I need to create copy protected DVD's... that will be burned at various sites around the country. I've ran into a glaring problem I didn't foresee - hoping you guys can help. We can create the DVD's with copy protection here on our expensive equipment, but when we send it to the other facilities they can't burn it (which makes sense, Nero and Roxio are mad because you're trying to copy a protected file...)

How can I get around this without having to overnight DVD's all over the country? They're all using windows PC's, so I'm open to alternate software as long as it's friendly with XP.

2/16/2011 12:18:44 PM

heh. are you asking how to copy copy protected dvds?

2/16/2011 12:25:02 PM

no, well, yes I guess. HA

I'm the one creating the copy protected DVD's - I'm just asking how they can burn them. Vis-a-vis, yes - yes I am.

Also, software based copy protection? We've got hardware down, but that's expensive/hassle.

[Edited on February 16, 2011 at 12:30 PM. Reason : I'd also take a solution less than $200 that will burn hardware protected discs (bad sectors, etc)]

2/16/2011 12:27:32 PM

do you know what copy protection scheme you're using?

2/16/2011 12:35:45 PM

I mean bascially heres the deal. Either you:

A) Find some software capable of breaking your copy protection, thus rendering the copy protection worthless in the first place

or

B) you shell out for shipping/buying more hardware copy protectors.

its probably A). dont bother with the protection in the first place, sell off your expensive shit, claim the savings on your next performance review

2/16/2011 12:38:16 PM

We haven't made the transition yet. Currently we send unprotected ISO's.

Rovi is calling me this afternoon, and I'm open to anything. I'm familiar with macrovision, but I'm game for anything. It doesn't even have to be particularly "protected" - we just want them to know we heard their complaints about copying worries and we're doing something about it.

2/16/2011 12:40:01 PM

charge folks extra for copy protection. enough to cover the cost of shipping/extra hardware.

the reason those custom protection burners are expensive is because they do stuff beyond what your normal DVD burner is gonna do. If the person receving the ISO doesn't have one of those custom burners they wont ever be able to burn it.

The best you're going to be able to do is software protection which is either a huge pain in the ass to the user or completely ineffective.

You're much better off securing the contents of the disk some how (ex: DRM if its media, license activation if its software, etc...) rather than trying to disable copying of the disk. That shit never works.

2/16/2011 12:58:14 PM

how much does it cost to ship a dvd? $1?

2/16/2011 2:12:32 PM

we market 12 hour turn around time. It, therefore, would have to be first overnight - and we have like 50+ customers in california.

How about css encryption - how are you guys adding that in?

2/16/2011 2:20:39 PM

Anyone know anything about CPRM? Can we put that in an ISO file, lol. There has to be something out there short of stamping our own DVD's

2/16/2011 3:26:10 PM

stamping is pretty much the only way to do this en masse

2/16/2011 4:19:45 PM

Each location gets a custom disk, so in practice we only need 1 copy of each. En masse is not an issue, in fact it is the issue.

2/16/2011 4:31:41 PM

put a disclaimer on it, charge substantially more if they want active protection

2/16/2011 8:27:10 PM

about 20 minutes before I left the office I found some solution that encrypts ISO files, and licenses are only 50c each. We'll probably test it next week and I'll post results. Could be a great addition to wedding shooters and stuff as well.

2/16/2011 9:01:05 PM

so what happens when they burn the iso to dvd/cd and then just make a copy of the disk?

2/16/2011 10:15:33 PM

Here's the company
http://www.protectdisc.com/en/solutions/copy-protectionsolutions/recordable-media/video-dvd-copy-protection

Supposedly the original ISO can be burned as many times as necessary, but the physical media cannot be ripped back into a functioning ISO. I'm not sure how it works or even if it works. But I hope to get it approved so I can find out next week

2/17/2011 9:52:30 AM

so maybe I am the first to want to know what is the data your burning? why is it so important that you need industrial protection? if it so important then why are you burning it in the first place?

if it is a video DVD that is meant to be read by regular dvd readers then AnyDVD will have no problem allowing you to extract the data encryption free to be burned easily on another burner...

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

and I see on the protectdvd website that they are touting 'screener' and 'oscar nominated' dvd protection for review. man this has been figured out long ago, just do a search on binsearch.info for 'dvdscr' and you will see a lot of pre-release rips from dvd images

i just recommend that if you trust the end user just rar the shit with a 10-15 character password... the latest winrar uses AES and will take a long time to break... but yeah i guess you dont trust them if you are going through all this hassle of wasting your time with media protection...

2/17/2011 1:52:15 PM

^we know full well it's a complete waste of time. But our customers want at least some form of protection. This will at least stop automated duplicators and Nero users from making copies - and they think that's 99% of their problem.

We make memorial videos for funeral homes - about 50 of them per day. They have to be burnable because some people can't figure out how to playback digital files on WDTV boxes and some places don't have internet (!) for streaming solutions.

Anyway... thanks for the help; I'll get back if I get the go-ahead to do some testing on these suckas.

2/17/2011 3:16:29 PM