The MPAA is looking for ways to bend the ban.

A top-level meeting of representatives from the MPAA signatory companies adjourned after 90 minutes Thursday without reaching any decision to rescind or revise the controversial ban on awards season screeners. But various compromise solutions are now on the table, and further discussions are expected.

While one proposal advanced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences met with resistance, other suggestions -- particularly the use of VHS tapes with special security coding -- appear to be winning supporters.

In the wake of the afternoon meeting -- in which MPAA head Jack Valenti met via phone conference with top executives from the seven MPAA studios as well as New Line Cinema and DreamWorks Pictures -- MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor would say only that "it was a long meeting, and that was the extent of our comment. We will continue to have discussions." Although some sources indicated that a compromise could be hammered out as soon as today, Taylor would not say when the next meeting will take place, only that "there will be future meetings and conversations, and if it warrants it, we will make announcements."

But while sources familiar with the discussions cautioned that a compromise could still fall apart, the dominant impression was that, confronted with the intense opposition that the ban has triggered, the MPAA member companies hope to arrive at a compromise that acknowledges the ban's original intent of combating piracy but still allows for the films to be seen by the various year-end voting groups.

"There was a willingness to compromise from all parties," one source said.

Said another source: "Everybody was hoping to find a way to (resume the use of screeners). The question is, how do you get them into the right hands? Nobody has an interest in letting them get out to everybody's relative."

The Academy proposal was an unexpected development because AMPAS has not publicly taken a position on the screener issue. But there has been a growing concern among Academy officials that if the ban resulted in smaller films being unable to compete for Oscars on an even playing field with bigger studio releases, that could damage the public perception of the Oscars as an arbiter of the year's best films. So, in recent days, top-ranking members of the Academy volunteered to the MPAA that the Academy itself take over the job of sending out screeners to its members.

That proposal, which was raised at Thursday's meeting, drew objections. If screeners went only to Academy members, that would appear to disadvantage other such voting groups as the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. and BAFTA. Plus, veteran Oscar campaigners doubted that the Academy, already contending with an abbreviated calendar, was prepared to take on the logistical task of distributing screeners.

Instead, conversation at the MPAA meeting focused on the use of VHS tapes rather than DVDs. Sources predicted that more easily duplicated DVDs will continue to be banned.

There appears to be general agreement that the videos carry some sort of individual coding so that if they are pirated, they can be traced back to the original recipient. That, however, is a more expensive process and has raised the concern that it would favor the larger studios over the smaller companies.

Some argued that there should be some sanctions in place should recipients of screeners abuse the privilege and allow them to be duplicated.

If the MPAA does find a new solution to the screener ban, it is expected to apply across the board -- both to the larger studios and their smaller specialty film arms. Some had argued before the meeting that if the big studios were concerned about the pirating of popular titles like the upcoming "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," the ban should apply only to wide general releases and that films in more limited release could still have screeners sent out. That idea did not appear to gain any traction at the meeting, where it was felt that any compromise had to apply to all companies across the board.

As details from the MPAA meeting began to surface Thursday night, specialty film insiders were optimistic that the ban's days are numbered. "I would wager that they will come out with something that will compromise (the ban)," one top indie executive said.

The MPAA announced its original policy Sept. 30. After 10 days of negotiation with the heads of the trade association's seven member studios, who were joined by nonmembers DreamWorks and New Line, Valenti announced that the studios had voluntarily agreed "not to send out any screeners for awards consideration purposes."

The ban fell particularly hard on the specialized film divisions of the major studios, which in recent years have depended on VHS and DVD screeners to bring smaller movies -- like last year's "The Pianist," the Focus Features release that won actor and director Oscars this year -- to the attention of Academy members as well as voters in other awards groups.

The ban has been a publicity debacle for the MPAA as hundreds of filmmaking professionals have lent their signatures to open letters issued by the IFP and a directors group headed by Robert Altman. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, AFMA and the WGA have also protested the ban on behalf of their members.

Valenti, who has become the focal point of the controversy, even came face to face with several of those protesting the ban when he attended a private screening that the Coen brothers hosted in Manhattan last week for their current studio release, "Intolerable Cruelty." At the screening's afterparty held at the Manhattan restaurant Gabriel's, he was confronted by a string of high-profile guests arguing against the ban -- among them "Lost In Translation" writer-director Sofia Coppola and "Cruelty" star George Clooney.

Nicole Sperling in Los Angeles and Ian Mohr in New York contributed to this report.