There is no such thing as DVD copy protection.
As far as your own replication tower, they are expensive and require maintenance.
Services are cheap these days.

Yep, will reiterate ... if your customers can watch your DVDs, they can copy them. Copy protection is a pure waste of money.

Price your work to cover your desired income without DVD sales, then charge rock bottom for the DVDs so that they'll want to come to you rather than get copies made. I use inkjet printable DVDs and print a nice glossy case insert, then charge under $5 each and still make $4 profit on each one. Most customers would rather get a really nicely made disc and case for that price than make their own copies.

Piling on here, but keep in mind that Hollywood has near-infinite resources for copy protection. Even so, their disks can be easily copied by programs such as DVDfab. Then, when a new DVD comes out with a new twist on protection (such as intentional read errors or a dozen other tweaks that "break" the DVD) the nerds at DVDfab bring out a new version days later that gets around it.

So expensive CSS encryption only prevents copying by the casual PC user; any kid who knows his way around a PC can easily bypass the protection. And like Farss said, CSS is only for replicated (pressed) DVDs, not burned ones. Better to deliver an attractive product, like Chienworks said.

Ok, I agree with what everyone has said.... in theory.
$5 per DVD is a great idea to prevent copying, I mean why would you. So how do you get paid?
Might be different there in the states fellas, but no Ballet school here in Oz will hand over 2.5k out of their own pockets so you can provide cheap dvds for the parents.
The dancing industry is extremely tight when it comes to spending money, well here anyways.

Yes any kid up for the challenge CAN crack it if they try, but what I have been told by lots of Mums and Dads is that they couldn't be bothered and will just pay the price to get their own DVD. Just in case they cant get around the anti copy.
But when there is no copy protection (and they know it at pre order) they often split it 5 ways for one DVD and run off copies. $10 each.
These aren't my theories, they are honest accounts from Parents that have been doing this a lot longer than I have been filming concerts.

So anyway, opinions aside.
Does anyone have/use a duplicator that can do some sort of anti copy?

I have a A-Tech tower with 11 DVD drives. Also CD 2 x 7-disc towers on an old SCSI system PC-driven (was Padus Disc Juggler, but they disappeared)..

geoff

i think you're living in a fools paradise if you think any form of copy protection is going to deter even the average viewer from copying a dvd if they really want to. every family has it's 'nerd' only to ready to prove their prowess at cracking / hacking.

simply put up your prices to cover costs - and explain why you need to.

I agree - in this day and age there is no such thing as good copy protection. The live event industry, such as a dance recital has shifted. The dance studio and the parents have to respect the service that your providing. It's not the video - its the experience that they themselves can sit back and watch as a parent versus through a view finder, leaving the filming to you.

Price the project, divide by the minimum amount of copies required to be sold to identify the price per disc. Because many times you have to depend on the dance studio to "sale" the video, have an agreement that they have to make up the difference if the sales are short as well as share in the profits when sales are exceeded.

- Chad