Making DVDs downloadable for customers

[sdsumike619]

What would be the best way to make an authored DVD downloadable for customers? Should I just encode each chapter to a different file and serve them in one big zip file? Or is there another way to give them the DVD, as an authored DVD with menus, but without the actual physical DVD itself?

[Baldrick]

As an ISO file? Play with VLC Media Player or they can burn it.

[sdsumike619]

I don't really WANT them to burn DVDs from the downloadable files because I sell the tangible DVDs. I want to offer the downloadable as something less expensive than the tangible DVDs.

[poisondeathray]

I don't really WANT them to burn DVDs from the downloadable files because I sell the tangible DVDs. I want to offer the downloadable as something less expensive than the tangible DVDs.

I'm sorry I must be missing something but that doesn't make any sense ....

You're selling a downloadable DVD, that they can't burn, so they can't watch it ????

Even if you uploaded authored Video_TS folder , "If they aren't supposed to burn it" , how are they supposed to watch it ?

Or perhaps distribute using a different online format than DVD-video ?

[sdsumike619]

Currently I sell the tangible DVDs. I want to sell downloadable videos of these DVDs at a lesser price.
If I provide them with an ISO file, and they can burn the DVD, then they should just be ordering the tangible DVD in the first place. I want to provide another buying option - downloadable videos that they have to watch on their computer. So what I'm asking is about what files they should be downloading. Should I just encode each chapter of the DVD to a different file so they still have the chapters, but just not in an authored menu format? Or is there some other way to provide something downloadable where the chapters stay in tact?

[poisondeathray]

Not sure what you should do, but the downloadable version you're leaning towards sounds like it isn't a "DVD" if you're not going to offer ISO or Video_TS folder - so you shouldn't market it as such

You could use another format instead of DVD-video like flash, 1 video per segment or chapter . At least this way the customer would have to convert it to DVD-Video (mpeg2) and it will make it a tiny bit harder than just burning an ISO . If you used h.264/aac you could also save on bandwidth expenses. But no menus with this alternative

[sdsumike619]

Oh no way would I provide MPEG2, the file size would be way too big. One product is a 2 DVD9 set, 8 hours of video. I think the best way to go would be MP4 files. Each DVD chapter would be its own file and either zip it all up into one file, or let them download chunks at a time.