[4.7] Can I stream DVD over a network or the Internet?

Short answer: Not if the disc is copy protected.

With a fast enough network (100 Mbps or better, with good performance and low traffic) and a high-performance server, it's possible to stream DVD-Video from a server to client stations. If the source on the server is a DVD-ROM drive (or jukebox), then more than one user simultaneously accessing the same disc will cause breaks in the video unless the server has a fast DVD-ROM drive and a very good caching system designed for streaming video.

A big problem is that CSS-encrypted movies (see 1.11 ) can't be remotely sourced because of security issues. The CSS license does not allow decrypted video to be sent over an accessible bus or network, so the decoder has to be on the remote PC. If the decoder has a secure channel to perform authentication with the drive on the server, then it's possible to stream encrypted video over a network to be decrypted and decoded remotely. (But so far almost no decoders can do this.)

One solution is the VideoLAN project which runs on GNU/Linux/Unix, BeOS, Mac OS X, and other operating systems. It includes a player with built-in CSS decryption. Although the code is different from DeCSS, it's an unlicensed implementation and is probably illegal in most countries (see 4.8 ).

An alternative approach is to decode the video at the server and send it to individual stations via separate cables (usually RF). The advantage is that performance is very good, but the disadvantage is that DVD interactivity is usually limited, and every viewer connected to a single drive/decoder must watch the same thing at the same time.

Many companies provide support for streaming video (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, etc.) over LANs, but only from files or realtime encoders, not from DVD-Video discs.

The Internet is a different matter. It takes over a week to download the contents of a single-layer DVD using a 56k modem. It takes about 7 hours on a T1 line. Cable modems theoretically cut the time down to a few hours, but if other users in the same neighborhood have cable modems, bandwidth could drop significantly. [Jim's prediction, made in 2001: the average DVD viewing household won't have sufficiently fast Internet connections before 2007 at the earliest. Around that time there will be a new high-definition version of DVD with double the data rate, which will once again exceed the capacity of the typical Internet connection