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Restrict permissions on shared files

T

ThePuzzleMaster

Member
I am wondering if there is a way to share video files on a network so that people can watch them, while preventing most users from being able to copy or drag them on to their personal pc's?

Can't seem to do it with the general permissions options. Perhaps there is software that can do it? Or a work around? Or some other way I can't think of???


Thanks,
ILan
 
You didn't say what file system you are using. But NTFS doesn't provide a way to do that.
I'm sure you could do it by streaming video using a proprietary player.
You could probably also do it with Windows Rights Management Services, but it requires licensing and a Windows Server 2003.
 
Oh right. Forgot about that. I'm setting it up on a winxp pro system with NTFS (The files are too large for FAT).

Any sort of pseudo work-around? Like the the way Flash keeps you from downloading its files (I know they're stored in the cache, but I just need simple protection here)
 
Is there any way to have multiple computers acces the video files through a remote desktop program that would allow them each to watch a different video at teh same time?
 
Originally posted by: ThePuzzleMaster
Is there any way to have multiple computers acces the video files through a remote desktop program that would allow them each to watch a different video at teh same time?
Click to expand...
Remote Desktop has a limited number of users. You could do it with Terminal Services on a Windows Server (2000 or 2003). Licensing is pricey for Server 2003.
 
Well, I'm doing the project for a school, and they have server2003 on a lot of their machines, so there's a possibilty of using that if it would work.

Would that work well? Would multiple users be able to view different videos simultaneously? Would the computers that were accessing the videos need server2003 as well?
 
Watching any type of video through termserv is going to be far from ideal and probably more than just a little choppy. In some cases it might not work at all depending on the type of video since when you use termserv/remdesk it pretends to have some super crappy video adapter during the session.

You're probably better off streaming it via Windows Media Services (comes with server 03) or some other equivelant that will work for your media format.
 
Originally posted by: Thoreau
You're probably better off streaming it via Windows Media Services (comes with server 03) or some other equivelant that will work for your media format.
Click to expand...

Yea, there's an open source streaming server too (VideoLAN i think), something like that would be much faster.

Originally posted by: ThePuzzleMaster
I am wondering if there is a way to share video files on a network so that people can watch them, while preventing most users from being able to copy or drag them on to their personal pc's?
Click to expand...

You can't stop people copying the files - if you are allowing them to watch it they will always be able to save the video data. Unless you can control the clients too?


 
Well the videos are DivX format as that seemed to make the most sense for quality vs. size. I'm taking a look at that VideoLAN option. It looks like that might work pretty well.

As for securing the files, I was kind of originally thinking, in the same way that Flash disables right-click-Save As would be sufficient. But if the videos are streamed that might solve the problem.

Another potential solution I'd been thinking about is along the lines of DRM security, where if the videos are downloaded they will only work for one play, and then they would fail to play after that. But I'm not sure if there's a format for that with DivX files.


Thanks for all the help so far. I'll come back after I take a try with VideoLAN
 
Originally posted by: ThePuzzleMaster
Another potential solution I'd been thinking about is along the lines of DRM security, where if the videos are downloaded they will only work for one play, and then they would fail to play after that. But I'm not sure if there's a format for that with DivX files.
Click to expand...
For some strange reason 😛, most public-domain video encoders have no provision for DRM.
 
Originally posted by: ThePuzzleMaster
I am wondering if there is a way to share video files on a network so that people can watch them, while preventing most users from being able to copy or drag them on to their personal pc's?
Click to expand...

Sincerely, Frustrated at RIAA

:laugh:

 
My goodness that VideoLan VLC program is incredibly complex! But if I can get it to work, it should all work pretty well (I think!). I spent about 20 hours in the past day and a half researching and learning about the program and apache web server... But I'm finally making some progress and have gotten it to work (ALthough not secured yet). It's a promising start.

Again, thanks for all the help. If you think of anything else that may be helpful, don't hesitate to share!

-iLan
 
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