[John Beale]

I have a older Plextor and a BenQ DW1640 burner. Both of them can read out bit error rates on DVD-R media. I did some testing and found a huge difference in error rate between Taiyo Yuden and Ritek media:
https://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/DVD/error1.html

The Nero CD-DVD speed test program https://www.cdspeed2000.com/ also measures error rates from drives that report them, like Lite-On and BenQ brands. Here’s a review of one such drive: https://www.cdfreaks.com/article/232/4

[John Beale]

Commercial DVD case cover art is printed on coated paper using an offset press. This is normally economical only for very large runs, due to setup charges. I have experimented with coated paper in laserprinters, with poor results. You can get very nice paper for color laserprinters, but it costs quite a bit, as much as $0.50 to $1.00 per page depending on quantity.

You can buy die-cut paper for many things, and I’d assume there is an A4 size sheet with the cuts pre-scored so you can get the correct size for the DVD cover insert without using the paper cutter. Such sheets are often more expensive than you’d like to pay, though.

[John Beale]

check out http://www.JewelBoxing.com they may have something of interest for you.

It does rely more on you to create the artwork though. The two-part case is transparent, so it’s your printed inserts that give it whatever look you want. They have some design examples on their site.

[John Beale]

There are programs out there for MPEG2 and DVD verification, but they range from very expensive to ridiculously expensive. Philips has one which may be the least expensive, for example here:
https://www.licensing.philips.com/services/lover/documents1048.html
https://www.licensing.philips.com/services/lover/h/documents1038.html

[John Beale]

Consumer-level DVD authoring tools do not support protection methods, but it doesn’t matter much. The Hollywood studios pay big royalties to be able to use CSS and Macrovision protection on their pressed DVDs, and it does them no good because software to copy protected DVDs is so easy to download.

The best protection is to have a good relationship with your customers, and make your packaging, DVD printing, cover art & inserts well-designed to reinforce the idea that the original DVD is something of value to be respected.