Thread: DVD Watermark?
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Old 2005-01-17, 03:41 PM
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Re: DVD Watermark?

Quote:
Originally Posted by katnapz
Are you sure you're not referring to the changeover cue marks that are put on the film to tell the projectionist when to flip from one projector (reel) to another? This is a small black circle (or oval if the film is shown out of proportion) that flashes in the top right corner of the film every ~20 minutes or so. As far as I know (and I did some refresh research on the net before posting here) the watermarking used by studios for pirated movies is unobservable to the eye,...and serialized so they can trace a copy back to the source. And they may use a "Property Of/Do Not Duplicate" scroller. A couple of black dots would be way to easy for someone to edit out of a pirated copy.

What really p*sses me off is when I see them on a DVD release of a movie...which tells me that the studio didn't give a rats behind about the quality of the film when they transferred it, as they should've been removed.
Nope. I work in editing on major films for a living. I know what changeovers are, in fact, I used to put them on by hole-punching paper tape and sticking the "hole" on the appropriate frames for screenings of work prints.
The marks the studios put on are totally noticeable, but probably more so to me since one of the things my job requires is making sure film is clean for work prints and then checking for neg problems and dirt on release prints. I never noticed changeovers before I started working in editing, so most lay-people won't notice the marks the studio put on. But I can assure you they are black dots that are sprinkled across the frames and they can really jump out to me. Now it's possible that there are different methods, but there's only a few labs that do the release printing, so I'm sure they're all pretty similar.
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Last edited by feralicious; 2005-01-17 at 03:47 PM.
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