It seems like a simple idea – a hyperlink from your DVD menu sends customers through to your site allowing them to view updated or bonus content, post comments on you blog or shop for products. Unfortunately DVD doesn’t work like that.
Why Not?
DVD was not designed to interact with the internet. Although DVD has been an incredibly popular format, it is easy to forget how ‘old’ it is. Web connectivity never was part of the DVD Specification. The blueprint to which all DVD players must follow was set in stone in 1995, and there is no real way to change that without breaking every DVD player that has come before it.
But what about products like Spruce Convergence, DVD@ccess and eDVD?
Three major industry players in DVD authoring have come up with products that attempted to offer web usability to DVD:
In August 1999 Spruce Technologies introduced a product called Spruce Convergence, an add-on for their Authoring Applications to add “full-duplex communication between DVD-based video and the Web, allowing web pages to be invoked directly by button clicks on the DVD title, as well as letting the internet browser control the DVD video.” Spruce were later bought out by Apple, who went on to release it as DVD Studio Pro Version 2.
By 2002, Apple’s DVD Studio Pro 1.5 had a feature known as DVD@CCESS Web. This functionality continued through later versions based on Apple’s aquisition of Spruce, but did not offer the same flexibility. Like Spruce, this offered the ability to add a huperlink to a button on a DVD Page, but only if the disc was played back in Apple’s DVD Software. This made the function inaccessible for PC users and therefore, arguably, the majority of corporate DVD creators.
At the same time, Hollywood also experimented with the concept of Web enabled DVDs, using InterActual’s PC Friendly Software. A number high profile titles were produced over the years, including the early Harry Potter chapters and The Matrix. Features included script viewers, storyboard comparisons, Image Galleries and QucktimeVR viewers.
Today, when viewing the InterActual website, it appears that no major titles have been announced since 2007.
Sonic Solutions, the company behind the Scenarist Professional DVD Authoring product, bought InterActual in 2004, and went on to release a number of versions of it’s eDVD software, which was designed to allow the easy addition of weblinks to DVD VIDEO discs. Again, there was a requirement to install a compatible DVD software player on your PC or Mac, but at least the rationale was that more users would already have this installed as it had been used on so many high profile Hollywood titles.
Unfortunately, the InterActual player was never upgraded to support Windows Vista (and now Windows 7), and no option on the market dealt with the set-top box environment of the home.
So what are my options?
There are various other ways to direct your viewers to your web site:
- Include your web address on the screen and it can be copied into a browser on your laptop, PC or phone. (It sounds old fashioned, it is old fashioned). This is ideal if your web address is short or memorable.
- Include a local web page on the DVD as ROM content. This will not be accessible from a DVD player but PC users can find the file in the route of the disc and be re-directed from there. This is not a retail solution as this method might be too complicated for ‘average’ users.
- For some projects a two disc set featuring a CD Rom and a DVD would provide the solution. The DVD for the high quality video files and the CDROM for any supporting documents including PDFs, links and Office documents for download.
How about Blu-ray?
Well, you can have Internet connected discs, marketed as “BD Live”, which when used in conjunction with an internet-connected “BD Live” compatible Blu-ray player will access online content…
But …This content is stored and distributed by the content owner, in the form of trailers and “BD-J” java applications. This is NOT a web browser to link to any website you wish. BD Live allows access to Blu-ray specific online content, and nothing more.
This means you can include your target URL to be copied down and typed into a browser, your PC must have a Blu-ray drive to acces BD-Live content or you can include a CD Rom in the package.
