embed customer information in video download?

[sdsumike619]

On this page:
http://www.eztakes.com/store/info/sell.jsp

all EZTakes DVDs are marked with a unique receipt code that can be used to track down professional pirates that make unauthorized copies.. That means EZTakes DVDs can be traced back to the original consumer. Pirates are much less likely to make and distribute unauthorized DVD copies of your content because those copies can be traced back to them. In short, they would be cooking their own goose.

Does technology exist to do this? Is it available? I know of similar security measures that are used with PDF files to add customer information, but how can this be done on video files?

[poisondeathray]

yes it's possible. It's essentially a digital watermark

search for "video stenography"

some are free e.g. msu stegovideo , some are expensive solutions

[sdsumike619]

Thank you, that's exactly what I wanted to know! How can such information be saved into a video file without re-encoding everything?

[jagabo]

Steganography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

It requires reencoding if you want to hide the invisible watermark in the picture. Eztakes is probably just adding some extraneous data to the DVD. A sub-picture, even a text file. That's much simpler and doesn't required reencoding the video.

[sdsumike619]

Do you mean just add into the end of the file?

[jagabo]

Possibly. An extra VOB file, some extra data in the IFO file, etc.

[sdsumike619]

I'm going to look more into this; certainly better than nothing

[jagabo]

It's pretty useless in my opinion. You have to keep track of who bought each serial number. If you find a pirated disc and accuse a customer of pirating they'll just say the disc was stolen or lost. If you tell customers you can track copies back to them they'll be pissed and won't buy from you. If you don't tell them there's no disincentive.

[sdsumike619]

Yeah I know what you mean.. Just seems like having such a message displayed will make them think twice of sharing it..

[poisondeathray]

Yeah I know what you mean.. Just seems like having such a message displayed will make them think twice of sharing it..

But the point of stenography is to NOT have it visible, otherwise you can remove it, cut it out , or mask it out with logo removers, etc.. , then make a zillion copies

Do you think those visible FBI warnings make a difference ?

[sdsumike619]

damn it.

[jagabo]

stenography

Stenography (shorthand) is what a court reporter does. Hiding information in pictures (etc.) is steganography.

[poisondeathray]

stenography

Stenography (shorthand) is what a court reporter does. Hiding information in pictures (etc.) is steganography.

Nice catch. And english is my first language. DOH

[Cornucopia]

Possibly. An extra VOB file, some extra data in the IFO file, etc.

More likely a embedded as Userdata packet in the main MPEG (so it would survive copying, ripping, demuxing, reauthoring - everything except reencoding.

Scott