal peaks" and adding something called "Noise Smear". The frequency range being altered is the range below 8000Hz, and, therefore well within the human hearing range.
The modified signal is apparently loud and robust enough to survive crude analogue copying(such as copying via poor quality camcorder microphone from the back of a movie theater). And, if you make a camcorder recording of your child's birthday party, and a Cinavia-modified soundtrack is playing in the background, when you go to play the birthday party recording, the Cinavia chip will mute the audio, then halt the video playback 15 to 20 minutes later. This is a malevolent "Big Brother" entertainment industries run amok.
There will be two versions of the "Cinavia" watermark. One version(to be used in film prints projected at theaters) is intended to mark the material as being for professional authorized devices only, with the intent of making Bluray or DVD bootlegs (derived from camcorder-in-theater bootlegs) unplayable on Cinavia-equiped Bluray players. The other type of watermark(included on more than 60 Bluray disc releases so far, but on only 3 DVD releases) is intended to stop the playback of unauthorized clones(assuming that the cloner was equipped to defeat Bluray's AAVS encryption or DVD's CSS encryption. The Cinavia detection circuit will interpret the presence of a Cinavia watermark and/or the absence of AAVS or CSS encryption to denote that the disc is an unauthorized copy and then stop the playback of the disc.
Even in parts of the country where there is an active street vendor scene selling bootleg movie discs, the format of choice(still the dominant videodisc format) is DVD. DVD's patent holders show no intent to require DVD player manufacturers to include a Cinavia chip. So to what extent will purchasers of bootleg movie DVD's be affected(assuming that they are camcorder bootlegs taken from Cinavia-processed film prints). They will only be affected if they try to play the discs on a Playstation 3, or on Bluray players from the 2012 model year onwards. The obvious answer: play the discs on a DVD player(one without Bluray capability) or on a Bluray player with a manufacturing date before April 2011).
Undoubtedly, the same equipment modifiers who bypass region code circuits will now be a brisk business removing the Cinavia detection circuit from recent Bluray players, and there will be a brisk market for scalpers reselling older Ciniavia-free Bluray players. As for region code-free players, I am proud to say that 3 of my DVD players and my one Bluray player are modified units that ignore region coding. Region coding is censorship, and for most of the region 2 programs that I have bought, no region 1(U.S.A. compatible) release is ever intended. The use of region coding on non-theatrical programs(such as music videos and concerts) is an unjust abuse.
Cinavia's backers claim that their alterations to the audio signal are inaudible, and while I have no doubt that these audio alterations may pass almost unnoticed in a movie with little or no music content, there is no way that it will be fully inaudible in movie musicals, music video collections, music concerts, and especially in audio-only Bluray discs (intended as audiophile product). I find it to be a sad irony that Sony was the first hardware manufacturer to use the Cinavia chip. I recall that when Sony introduced Super Audio CD(SACD), they explained their decision not to include watermarking in the SACD format, by stating that it is not possible to create an inaudible audio watermark. As result, Sony "protected" SACD by not allowing SACD playback via digital connection until secure,copy- protected connection by HDMI was invented. Now Sony wants us to believe that Cinavia watermarking is inaudible. It's funny how greed(and the acquisition of several movie studios) has changed Sony viewpoint.
While the goals of the entertainment industry is to stop camcorder bootleggers(taping in theaters) from creating a playable DVD product, and to stop the manufacture and sale of pressed counterfeit discs
from producing playable discs, and to stop illegal file sharing sites from doing illegal uploads or downloads, there are existing laws on the books which can, quite successfully be used to address those problems. There are laws in place to address Camcorder-taped bootlegs, counterfeit disc pressing and distribution, and file sharing sites. I should note that recently the movie,music,games & software file sharing site "Megaupload" was busted, and all the other similar sites shut themselves down(or ended file sharing on their sites) before they too would get busted. This was a major victory for the music, movies, games & software industries.
But damaging the audio quality of officially released Bluray product being received by the paying customers is morally indefensible. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Despite the wishes of the entertainment and electronics industry, Bluray has ended up being a niche format, and DVD is still commercially dominant. The entertainment moguls can risk a consumer rebellion from Bluray consumers(people not buying the Cinavia processed product or not buying any more discs), but they can't take such a risk with the DVD format, and probably won't.
I've got 7 DVD players in my house, and one pre-Cinavia Bluray player. On the surface, it would seem that this watermarking scheme/scam would have no effect on me, but the the damage to the audio quality WOULD affect me. My home video collection(in all formats to date: on VHS,Laserdisc, DVD & Bluray) has always been 99% music programming(Classic Rock). To as great an extent possible(two-thirds of the programs that I had on VHS & Laserdisc) I did buy the programs again on DVD(Where that wasn't possible, I made my own DVD's from the VHS or Laserdisc). The reality is that most of the video programs that I collect were shot or edited on 525 line or 625 line analogue video tape, and cannot be upgraded for Hi-Def.(sadly for many of these vintage programs shot on film, but edited or mastered on videotape, the producers saw no reason to save the film negatives, so no Hi-Def release will ever be possible)
It is inherent that my Bluray collection is quite small(20 discs versus nearly 500 DVD's). There about a dozen presently available Bluray discs that I eventually plan to buy, but after that, I could quite easily end my support for Bluray.
And there is one other issue that I failed to mention. while all commercial Bluray discs are encrypted, and nearly all DVD discs are encrypted, there are occasional DVD discs(mostly low production runs of 3000 discs or less from independent music video labels) which are not CSS encrypted. The lack of encryption was not intended to encourage people to clone the discs on computers(though those titles can be cloned on computers), but rather it was an attempt to save money during mastering, by not having to pay additional royalties to the CSS patent holders. When added features such as Dolby or DTS audio, analogue output copy protection & CSS scrambling are added, the disc manufacturer has to pay the owners of those technologies.
What I'm getting at, is if these legitimate, but not encrypted DVD discs are played on a Cinavia-equiped Bluray player, Cinavia may wrongfully render these discs unplayable because they were pressed without CSS encryption. And what about the homemade DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW & DVD-RW discs made from cable and satellite programs. These discs aren't encrypted either, and may not play on Cinavia-equiped Bluray players.
To date, the consortium of Bluray patent holders have been able to force any anti-consumer edict onto the hardware manufacturers without having to answer to anyone.
The anti-consumer "Cinavia" processing is being sneaked onto the market by stealth. That is reason enough that our lawmakers in Washington D.C. need to take a careful look at audio watermarking technology and its impact on the consumer.
To the entertainment moguls, I say, people are paying good money for Bluray's intended superior audio & video quality. Selling us sonically damaged product is the wrong way to address the counterfeiting, bootlegging,uploading and downloading problems. Victimizing the consumers who support the Bluray format is reprehensible.
