Bugga_Guy Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 I have a question regarding DVD's I am hoping that someone will be able to help. When encoding a DVD of an animation. The DVD will play fine on any conventional DVD player. However playing on a computer with DVD-rom drive is a different story. It will only ever work if a DVD player program is installed on that persons computer. We have had a few clients turn to us and say that DVD we provided does not work, however they just don't have DVD player installed on the computer. When we mention to install a codec/player all is fine, however this can be of a frustraiting/embarrasing situation. I notice with big movie DVD's, they launch automatically (DVD player or not). Not sure how they achieve this (I am assuming they have their own player built in). Is there anyway to have a DVD launch on a computer's DVD-rom without having the user to download a DVD player? Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Not 100% sure of the answer to your problem but as an aside it's worth noting that if you encode your DVDs using Adobe Encore you have the option to include DVD-ROM content on the disc too, meaning you can have a high-res anim on the disc for computer playback. Animations encoded for DVD playback almost never look good on a PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugga_Guy Posted November 6, 2009 Author Share Posted November 6, 2009 Funny you say that, we actually do that as well. We always add a copy of a windows media/quicktime movie just in case, however non tech savy clients never figure out how to explore the contents of the DVD, and sometimes get confused (I am serious). I just want something easy so don't have to explain the process to clients. Just pop the DVD in a player or DVD rom and it will work (play automatically) with out the need to download/install anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Well there needs to be some form of DVD player software or else it can't play. I take it you're assuming they will have windows media player and want it to play on that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 As a side note, Windows7 Pro ships with mpeg2 support naively. However, the Windows7 Home version does not. Not that this is going to help you now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugga_Guy Posted November 6, 2009 Author Share Posted November 6, 2009 Good to hear that Windows 7 can support this, but I am sure 99% of my clients still use windows XP. We never have any problems with Mac users as it comes with a DVD player built in the Mac OS. It really doesn't have to be windows media player (although that would be the easiest), just something that can auto execute a player on the DVD to automatically play the animation, without any install. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihabkal Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 I am having the same exact problem as you Brian, It is quite frustrating. even windows media player on windows xp can't play DVDs if they don't have mpeg2 installed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 You can't play a dvd on a pc without some sort of player with the correct codec. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugga_Guy Posted November 6, 2009 Author Share Posted November 6, 2009 Correct, but there has to be some way to contain a player on the actual DVD that runs your movie without a player. I have seen some hollywood movies with the interactual player http://www.interactual.com but I guess they pay $$$ to offer solutions to DVD producers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Correct, but there has to be some way to contain a player on the actual DVD that runs your movie without a player. I have seen some hollywood movies with the interactual player http://www.interactual.com but I guess they pay $$$ to offer solutions to DVD producers. I am just speculating, and haven't done any research, but... Maybe there is a way to use a mpeg2 codec in a flash movie that has been made into a exe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 Could you take the dvd .vob file and rename it to .mpg? Then simply burn only the .mpg file onto the dvd (or cd-rom for that matter) and include an autoexec. file on the disc so it starts automatically? It's been a while since I've seen this so I don't have a current point of reference. But I know you can easily take a dvd encoded file and easily rename it to an mpeg so it will play though WMP without any complications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 a long time ago I used BINK...it came with its own player...used it with an autoplay file...worked pretty good....don't know about now... http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm check it out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugga_Guy Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 Using other formats would be fine except when you have a DVD with a menu system that has more than one movie. However your ideas sparked an idea that I just had that I am willing to try in the future... Make a hybrid DVD/flash video. Make a DVD as usual, however include a flash menu with animation(.exe) and include an autorun .inf (as Tim suggested) for it to launch, which will take care of the problem for people who don't have a DVD player. Since the flash menu is a exe file you won't have any problems if he does have flash. The only problem that I can see if a person already has a DVD player software on the computer, he will have the flash video and DVD player pop up. Running 2 movies at the same time. And make sure that it can all fit in one DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Doesn't every PC with a DVD drive come with some form of pre-installed software anyway? Also I just re-read the original post and find it really interesting that you say movie DVDs play without any software, have you tried this yourself? No factory installed DVD player software, no VLC, no Windows Media Player etc and it still plays? I'm just trying to get my head round what's going on there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugga_Guy Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 Doesn't every PC with a DVD drive come with some form of pre-installed software anyway? Also I just re-read the original post and find it really interesting that you say movie DVDs play without any software, have you tried this yourself? No factory installed DVD player software, no VLC, no Windows Media Player etc and it still plays? I'm just trying to get my head round what's going on there. Actually no, unless the DVDs player gets installed with drivers. But it seems now everything is all plugin-n-play, without the need to install drivers. I tested one of our sample animation DVD on one of our renderfarm computers with no DVD player, just windows media player (windows Xp). Windows media player prompts a missing codec (mpeg2) which you have to purchase. Using a particular hollywood movie DVD, it runs (but not through windows media player). It seems it uses a player that comes with it (interactual player) - not sure if they are all like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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