

TV broadcast monitoring in Canada must be Doom-like resolution (320x240) x 15f/s - a3camero
http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/tariffs-tarifs/certified-homologues/2010/20100213.pdf

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JimmyL
That headline is a little sensationalist - only their web- and email-
accessible clips have to be that resolution.

The guidelines say that "a monitor may send to a customer who requires
immediate access a video ... as an email attachment with a resolution no
greater than 320 pixels by 240 pixels", and then has a similar restriction
when it comes to "video excerpts of CBRA programs in a password-secured
database" (which, incidentally, must be removed from that database ten days
after the show was broadcast). There's no restriction on the resolution of the
products that the monitoring companies sell (s.6); only on how recently the
clip's been aired - these companies have to get rid of their clips a month
after they're broadcast.

Most media monitoring contracts are based around keywords and/or concepts -
your contract could cover, for example, all clips on CBCNN/SunTV/CTVNN that
deal with the regulation of biofuels. You'd then get a daily/weekly list of
monitoring notes (a small description of what's in each clip), and from that,
you could order the clips you're interested in at full resolution. If you want
to do anything with these clips - like turn them into promos or send to your
clients - you could then go to the rights-holders and see if they'd license
them to you.

The clips that the headline refers to are effectively high-end versions of
these monitoring notes. They're designed so that the analyst can get the gist
of what's been said in the clip/see the visuals, and from that, they can make
a decision about if they want to order the full-resolution product. Think of
them like video thumbnails for full monitoring products.

The point of all these regulations is to very clearly restrict the business
models of media monitoring companies. It gives them license to legally store,
transmit, and distribute copyrighted content without dealing with individual
broadcasters - but only enough so that customers can identify what they're
interested in, and then contact the rights-holders directly for access to that
content.

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a3camero
Great comments.

I've used an American service (<http://www.shadowtv.com/>) that was a way
better version of what this sounds like. It wasn't perfect but you didn't have
to contact a big pile of TV stations and have them send you DVDs in the mail
(unless I don't understand how you're saying it works).

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a3camero
The perils of writing your laws to current day technology:

s. 8(2)(b): "excerpts shall have a resolution no greater than 320 pixels by
240 pixels and a frame rate no greater than 15 frames per second;"

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jmreardon
This document isn't actually a legislation. It is a regulation made under the
authority of the Copyright Act, and as the preamble states, it is "for the
years 2009 and 2010".

The actual legislation does not make any reference to "pixels" or "frame" or
"resolution" at all. If anything, this legislation an example of how write
laws so they don't rely on current day technology.

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a3camero
Good point.

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aristidb
Can somebody explain and give context? Reading laws is not my forté.

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a3camero
Sure!

There's a type of service called media monitoring. It's where companies...
monitor the media. Clients often want media clips from the TV shows they were
featured in. So you need a database of TV clips.

There's a government body in Canada that handles a bunch of aspects of
Canada's copyright system. They set tariffs and rules for doing various
things. They've set the tariffs for media monitoring and also set the rules
that you have to follow in order to run a media monitoring service. One of
them is that you can't have a database that has video with a resolution
greater than 320x240 and it also can't have a frame rate greater than 15
frames per second.

Obviously this isn't legal advice... There appear to be a lot of rules to
follow. This looks to be one of them. Consult a lawyer to find out how
complicated this really is...

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nxn
Wasn't Doom's resolution 320x200? And I'd be a bit surprised if it was capped
to 15fps.

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geon
If I know Carmack right, it was suposed to run at 60 fps on the target
hardware.

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Canada
The copyright board needs to go.

