DVD Watermark?

Originally Posted by RainDawg

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. There is a lot of pissing and moaning (rightfully so) about mp3 formats around here, but there are precious few people here who could consistently pass a properly setup double-blind test with original PCM audio and 192KBps+ Mp3. Anyone (and this includes my half-blind grandmother) could tell you within 3 seconds which is which in a direct comparison of DVD and a VCD made from it, especially if they were both played on the same size screen (the VCD would have to expand it's resolution to fill the screen, making it quite blocky).

Making a VCD is, in my opinion, 100 times more despicable than making an mp3 out of an audio file.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Especially with the mp3, I doubt I could tell the difference even in my home theater unless I was REALLLLY trying and that would be tough. But VCD really needs to be buried and banned

You can do some nice SVCD/XVCD encode jobs etc but that takes it out of VCD spec anyway. In this day there is no reason to convert DVD to anything else and thats what the author here is trying to prevent and i respect that.

I wish I had watermarked the DVDs that I authored because ive seen them ripped and raped into VCD and divx and it angers me to see the garbage quality people have turned it into when dvd burners and media are so damn cheap

[katnapz]

I know that when I had a 27 inch tv I'd grab VCD's from the newsgroups of different content (mostly OOP TV shows) and never really noticed "much" difference. But once I got a big screen tv (53 inch wide) I think I about cried....I mean I "knew" there was a difference, but I never realized until I tried to watch on a big tv.
I'd say about 5-10% of the VCD's look pretty good that spread out. Obviously someone who REALLY knew what they were doing created the small minority that I can watch full screen (and I ain't talkin about dragging it into some program and letting it do the conversion automatically...these are one's where the info file details each point in the process). The rest I play through my computer into the tv so I can resize the picture smaller (probably around a 25-27 inch tv size).
Even SVCD's are noticably blocky at times, although they can get VERY close to some of the older movie quality....and don't even think about DivX unless you're going to ballon the size of the file up close to SVCD size.
Personally I think it's a waste to convert anything to VCD. If you really feel the need to save, at a minimum go with SVCD. Far as I'm concerned, if we're talking about time for someone to download, then if they're on dial-up...it's a waste for them whether VCD or SVCD.

Of course, this is completely off the mark of the original question of watermarking a DVD....as far as I know about the only way to make it "hidden" is as noted before and place the mark outside of the mormal viewing area. The only other idea would be, if you create your own menus or credits is to either "mispell" a word differently on each copy you create (and of course you'd have to keep a record of who got which mispelled word)....use a slightly different color for a certain word/letter (again, you'd have to keep track of who got what color)...or someplace in the work add some mark to a couple frames that wouldn't normally be seen unless you were going frame by frame over that section. Since you mention during the avi stage I guess it'd have to be during the credit section. All of these involve keeping a record though.

[RainDawg]

A few years ago when DVDRs were still high priced and I was a poor college student, I got into the habit of ripping DVDs to high quality SVCD. Yeah, it looks OK, but it's really easy to tell the difference, epsecially when you look at moving portions of the background...it gets very blocky. Sure, you can convince your mind that it looks fine, but if pressured, I'd bet 90% of people here could spot the SVCD vs. the DVD upon a close inspect. Mp3...I'd bet almost no one could do it with better than 50% (random guess) accuracy. And that's my point...the mp3 is much, much better at perceptual coding than lowering the res/bitrate of an MPEG, yet we seem to want to excuse it more.

Now, with the incredibly low cost of bandwidth, writers, and media, there is no reason for anyone to trade anything other than full DVD quality. If you're making a rip from an original DVD for your own use, I might be able to see it. For distribution, DVD is the only way to go.

By the way, I watch almost all my boots on my computer, which is setup with a dual monitor. A 19" screen is on port#2, which automatically detects when video is being played and renders is full screen. VCD boosted to full screen on a computer monitor looks like shit, no matter how "well" it was done. DVDs, especially ultra-crisp low-gan captures, look great as the resolution of the screen is only slightly larger than the resolution of the video itself, and very little dithering needs to be done. Keep in mind that most TVs have quite a bit less resolution (unless you own an HD) than a computer screen, so these differences may be less noticable, even on a semi-large screen like a 27". It's immediately recognizable when played on a computer...

[RainDawg]

Originally Posted by fistula

You can do some nice SVCD/XVCD encode jobs etc but that takes it out of VCD spec anyway. In this day there is no reason to convert DVD to anything else and thats what the author here is trying to prevent and i respect that.

XSVCD is actually a comparable bitrate and res to DVD, so if it can be authored as such without a re-encode, it won't lose any quality. SVCD is certainly lower, and I'd bet most people can tell the difference in the video quality pretty easily.

We agree on this point: there is no reason to use anything other than DVD, epsecially at a site like this where maintaining the original quality so that others can enjoy it in the same way is key.

[feralicious]

Originally Posted by katnapz

Are you sure you're not referring to the changeover cue marks that are put on the film to tell the projectionist when to flip from one projector (reel) to another? This is a small black circle (or oval if the film is shown out of proportion) that flashes in the top right corner of the film every ~20 minutes or so. As far as I know (and I did some refresh research on the net before posting here) the watermarking used by studios for pirated movies is unobservable to the eye,...and serialized so they can trace a copy back to the source. And they may use a "Property Of/Do Not Duplicate" scroller. A couple of black dots would be way to easy for someone to edit out of a pirated copy.

What really p*sses me off is when I see them on a DVD release of a movie...which tells me that the studio didn't give a rats behind about the quality of the film when they transferred it, as they should've been removed.

Nope. I work in editing on major films for a living. I know what changeovers are, in fact, I used to put them on by hole-punching paper tape and sticking the "hole" on the appropriate frames for screenings of work prints.
The marks the studios put on are totally noticeable, but probably more so to me since one of the things my job requires is making sure film is clean for work prints and then checking for neg problems and dirt on release prints. I never noticed changeovers before I started working in editing, so most lay-people won't notice the marks the studio put on. But I can assure you they are black dots that are sprinkled across the frames and they can really jump out to me. Now it's possible that there are different methods, but there's only a few labs that do the release printing, so I'm sure they're all pretty similar.

[feralicious]

Originally Posted by fistula

You definitely wouldn't want to put that info in the txt file. If you note the frame number that has the watermark anyone could simply go and remove that frame or alter it. That would defeat the purpose of a watermark if people knew how to remove it.

Exactly, which is why I mentioned that. And yet if no one but the original author knows about it what's the point? You wouldn't know if it used to be a DVD. I'm not sure that I can see what watermarking is going to accomplish. Once it's out to the masses, it's out.

[katnapz]

Originally Posted by feralicious

Nope. I work in editing on major films for a living.

You know, that's a facinating enough job that I'd love to ask you a bunch of questions about it , but I'm not educated enough on the subject to even know where to begin... <sigh>....so much in the world to learn....not enough time....

[RainDawg]

What I'm interested in, Nina, is how many downright terrible movies you had to sit through while performing this job function .

[katnapz]

I'm sure she's a professional who takes an objective view of every movie she works on...so there's no "good" or "terrible"

With that being said,....can you get me a couple preshots of the new Willie Wonka movie coming out Or Hitchhikers Guide?
I know they don't come out for awhile, buuut, hey...if I ever make it to the west coast I'll make it worth your time ...backrub?? footrub?? rubberduckierub??

[feralicious]

Heh, problem is I work on the same movie for around 4-9 months so if it's a bad one I end up seeing it over and over and over again. But then if you work on a good movie it kind of ruins it since you can't go out and enjoy it as you'd like to.

[katnapz]

Originally Posted by feralicious

Heh, problem is I work on the same movie for around 4-9 months so if it's a bad one I end up seeing it over and over and over again. But then if you work on a good movie it kind of ruins it since you can't go out and enjoy it as you'd like to.

Kinda sounds like a 10th circle of Dante's hell You got some bad karma you're making up for in a past life?
So do you appear in the credits after the movie, or is it just the name of the company you work for? i.e., "Editing provided by Ace Editing Company"