philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Pirating the 2015 Oscars

Author stats on piracy from all sources.

MPAA stats on piracy from screens

Along with the official U.S. and Oscar screener release dates, I include the leak dates for each major way that films typically find their way online:

1. Cam. The old standby, a handheld camera in a theater. The worst quality, and increasingly uncommon.
2. Telesync. Typically, a cam with better audio, often from headphone jacks in theater seats intended as hearing aids.
3. Telecine, R5, PPV, Webrip, and HDRips. The terminology and sourcing’s changed through the years, but these are all high-quality rips with solid audio and video. (Generally speaking, Telecines were ripped from original prints distributed to theaters, R5 from “Region 5” DVDs sent to other regions to combat piracy, PPV from advanced pay-per-view sources, Webrip from early online releases like iTunes, and HDRip from a variety of sources, but typically from HDTV.)
4. Screener. Great quality, usually intended for media or competition review, but can leak at any point in the distribution chain, often with watermarks intact. (As Ellen DeGeneres knows well.)
5. Retail. A rip from the official retail release.

See the full story here: https://medium.com/message/pirating-the-2015-oscars-hd-edition-6c78e0cb471d