Can You Produce Your Own DVDs?

Posted by Cliff on Wednesday September 13, 2000 @12:30PM from the legal-and-licensing-morass dept.

BillGodfrey asks: "I'm a small director (okay, I'm not, this is just academic question) and I would like to produce DVDs for use on regular players. However, I don't want to buy into any cartels, and I'd like to avoid as many 'stupid moves' as possible (no region codes, allowing fast forward, etc). How would I go about producing a master and getting copies produced?" Would non-profits and small time organizations need to pay the same production fees for a small run of content as major motion picture firms pay? Or is there still a loophole which the general public can use? We're not necessarily talking free, here...a discount would suffice. Update: 09/15 03:49 PM by C :Ugh! The atrocious grammar in the title has been fixed.

1 of 16 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Here's a possible solution. by fwc · 2000-09-13 10:16 · Score: 5

I just did some research along these lines. The following is a summary of the solution I found. I can't really guarantee that this will work but everything I read indicated it would.
DVD-R Burner. Pioneer makes a DVD-R drive (Model DVR-S201) which according to spec will write a DVD-R which is readable in a Consumer DVD player. It also will support "Cutting Master Format" which will (in theory) allow you to burn a DVD and send it off to be pressed into "real" DVD's. About $5k.
Mastering Software and Capture Hardware. There's a whole bunch of options. I was looking at the stuff from Pinnacle Systems. I was more specifically looking at the DV500 product. It runs about $1000, but includes not only a Video codec (ala capture card), but also all the software you need to get going with DVD production. There are also other options, but this seemed to be the best value.
The best store I located on the net which has all of the above, plus more is videoguys.com
Good Luck!