OT - protecting DVD discs from duplication

vicmilt wrote on 10/7/2007, 11:17 AM
Alright - I KNOW nothing is absolute, yada yada...

but I'm currently sending out discs for review, and I'd love to make it at least SOMEWHAT DIFFICULT to dupe these. Most of this particular audience won't have any hacker skills, but any jerk can make a dupe dvd these days.

I thought in DVDA ver 3, I could select "Unlimited, one dupe, none" as a burning option - don't remember, for sure.

In DVDA 4.0 (don't dare to upgrade at this point) those options are only available for MASTERING.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

v

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 10/7/2007, 11:30 AM
Those settings are only to tell the replication house how to protect your disc, at a substantial extra cost of course. It's meta data, doesn't change your video data.

There's Macrovision to prevent grandmothers from hooking up a VCR to their DVD player and making a tape copy.

And CSS to prevent the grandmothers from simply copying the disc on the nearest off-the-shelf PC.

And then you have Region Control, and a few more options.

All three of these protection schemes have simple Keep/Discard buttons in widely available free software for "making backups of your own DVDs."

As boomers age, you'll need to change the Grandmothers above to Great Grandmothers.

Chienworks wrote on 10/7/2007, 12:15 PM
To sum up very quickly ... nope, can't be done.
Nobody wrote on 10/7/2007, 12:30 PM
Vic,
Depending on what aspect of the discs your viewers are reviewing, you might just want to render a version with some sort of "watermark". You know, something that would let them be obviously aware of content, sound, composition, lighting, etc. but not be very attractive to the notion of copying.

Just a thought for a different approach to your situation.
Former user wrote on 10/7/2007, 12:46 PM
Watermark. If these are just for review, make the video not desirable to be copied.

Dave T2
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/7/2007, 2:26 PM
if it's in widescreen, watermarks would be perfect. make the video that's in widescreen as 4:3 & put a contact # (or something) at the bottom, slightly going over the video.
craftech wrote on 10/7/2007, 3:47 PM
Vic,

Send out an edited version for review. Leave out a few parts so that they won't want to copy it.

John
richard-courtney wrote on 10/7/2007, 3:50 PM
A couple of years ago Sony had released a method of messing with the data structure
of the DVD. Sony ARccOS™ but that has been hacked and removed by most of the
programs now. Because many of the hacking programs are written in countries
other than the US, they are now finding new laws started by the EU.

Don't think there is anything right now but until we go to BR or HDDVD we face
less than ideal security.

MH_Stevens wrote on 10/7/2007, 3:53 PM
Watermark or with occasion black screen with note saying "For Review ONLY - do not duplicate". It is better to have your clients in your confidence and rely of honest and mutual respect than trying to add some copy protection that just encourages the "lets try and see if we can copy it, he he....

Mike



Xander wrote on 10/7/2007, 4:01 PM
I simply added the timecode Video FX to one of my review versions. This was to "aid in referencing any additional edits that they would like."

Additionally, as I edit/work in HDV, I only produce standard definition DVDs for reviews.

Basically, if somebody wants to copy it, they will; whether its DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray.

I think that what is needed is reasons to not want to duplicate something, rather than prevent it.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/7/2007, 4:16 PM
I think that what is needed is reasons to not want to duplicate something, rather than prevent it.

I agree. normally "pay 1/2 now & 1/2 when done" works pretty well. then if they suddenly decide they don't want finished copies you still get some $$$.
Galeng wrote on 10/7/2007, 4:43 PM
I know of no way to copy protect either. I recently completed a rather long slide show and also included some video for a customer that went on a trip to China and Tibet. He liked it enough that he wanted to send it around to the rest of the tour group. So, I made a "sample" disk that gave them an idea of what the slideshow was and the video clips. The original slide show was about 45 mintues. The sample disk had 5 minutes. The video clip was also cut down. Worked out very well. So if they did copy it they sure wouldn't get much!
baysidebas wrote on 10/8/2007, 10:53 AM
"I simply added the timecode Video FX to one of my review versions. This was to "aid in referencing any additional edits that they would like."

This has worked well for me. It makes copying undesirable and without implying that the customer may be a potential thief. It also helps to place a card at the beginning stating "Advance Review Copy, not for Quality." Got this from when we advertised in magazines and would get first press proofs, they all had a sticker on the cover proclaiming "NOT FOR QUALITY," which many times I thought could have been an editorial comment.
JJKizak wrote on 10/8/2007, 3:23 PM
What about the rumor going around if you drilled a couple of small holes at the beginning the copying software would go bananas and not function?
JJK
Kennymusicman wrote on 10/8/2007, 3:42 PM
The drilling is easy to get around. It simply creates a CRC error. It also ofsets the gravity of the disc (unless it has its "antipolar") and can send your hardware into destruction...

Ken
4eyes wrote on 10/8/2007, 4:13 PM
Ken,
Just how big a hole are you drilling anyway?
I buy all my dvd's with holes already in them.
bigrock wrote on 10/8/2007, 4:26 PM
Holes? Holes?

Personally I buy my blank DVDs with only one hole in them.

And I find they work a lot better if the Hole is in the centre.

I tried some cheap dvds with the an off centre Hole and they made a real funny sound in the burner drive, and I found they would only playback properly if I kept shaking the player back and forth while hopping up and down on one foot singing Kumbaya in Greek.
Kennymusicman wrote on 10/8/2007, 4:29 PM
lol
The holes is/was used on sample media for radio stations and so forth - it was a way of stopping the DJ selling the copies off as something other than an obvious NFR sample

TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/8/2007, 7:02 PM
now they just rip it & put it on the net. Great plan. :D

Don't they drill holes in CD cases too?
Chienworks wrote on 10/8/2007, 7:29 PM
Every one i've seen, the holes have been in the case/album cover, not in the disc itself. And ... most of the time i see them, they're for sale in the record store. Go figger.
Spot|DSE wrote on 10/8/2007, 7:48 PM
You can drill holes in the disc, it's how Native Instruments keep their discs from being duplicated, but it's a hit/miss process for one-offs, I believe.
MH_Stevens wrote on 10/8/2007, 8:10 PM
The drilling of holes as a method of copy protection is a very old idea that was used on 51/4" floppies. The first people to use holes who I worked with were Lotus who used it on their original spreadsheet program. Was that Visicalc? That later became Symphony.

Xander wrote on 10/8/2007, 9:06 PM
Drilling holes is a form of protection that most people will see right through. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Coursedesign wrote on 10/8/2007, 10:35 PM
Holes on 5 1/4" floppies?

Those were probably hard sector discs that used those holes to mark where each sector started.

Bob Greaves wrote on 10/9/2007, 3:17 AM
Holes on 5 1/4" floppies?

Yes, but they were an unconventional sized sector and the sector size changed half way through. Disc copy became very difficult. Hacker tools were not readily available. And installation routines checked for the sector sizes on the install disc.