I made this site to present some informations about the really versatile
features of a "Digital Versatile Disc", like setting a timer for a menu, or counting
how often itīs been viewed, or performing logical operations, i.e. making button 4
in menu 3 only works if video 2 is not already seen and menu 1 was already used.
You donīt believe it ? Well, youīll see.
DVD-specification contains lot of features which are not widely known, like setting a register in a Counter-mode, so that the DVD-player "knows" how much time elapsed until the user reached a specific spot on the disc, or activated a specific button in a menu. Or starting a video sequence automatically after some predefined time elapsed, regardless of user input, using the Navigation Timer. Another example is random playback of several tracks, with no repeats until all tracks have been played.
By now, you should have realized that this site is not about making simple menus with a 50 $ authoring software, itīs more a site for DVD-programming with a 0 $ software (you only have to know some basics already, and I will also explain the most important terms).
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO A DVD
It is no problem to produce fully interactive applications, such as all kinds of presentations, even better than those made with i.e. MS Powerpoint. Then various trainings, where you first show some information and then let the viewer answer questions about the stuff, and if there are wrong answers, let the viewer watch only related parts again, until he/she reaches a certain percentage of right answers.
Another underestimated capability of the DVD-standard is to play games on a DVD-player, just like one would do on a gaming console. Iīm talking about fully featured games, with several "player-lives", game-scores and possibility to continue a previously played game using level-codes. All kinds of adventures are realisable, also some simple action games.
So, how can a "playback-device" perform all these things?
The answer is quite simple; a DVD-player is not only a playback-device, it is much more than that. One could say that a DVD-player is a computer camouflaged as a harmless piece of consumer electronics. Iīll be glad to "demystify the miracle" for you, step by step.
First of all, before we start, Iīd like to disclaim a few things:
- I have never seen those official DVD-specifications
- all the information here was obtained legally, by researching legally available sources and experimenting with legally obtained software (mostly freeware) on legally obtained DVDs
And, not less important, thanks and credits:
This site would hardly exist without informations from MPUCoderīs DVD-Info site and Derrowīs IFOEdit and VOBEdit and infos and tips from the Doom9īs site. I respect them all (and many others who are also giving their part) for releasing their hard earned knowledge for free. Thank you all.
I also thank to Stefan Münz for his "selfHTML", from which I learned enough to build this site.
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Anybody trying to make money with the content of this site will make even more money for me and my lawyers. |
So, enough talking, letīs go to work. Few words about the hardware.
Let us say that a DVD-player is a small computer, for it has:
© 2003 Josef Braunstein