European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 22, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                16 the stars and stripes entertainment april 1985 the video arms race ways to foil to tapers a photo Andrew Lippman of Massachusetts Institute of technology twiddling Ever so slightly with to by Daniel Haney associated press commercial zappers and time shifters of the take note engineers Are invent ing ways to broadcast television shows so that video cassette recorders cannot tape this quest is still in the tinkering and talk ing but if the technology succeeds and if it is used the second if is especially it could crimp Ameri cans newfound Freedom to watch what they want when they so the television and movie producers have financed at least three projects to accomplish were serious about says Allen vice president of the motion picture association of we need to protect our without our copy we own if a system is developed that works and we can i think it would be broadly the goal is to find a Way to Send programs Over Cable or the air so that people can see them on television but cant record its naturally a recordable a recordable video refers to generating a television signal that you can watch on a Standard to set without any scramblers or gizmos or but it blows a tape recorder out of the says Andrew Lippman of Massachusetts Institute of working with a contract from Columbia Lippman says Hes invented a Way to twiddle Ever so slightly with to signals so this very thing Hap these Are the signals that feed millions of video Cas Sette recorders that Whir away obediently in living rooms across a Quarter of All according to one will have Vars by the end of this one of their most important uses along with play ing rented movies is storing up to shows that air today so they can be watched next next whenever the whim this is known in the business As time and it leads to what the producers see As the twin evils of Vars commercial zapping and Library when an and comes on the Many viewers touch the Remote control scan Speed up the and soundlessly watch the soap Sellers and cat food kitties Jerk foolishly around the in a the message of the people who paid for the show is to the extent that zapping goes on and the proportion of Var owners the value of television As an advertising deteriorates Cooper the funds for the development of programs for television will also go Down the that one reason Why the program makers Are intrigued with the idea of a recordable another is the Prospect of thwarting people who copy movies illegally off pay Cable channels and watch them Over and producers make Money by recycling when they finish their run in the Cable movie channels pay to show but if lots of people record them off the Cable for their Home the value of the films goes they Are Worth less Money to the because fewer people will watch them when they Are shown with and anybody who recorded a movie for free int going to pay for a prerecorded one answer to this though perhaps not the final one is Lippmann the idea is that we alter the timing of the television he to runs at 30 frames a when you watch youre really watching still weve devised a modification of the to signal so that it Doest any longer run at 30 frames a it runs slightly slower and occasionally slightly a in doing so were exploiting the Job of a to set is to do the Best it can in making a picture of whatever junk you feed into its Vars Are not quite As Good As one Rea son is that they Are mechanical instead of and because of its mechanical the tape recorder is fundamentally not As resilient As an electronic device like a television in other a to works Fine when the signal speeds up and slows it can Cope with a Sloppy but a Var it needs a steady 30 frames per tinker with the signal just a Lippman and the Var records the show in Black and not a bit and the picture seems to breathe it grows and shrinks on the after the picture turns to if the color goes that probably says you dont have to do much to a movie to make it unwatchable or at least not pleasantly watchable when you can rent a cassette for a the single most important retirement is that the scrambling thwart not lip Man says he still needs to test his system on All the brands of television now sold to make sure that  receive his fluctuating this might not Knock every Var into lip Man says Hes having trouble with the most expensive and sophisticated but Hes sure he can wreck the performance of Well Over half of Lippman says it would be possible to construct a Box that would convert the to signal into something the Vars can but those boxes would be certainly the tape recorder makers will begin building machines that can Cope with fluctuating this could he to a kind of video arms if there is one Way to ruin Var there Are probably people might be reluctant to buy the next generation of recorder because they wont know what tricks the video saboteurs still have up their another possible problem would be getting this sys tem past Federal since it would require a change in broadcast it would have to be approved by the Federal communications because tvs would still Lippman says he cant imagine Why the acc would but the program makers Arent so so the motion picture association has underwritten two projects to find ways to undermine Vars that would not need the fecs bless Cooper says that neither worked very they could disrupt but they also bushwhacked some tvs in the one of these projects was conducted by Wil Liam Glenn of new York Institute of his strategy was to broadcast color stripes that would show up on a video recording but not on a live to most Vars have filters that screened out his i never came away with a very comfortable feeling that we could get it completely objectionable to somebody recording the signal but not have it visible to a television Glenn even if the scrambling works and is it int Clear How widely it would be Cooper says the producers would program by which series and movies to presumably the material would be provided to broadcasters Only on the condition that it would be he but would to pay movie channels and Cable companies go along with this Brian coordinator of mits research program on communication thinks they would be cause it would eliminate part of their audiences the people who tape now and watch but he says it could be used i see it As being attractive to the networks if they want to pick up a blockbuster movie ahead of pay he the networks could get a better Deal on it if they had the signal treated this that would preserve the life of the product for the Cable Compa