Chennai: Mailam Engineering College B E students develop anti-piracy equipment

PUDUCHERRY: At a time when the film industry is facing a serious problem of video piracy, students of department of electronics and communication engineering, of Mailam Engineering College in Villupuram district have developed an equipment that prevents a motion picture on screen from exposure to camera lens of all kinds.

Placing this device behind the theatre screen, will curtail all kinds of illegal replication of the motion picture by the audience. Two students K. Anandhraj and A. Dhurai Raj_developed this prototype based on “infrared sensor” as part of their final year project to address the problem of manufacturing pirated CDs of new movies.

“When a movie is released in theatres the very next day, pirated CDs ,the so called ‘theatre print’ will be available in shops . This is one of the major threats to the film industry. So we decided to address the issue as part of our project” say the students.

The device comprises 384 infrared LEDs and when it is placed behind screen if someone attempts to record the image on the screen using a video camera or mobile phone, it will create optical water marking on the screen and will blur the image. At the same time as the infrared radiation emitted from the LEDs is not visible for human eye, it does not affect the visibility of images on the screen for the audience.

The total cost of the project is approximately Rs 2,000 for the prototype and the actual device, when produced on a large scale, will be around Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000. S.Senthil, principal of the college, said with the help of this new device the practice of manufacturing pirated CDs can be completely stopped. “ We will try to get the patent for this device after doing a successful demonstration of it” he said.