Fewer People Copy DVDs Than Once Thought 333
MasterOfMagic writes "According to a survey reported at the NY Times, very few people actually have and use DVD copying software. The survey reports that only 1.5 percent of computer users have DVD copying software, and of those 1.5%, 2/3rds of them don't even use it. The survey also revealed that users were more likely to download DVDs than copy DVDs that they borrowed or rented, and that about half of all downloaded DVDs are pornography. According to the survey's lead analyst, 'With music, part of the appeal is sharing your own playlists and compilations with your friends ... I'm not sure people share their porn the way they share their music.'"
Re:That's because it is very hard to do... (Score:2, Informative)
HandBrake. (Score:5, Informative)
(Yeah, it's Mac and Linux only, and I think the Linux version doesn't have a GUI yet. Thankfully, I don't care.)
Actually copying a DVD, as in making a disc from another disc, seems like a waste of time. It's like copying CDs. Who uses CDs anymore? The price of storage is low enough that I can have my entire movie and video collection on my MythTV box, ready to watch with just a few presses of the remote.
(And yeah, I know MythTV will supposedly rip DVDs itself, but I've never gotten it to work correctly. Everything that has to do with DVDs is flaky in MythTV, IMO, probably because it's hard to even discuss anything about encrypted playback without people wigging out because of the DMCA. It's easier to just encode them on a Mac and then shove them onto the Myth box over the network.)
Re:1.5 percent? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1.5 percent? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, there is. Although the people who put together CSS weren't incredibly bright, they weren't that stupid, either.
First, most commercial programs like Nero won't even make an image of an encrypted DVD. There's no technical limitation preventing them from doing so, but they just stop you. I think that's a lawyer-imposed limit.
Anyway, if you did make a block-by-block copy of an encrypted DVD, and burn it to a new disc, it would not play back on normal hardware. This is because the key to the content is stored on the disc in a special location, which is always made unwritable on blank DVDs. (Actually, I'm not sure if it's that the blanks don't let you write there, or if the consumer writers aren't capable of writing there, or both.) But anyway, you can copy all the encrypted data, but without the key your player will just barf on it.
However, DVD playback systems that don't rely on retrieving the key from the disc will play it just fine -- this includes every DVD player on Linux that I'm aware of, once you get the libdvdcss package installed. This is because if the drive fails to hand over the key, libdvdcss will proceed and recover the key through several other methods (one of which is just brute force, and is pretty speedy because of the braindead way CSS is implemented).
Apple's "DVD Player" application will also play an encrypted VIDEO_TS folder, even if it's not on a disc with the key on it. (Though I've never tried it off of a DVD-R disc; it will work just fine if you copy the VIDEO_TS folder from a DVD to your hard drive and play it, which is nice if you want to watch a movie on an airplane without draining your battery or something.)
But anyway, one of the only things that CSS actually does is prevent 1:1 copying onto DVD-R discs. Or at least it did until it was cracked eight ways from Sunday. (The biggest thing that stops people from copying movies, or stopped them while it was still an interesting thing to do [before you could go out and get hard drives at a lower cost-per-MB], was that most feature films won't fit on a 4.7GB DVD blank.)
Nah, not so hard, try it this way... (Score:3, Informative)
In a nutshell, this is how I do things:
1) Rent from Netflix [netflix.com], 2 at a time unlimited (all issues of throttling [foxnews.com] aside)
2) Rip discs as they arrive with DVDFab HD Decrypter [dvdfab.com]
3) Compress with DVDShrink [mrbass.org] (I still have a single-layer burner and besides, the disks are cheaper - I just don't copy the extras or the French audio track, etc., so as to minimize compression of the main movie. This also strips off the ghey previews and FBI warnings. Snatch!) I have used both DVD-R and DVD+R; personal preference is DVD+R. YMMV.
4) Burn result with Nero. Keep files on harddrive for awhile until I'm sure the burnt disk is ok.
5) Whisk Netflix movies back next day. Watch burnt movie at my leisure. ~~
It can be very easy. (Score:5, Informative)
In 99% of cases, this is absurdly easy. In fact, your OS already comes with all the tools you need to rip, and VLC will play the ripped image.
If you're on Windows, just right-click your DVD drive, "open", and copy all the files to a folder on your hard drive. If you're on OS X, open Disk Utility, click your DVD drive, and choose "Create Image", and choose a CD image format (not HFS or anything, and not compressed). If you're on Linux, "cp /dev/dvd foo.img" will create an image called "foo.img".
If these work at all, they will generally give you a disk image that can be used in place of the original disk. On Linux, just configure your favorite DVD player to use that file as the DVD device. For recent versions of VLC, you can simply open a dvd:// URL that points to the file (or folder, using the Windows way) -- so you do dvd:///home/somebody/movies/matrix.img or something. On Windows, probably dvd://c:/some/where... In any case, the easy way is to browse for it as if opening a file, then change file:// to dvd://
Basically, if VLC can play the DVD in the first place, than your OS (I don't care what OS it is) already comes with the tools to rip an image that will play with VLC. The downside is it does no compression and no decryption, so you can't burn this image directly, and it probably uses about 8 gigs of hard disk space.
The process of re-encoding is a bit longer, but not incredibly hard to get right. And I've discovered that ripping is really fast, encoding will take all night, but downloading in the same quality might take a few days -- and also, both ripping and encoding can be put on a low priority and run while I do other things, but downloading invariably lags me.
The hardest part is authoring an actual DVD that will play on an off-the-shelf player, but a video card with TV out is pretty cheap, and the best screen I own is my monitor anyway. So I usually just watch it once, and if I really want to keep it, I encode to h.264, sometimes turn the ac3 into Vorbis (and sometimes not, depends what the original quality is like and how much I like that movie), then combine that with the subtitles and chapters ripped straight off the DVD image. I end up with an mkv that's around 300-500 megs. If I find myself doing this enough, I'll probably write a script to automate it, but I've discovered a process that never seems to get the AV out of sync.
In any case, I don't bother unless I have the original DVD. But it's nice, I mean, downloading takes days and days, and there's the possibility of being caught and fined (or worse). Ripping means I just borrow the DVD from roommates for about 15 mins, then give it back, and the only way I get caught is if they seize my computer.
Re:Oops (Score:2, Informative)
is much quicker.
Re:1.5 percent? (Score:4, Informative)
What're your missing is that you can't copy the CSS keys to a DVD+R/-R, since those parts of the disc aren't writable. Without the keys, all you have is the encoded bits; you can't decode them with a normal DVD player.
Re:Really not surprised (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's because it is very hard to do... (Score:5, Informative)
I tried finding free stuff too. Seriously, rarely works. Then a friend showed me products by Slysoft [slysoft.com]. You'll need to buy 2 of their products to get it to work. AnyDVD (the DVD decoder) and CloneDVD (the program that rips and burns). They both cost, if I remember, $30-$40, with free updates and apparently support HD discs (I've never tried it).
It's a super easy to use program and it's more than worth the price, IMHO. CloneDVD also rips to PSP, DS, and many other formats. I used it to put ST:DS9 episodes on my PSP to watch at the gym. The average time it takes to copy is ~20mins (up to an hour if you're using a DL-DVD) and that's while I'm usually MMOing, but then again, I have a nice rig. Usually it's ~15 to rip and ~5min to burn a copy. You can save your files to avoid future ~15min burns in the future.
I've never had a problem using this software. The only problem I've ever had was when I bought the El Cheapo DVD's: Dynex (BestBuy house brand). Yeah, an entire spindle for 50 that half wouldn't even work in the machine and the other half turned out to only work on the crappiest Wal-Mart DVD player, but nothing else.
CloneDVD also makes it pretty easy to remove language tracks, subtitles, special features, etc so you can increase compression quality (if you're compressing a DL-DVD to a normal DVD). I usually short for ~50% compression quality to get normal broadcast quality video. On rare occasions and on very dark images, you get noise and pixelation. But I'm very happy using it. I even watch it on my parents projection TV, and it still looks good. But, I'm not a quality nerd. I just want to watch the shows. I find it as good as watching regular DVD's and TV shows.
Man, I sound like an advertisement. I guess that's because after spending too much time and frustration trying to copy my DVD's over the years, and finally finding something that just 'worked', I was happy.
There's a 30-day free trial, so give it a shot. Like most things, I'm more than willing to buy it if it's a reasonable price. Probably why I stopped buying CD's and DVD's and just started using Blockbuster online to watch movies and buy only the music singles I like from online stores.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Re:Really not surprised (Score:3, Informative)
I also have a large collection of purchased DVDs, movies and TV series (the latter being the lion's share). I buy Atlantic Penguin 644CD racks (holds 360 DVDs) in pairs and join them together for another 180 DVDs-worth of storage, only having to cut a few extra all-thread screws from stock with a Dremel. Right now I have enough storage for 2700 DVDs on three walls behind the TV in Atlantic Penguin racks alone, plus another 360 in Atlantic Elf racks (longer tubes, half the height).
I have planned to burn entire seasons to box sets myself, but have abandoned it when the box set came out first. And if I had burned them first, I would still have bought the box set when/if it came out. As it stands, my collection has no backups.
Re:That's because it is very hard to do... (Score:5, Informative)
I have several DVD players (including one from 1998) and all play the DVD+Rs I've burned just fine.
Re:Biased sample? (Score:1, Informative)
Joke aside, how is this relevant for those that are smart enough not to allow monitoring sofrware on their computers? 0.5% of the clueless 95% is still lower than 50% of the remaining 5%, to make up some numbers.
Re:That's because it is very hard to do... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Really not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
"You hit it right on the head here. It is amazing a movie that typically costs X million to produce costs about as much as a CD. Somewhere, somebody is not understanding the economics of this."
I'm sorry to say that it is you. But, take heart -- you're not the first person to miss this point, by far.
This boggles a lot of people who haven't studied much economics or who don't work in the retail industry, but items are typically priced according to the law of supply and demand, and not the cost of sale. Consider these examples:
I hope this helps you understand the economics of how DVDs are priced. In case it isn't clear, they're set at the price they are because that's the price at which the movie companies make the most money overall. If they sold them for more, they might make more per sale, but the reduction in the amount of people who buy them might be too much to make it worth it. Likewise, if they lowered the price, they might get more sales, but not enough to offset the lost money per sale.
You expressed surprise at the difference in price between a DVD and a CD. You appear to be surprised since they use the same materials (plastic and metal) and have a similar manufacturing process. But, keep in mind that software is also distributed on CD and has pricing that's all over the board. Why does some software cost $9.99 while other software can command a price of $500, even though both are distributed on the same medium? The answer is our old friend supply and demand.
You've probably noticed that all DVDs cost about $10 - $20, despite the fact that their production costs are all over the board. Indy films that cost $20MM to make often cost the very same on DVD as films costing $100MM or more. Evan Almighty cost around $175MM to make, but when it goes on sale on DVD, you can be sure that you'll see it on the shelf for $20 or so next to films that cost around the same price. At the point of being redundant, this is again because the DVD is priced at the optimal point on the supply/demand curve -- and not based on the cost of the plastics or even the production costs.
I hope this helps you understand the economics. Let me know if it's unclear.
Re:That's because it is very hard to do... (Score:2, Informative)
Rip to an image, burn to a disc.
You shouldn't have video/audio sync issues at all. Whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong.
Most DVDs don't fit on a single layer DVD. And dual layer DVDs are still generally too expensive for it to be cost effective (at least, last time I looked).
It wouldn't surprise me if this is a major factor - when dual layer DVDs are as cheap as single layers are now, perhaps we'll see a lot more copying...
Re:Disney can go suck DUMBO nuts (Score:4, Informative)
-nB
Most of the revenue is from DVD sales (Score:5, Informative)
In the same year, DVD sales numbered 1.3247 billion (page 28) in the U.S. alone, at an average price of $22.40 each (page 33). That works out to $29.7 billion in DVD revenue in the U.S. U.S. theatrical sales by comparison were $9.49 billion (page 4). DVD sales in the U.S. alone exceed worlwide theatrical sales.
Per film released (yeah I know they're not the same films, but we're doing an annual tally here) that works out to $48.9 million per film, for the U.S. alone. If the sale ratio of theatrical vs. DVD sales in the U.S. holds for the rest of the world (unlikely, but let's just say), then global DVD sales would be $80.8 billion, or $133 million per flim.
So to recap for 2006:
# of releases: 607
US theatrical sales: $9.49 billion
Global theatrical sales: $25.82 billion
US DVD sales: $29.7 billion
Global DVD sales (hypothetical): $80.8 billion
Average cost to make each film: $65.8 million
Average theatrical sales per film released: $42.5 million
Average DVD sales per film released (hypothetical): $133 million
I think it's safe to say that DVD sales are the lion's share of their revenue. The theater side of the industry could disappear entirely and there's probably still plenty of room for profit. Draw what conclusions you will from this about the RIAA's pricing. (Also note that the $10 DVD is a myth - yes some are sold for $10, but the average price is about the same as a music CD.)
One final footnote. The MPAA only claims $6.1 billion in losses to piracy (PDF warning) [mpaa.org] in 2005. So they're claiming piracy only accounts for 6%-11% of their total sales (depending on what figure you use for DVD sales). The RIAA claims $4.5 billion in piracy losses [riaa.org] in 2005 versus $12.3 billion in total retail music sales [riaa.org]. A whopping 37%
Re:It can be very easy. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm on Windows 2000, using DVD-Shrink, VirtualDub (for DVDs) and DivX.
Insert your DVD and have DVD-Shrink assess it. Normally, I'm just interested in the main movie, so if you want menus and extras, you may have to do some of your own research here. Select "Re-Author" so DVD-Shrink will allow you to recompress the movie and shrink it to fit a certain target size
Now this is an important step. Edit-->Preferences-->Output Files. Uncheck the "Split VOB files into 1GB size chunks". This way you'll get one huge VOB file, instead of several smaller ones. Run the utility, you'll get a bunch of miscellaneous DVD files, in addition to your VOB. The VOB is the only one you are interested in.
Find a copy of VirtualDub that can read a VOB file. Normally, a VOB is some sort of non-standard MPEG2 file, which will result in a synchronization/pack error (or something similar). This version of VirtualDub can read it like any other file. Select DivX as your compression scheme, configure your bitrate for whatever size/quality you desire, then save as an AVI. Done!
For those who like ripping television shows, each title should show up as a separate VOB file. This means every episode is ultimately stored as a separate AVI file. No menus, no commercials, no FBI warnings
Re:Oops (Score:4, Informative)
For most movies that alone will not work. You first would have to "unlock" the drive or else you will not be able to read sectors that are marked as encryped. You can "unlock" the drive by doing something like start up some DVD playing software and load the DVD. After that you still could not just dd because a lot of the VOB files will be CSS protected so you would need to DeCSS each sector that is protected. Seriously, do you people who keep saying "just dd it" even try it first?
One other note, each sector on a DVD has 2048 bytes of user data so it would be more efficient to dd with a block size of 2048 bytes.
Re:Really not surprised (Score:2, Informative)
I live about 10 miles from the German border. If I get in the car and buy the same album in Germany, I pay 11 euros.
And then the Dutch RIAA-look-a-like complains that we collectively almost stopped buying CDs. Well, no shit sherlock.