Hope this question fits in this forum, I am a newbee, For watching DVDs, I only have 2 players, a Pioneer b urner in my desktop and a DVD-rom in my laptop. That is how I watch movies. That's just the way it is. I was reading the fine print on an smaller online DVD rental place, it's one of those places that edit DVD movies to 'clean' them up, then produce a burned copy. That edited burned copy is what they send out to subscribers. Reading the fine print, there is an ugly threatening warning that they use some kind of 'fingerprint' technology on their copies that allows them to detect if that copy has been subsequently copied. My questions are: 1. Does such technology exist, or is that a bluff? 2. What if someone watches the DVD in a computer that only has a burner, no distinction could possibly be made between 'watching' and 'copying' the movie, since the computer reads the data either way. If such technology exists, then it would mean that you could not even watch a movie in a burner drive - or you would be accuced of copying the movie even though you were just watching it. 3. What if you watch the movie in a dvd-rom drive, how to tell if you were in fact just watching the movie, or infact ripping it to the hard drive - since the process is the same? So if such a thing exists, you're out of luck unless you have a stand alone player? Has anyone ever heard of this kind of 'copy protection'? Is it for real? It's really got my curiosity going. Can't seem to find anything current about it on google or yahoo, so I suspect that they are blowing smoke up somewhere. But, maybe not......
When they talk about a 'fingerprint', they are probably pertaining to an image embedded/overlayed within the movie - like a channel number displayed on the top the screen or company logo. This is what is known as a fingerprint, and normal ripping/backing up will not remove this, just some editing software would be required therefore if this dvd finds its way into an inspectors hands etc. Then it could easily be identifiable as a pirated copy. Just as sly_61019 stated, no need to worry about it..... I have never heard of any kind of viewable/copy detection system at the moment, however they may be something around but I doubt it at the moment........... _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Beware of the Pixies - they move in over night and turn your life upside down [/small]
