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Trouble implementing some unique copy protection
So I’m in charge of making the DVD release for our upcoming school musical West Side Story. Me and my Theatre Production teacher agreed to implement some sort of copy protection scheme that wouldn’t actually involve implementing either CSS or Macrovision. My idea was to do something like the 99-title copy protection seen on the Disney DVDs from mid-2009 to late-2011. To do that, I simply made a whole bunch of chapter playlists of the main program (tested on one of my home video projects I make in my spare time) that play back the film in the wrong order, omit a few scenes or duplicate some scenes found earlier in the program, while hiding the real McCoy in the mess of duplicates in the process. The only gripe with this is that with Adobe® Encore CS6, for some reason only 14 other timelines can contain the fakes separately; any more than that and some of them ended up being combined together in one timeline, which most of the other chapter playlists have nothing in them. If I had 98 or 99 total timelines in my project, then the real timeline is the only one that’s separate on the actual disc, the chapter playlists are smooshed together into one timeline after the real one in the sequence. Is there a way to make all of the fake duplicates separate so that the maximum number of timelines still reaches 99?
Thanks!
Of note, at my high school we don’t distribute the official school musical DVDs until June. We perform the big shows in early May. Even still, I’d like a response as soon as possible. Will provide necessary images if necessary.
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3 Replies
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Encore creates one VTS per timeline. I don’t recall the specifics, but it is a limit compared to a top of the line option like Scenarist. I wonder if this poses a limit. When searching the 99 title method, I only find ways to break it!
Stan Jones
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In all seriousness, why bother? Any 9-year-old can crack and copy any Hollywood DVD with free software in a few minutes…I just don’t see the point of copy protection for small-run DVDs. This is from someone who has made literally thousands of DVDs since 2001 for dance recitals, school plays, etc.
Will most likely just end up with some sort of playback/compatibility issues if you get too “creative” with the authoring.
And this is just hypothetical, not accusing anyone of anything or referring to anyone in particular, but wouldn’t it be funny if someone had not secured reproduction rights from the publisher to videotape and distribute a copyrighted musical, but then wanted to keep others from making unauthorized copies of those same materials? I’ve never seen that happen, but in theory it could.
Thanks
Jeff
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That I know. One VTS is created for each timeline in the project; up to a maximum of 99. Each chapter playlist does not count as a VTS, rather it only counts as an extra timeline in the disc navigation, so that means adding chapter playlists basically saves some space on the disc if utilized correctly.
And yes, copy protection can be defeated easily, but my musical DVD releases are only going to the students who performed in the show and those who helped out backstage, so the notion that a “9-year old” can break copy protection wouldn’t necessarily apply to the particular audience my DVD is reaching out towards.
I’ll provide some images regarding my predicament shortly.
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