Man Busted For Pirating Movie Audio At Drive-In Theater

Megalith

Megalith

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Imagine facing up to five years in prison for recording audio from Sex Tape.

One of the upsides of drive-in cinemas is that people are free to chat inside their cars and enjoy a movie privately. Pirates have a big plus as well, as drive-ins make it much easier to record high quality audio. For this reason, camcorded films are often a combination of indoor video and drive-in audio. Generally speaking it is very hard to spot someone recording an audio stream in his or her car, but a drive-in near Pittsburgh managed to track one down with help from Hollywood.
 
Sound recorded in a drive-in theater is "high-quality"?

I think that the whole idea of someone recording a movie in a theater or drive-in is kind of silly. Back when a 20" NTSC television was considered high-end I could sort of understand but not today. Chances are, anyone who is content with that level of quality wasn't going to buy it in the first place.
 
GotNoRice said:
Sound recorded in a drive-in theater is "high-quality"?

I think that the whole idea of someone recording a movie in a theater or drive-in is kind of silly. Back when a 20" NTSC television was considered high-end I could sort of understand but not today. Chances are, anyone who is content with that level of quality wasn't going to buy it in the first place.
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In comparison to audio picked up though someone's jacket in a theater it likely is. Just use a high quality radio to pick up the singal and jack that directly into a recording device and you got pretty decent audio in terms of pirate rips.
 
The article seems to be leaving out quite a lot of details when it says the theatre acted on a tip from the MPAA to look for his license plate. It's not saying who tipped who off first, how long they had been watching him, and the article even goes on to say they don't even know who the members of 'the rest of the conspiracy' are.
 
viscountalpha said:
You could likely unscrew the speaker and take the audio directly from the wire.
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Or get a radio with a stereo out and record off that. You are essentially recording at what ever quality the theater is sending out over the air.
 
The man allegedly worked for a release group and was caught after the MPAA tipped off the theater owner.
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How did the MPAA know this guy was recording audio?
 
Seems like a waste of resources to me. How in the world did they catch this guy? They must have known about him somehow. How stupid he spends 5 years in prison for this. Still, he broke the law and took the risk.
Is it even worth peoples time getting pirated audio? I guess some people are watching the hand-cam movies. Wouldn't be worth it to me - poor quality, annoying, and if I wait about 5-6 months, I can get the real deal (streaming, dvd/bluray, etc).
 
steakman1971 said:
Seems like a waste of resources to me. How in the world did they catch this guy? They must have known about him somehow. How stupid he spends 5 years in prison for this. Still, he broke the law and took the risk.
Is it even worth peoples time getting pirated audio? I guess some people are watching the hand-cam movies. Wouldn't be worth it to me - poor quality, annoying, and if I wait about 5-6 months, I can get the real deal (streaming, dvd/bluray, etc).
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The worst thing about Cam's are their audio. You have to figure most cam's are using a shitty boom, which is recording far away from the speakers and you pick up the noise from the other movie goers. Granted the Visual quality is low but even with low visual quality if you can't hear it it won't be worth it.

So them taking sound quality serious was a pretty big obstacle. MPAA shutting that down should be their biggest priority to stop high quality Cam's.
 
GotNoRice said:
Sound recorded in a drive-in theater is "high-quality"?

I think that the whole idea of someone recording a movie in a theater or drive-in is kind of silly. Back when a 20" NTSC television was considered high-end I could sort of understand but not today. Chances are, anyone who is content with that level of quality wasn't going to buy it in the first place.
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Its for people that watch movies on their cell phones or the iffy rips that are no longer around.

People that actually have proper surround sound setups and nice tv's don't bother with that low quality crap.
 
Remind me never to go to that Drive In in Pittsburgh. Spying in your own car now. Great.
 
LigTasm said:
You get the audio in your car through the radio, not really that hard to record.
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I'm still thinking of when they had an actual speaker you put in the car. Our last drive in here in oregon closed many years ago. An FM transmission makes much more sense. I bet they caught him when they started bugging that signal.
 
maddude said:
I think the bigger crime here is the drive-in theaters webpage:

Dependable Drive In | Home
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Respect the dancing hot dog!
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Hot_dog.gif

Hot_dog.gif
 
viscountalpha said:
I'm still thinking of when they had an actual speaker you put in the car. Our last drive in here in oregon closed many years ago. An FM transmission makes much more sense. I bet they caught him when they started bugging that signal.
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The one I go to locally has speakers on stands outside the window and also plays in the car radio.
 
How did they figure this out and what if he had his dick in his hand, at the time of arrest?
 
I know this is illegal, but man it should be at the bottom of the barrel of things to worry about in this day and age. Priorities people.
 
They better come arrest me then. I carry a recorder everywhere I go.
 
Cams are so unwatchably shitty, I have no idea why people bother to make them or download them. Just wait for a webrip or bdrip to appear on the torrent sites like a normal person.
 
Trimlock said:
And they are great!
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No, just no.

I used to go but the quality isn't as good as anything else and it just isn't that good of a way to see a movie.

maddude said:
I think the bigger crime here is the drive-in theaters webpage:

Dependable Drive In | Home
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:( I have been sick with the flu that past few days and was feeling better till I looked at that site. Thank you for making me feel sick again.
 
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