How can I put copy protection on a dvd?

[Robert M Wright]

By the same token, if rather than spending a lot of time and effort on trying to copy protect DVDs, you simply spent the same amount of time and effort working in a burger joint, you would likely come out much further ahead.

[Marty Welk]

I was thinking of working at WalMart :-) . . . to pay for the "protection" .
or if you have to pay Macrovision $10,000 a year Plus have all the special Machines to work with it , like back in analog days, then you might as well become a duplication facility and hang up the camera altogether.

[Dean Sensui]

Someone told me a long time ago: Locks only keep honest people out.

My dad taught me how to pick locks, and I'm certain that modern-day folks have learned to pick electronic locks as easily.

Maybe as someone said, put in a message that creates a sense of compassion against theft: Have a short video of a little girl in difficult circumstances and have a VO: Buying this DVD will help Danielle get through college someday and provide for her family. Thank you for your contribution.... etc. :-)

[Allan Black]

Originally Posted by Bruce Phung

You can put copy right protection if you want. DVDA have that feature. Copy right is only good prevent copy DVD to DVD but it will not prevent from RIP it. They are a crap loads of programs can do that easy as pie.

Bruce do you mean Sony DVDA, if so which version? We're at this stage and has been said
we only want to stop someone making a friends copy.

Using DL stock sounds good but the blanks cost a bundle.

Cheers.

[Gary Janello]

8X White Inkjet Hub Printable Double Layer can be found for about .70 cents each. I think for small jobs, it is a good option and much cheaper than most copy guard systems. Like someone said in an earlier post.. It is only going to stop the novice pirate. Anybody that reads these pages will know how to get around the error message that comes up.

I am sorry to say that I was caught by this a couple years ago. I duplicated a project on DL and got a customer call wanting to know why I copyguarded their program. Took me a while to figure it out, but they were just using nero wizard to make a simple DVD to DVD copy and they were getting an error because of the DL master to single DVD. I plan on trying this DL method in my next project and I will update here if it works.

[Robert M Wright]

There's no way that you are going to wind up with more profit, from the possibility of increased sales by perhaps stopping somebody (but probably not) from copying a DL disk that cost you more than twice as much to burn than a SL disk (and Nero's suite, which is awfully common and includes "Nero Recode", makes it just super easy to recompress a DL DVD video to fit on a SL disk - okay, some folks are as dumb as petunias, but not everybody).

For every buck you gain in revenues (if any at all) from folks that buy a disk because you thwarted an attempt at copying one, by using DL disks, you're probably going to spend over $100 extra burning needlessly expensive disks. I mean, for goodness sake, if you burn a thousand DL disks, is that even going to yield a net gain in sales of 1 disk???

It's really paranoid to think that everyone buying your video is going to rush out to the store, buy a pile of blank disks and make lots and lots of copies, and that the folks they give them to might actually have purchased a copy of your video (or even known of it's existence) if their buddy hadn't handed them the dreaded pirated copy.

[Andrew Smith]

Actually, it happens to a production company that I do some work for. They will come in and video an end-of-year concert, paid for by the sales of the DVDs.

They have actually overheard people stating that [friend of the family] is buying one so they'll just make a copy for themselves on the computer.

It's quite disheartening for them as they sit there at the ordering desk.

Andrew

[Marty Welk]

yup when you charge by the disc instead of for the production, a single person with any ol computer can take you for $300-1000 , without a thought or any action required to break the protection.

EX: long ago i charged $30 a disk for a stage event, with 20 required, most people bought 70-100 copies, one group ordered the stock 20. i called the group leader Mrs. Smiley , i guarentee she didnt know how to break a protection, she just got the required 20, and did whatever she wanted after that.
and next year she wasnt smiling :-) when we had better things to do than her work.

[Taky Cheung]

I have done this before and it works. What you need to do is to add 10 minutes of blank / black video at the end of the last chapter. After the DVD is burned, use an exacto knife to make some mark on the outter edge on the DVD where the different shade is visible to you.

In that case, the DVD can still be played fine on computer and DV player. However, when someone try to make a copy with the computer, it will report error and won't copy the entire disc. If they ignore the error, they can copy everything except the last 1GB file in the Video_TS folder.

[Marty Welk]

another trick that is similar, that i have not been willing to unload on my customers because of its ramifications.
Add that extra video or 2 at the end of the project, duplicate in a "tower" (they sell small towers for really cheap) When the video copy gets to the last bit of data 4312m or wherever the last few megs of useless junk you have added on, Then Crash the tower, by turning it off right in the middle. (probably kills the backup TOC too)

Every DVD player i have tested with it, plays a dvd a lot like a tape, so it doent know what hit it till it gets to the mulched data point, then some will freeze up, but not permenently. if it was on (say) the last Track, with one track before it playing the "star spangled banner" :-) they can turn it off before it hits that point.
also special scripting (i cant do yet) can keep a normal dvd player from ever playing that track at all.

With average copying software , the software crashes :-) Some Rippers will even crash when it reaches this nasty ending. put back in the tower it wont pre-scan proper, and trying to tower copy it it shows an error. The fun thing is nobody knows that it is about to happen, so they waste all the time and boom they get nothing.
Add in the scenario that they just promised the 5 other people they split the costs with a copy, and they are back on the web for a few hours trying to find the right ripper :-P

ramifications , on peoples computers it can crash the playing software, if it plays that area. as long as it is an NT type system (like xp and vista and all) the program playing it can then be task ended, but it is sure to tick off some people. Dont know what happens if they play that part on a mac.

an analog copy is then a piece of cake still of course.

its Nasty, but cheap , and i dont have to pay anybody anything. It is also unexpected , as all the special ripping software is looking for appropriate protection , not a hack job smashing the data into oblivion.

[Craig Parkes]

The most clever copy protection I have been made aware of recently being implemented by some studios goes something like this: They build their DVD's with 99 chapters (the maximum), actually encoding the DVD so that the VTS is in non sequential order, then scripting the DVD so it seamlessly plays in the correct order.

If you rip a DVD that has been set up like this, then you will end up with a file that has 99 non sequential clips that need to be edited and re-arranged to get back into the original order. Makes it very hard for personal use copying, or those who would rent and rip. Obviously large scale operations may take the time to rearrange those 99 chapters to the movies correct order, assuming they knew the movies correct order, but the extra time and effort for them probably helps the window of time for the studios at least a littlebit.

[Taky Cheung]

How about someone just make a copy of the video_ts folder? Does your trick has any impact on this action?

[Bruce Phung]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

Bruce do you mean Sony DVDA, if so which version? We're at this stage and has been said
we only want to stop someone making a friends copy.

Using DL stock sounds good but the blanks cost a bundle.

Cheers.

My Sony DVDA 5.0 have this copy protection but I don't use it. > Project Properties> click copy protection> you will see Disc copyrighted yes or no.

[Paul Doherty]

Originally Posted by Craig Parkes

The most clever copy protection I have been made aware of recently being implemented by some studios goes something like this: They build their DVD's with 99 chapters (the maximum), actually encoding the DVD so that the VTS is in non sequential order, then scripting the DVD so it seamlessly plays in the correct order.

If you rip a DVD that has been set up like this, then you will end up with a file that has 99 non sequential clips that need to be edited and re-arranged to get back into the original order. Makes it very hard for personal use copying, or those who would rent and rip. Obviously large scale operations may take the time to rearrange those 99 chapters to the movies correct order, assuming they knew the movies correct order, but the extra time and effort for them probably helps the window of time for the studios at least a littlebit.

Craig

I've come across this and it seems to me to work pretty well. Do you know whether it is something that a small operator (well tiny) like myself can use, but I'm guessing that it is more the province of the large studios.

I heard that not only are the 99 chapters in a non-sequential order, but the order can change between different pressings. So if someone posts on a hack site and says here's the order you need to put them, then it will only work for discs from that particular pressing.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Craig Parkes

actually encoding the DVD so that the VTS is in non sequential order, then scripting the DVD so it seamlessly plays in the correct order.

Don't you run into seek-time delays as it physically seeks to the next logical chapter?