DVD Demystified

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Chapter 11
children to grandmothers, know how to create a Web page. It’s easy to add
an object to play DVD-Video in a window on a Web page. Ironically, some of
the most interesting applications of WebDVD don’t even use an Internet
connection. They simply rely on the ease of HTML authoring to create interactive
DVDs for PCs.
The key is that a WebDVD platform must provide a way to integrate a
window into the HTML page that shows video from the DVD. The best
approach enables the video to be fully integrated into the page, with HTML
objects overlaid on top of the video. Full-screen mode, where the video takes
up the entire window, with HTML-based controls and information boxes
that can pop up over the video, is essential for full-fledged WebDVD applications.
At the other end of the spectrum, some WebDVD platforms only
enable limited control of video playback in a separate window. Others play
the video and simply link to URLs in a separate browser window. In most
cases, DVD playback control is accomplished using a script language such
as ECMAScript (JavaScript) to call methods and access properties defined
by the DVD API of the platform. In some cases, declarative DVD control is
also possible, using markup tags such as those defined for SMIL or
HTML�TIME.
WebDVD pages can be jazzed up with any other Web technology supported
by the browser, such as CSS, DHTML, XML, CGI, and so on. Even
proprietary or platform-specific formats, such as 360-degree picture viewers,
ASP, Flash, Shockwave, Real Networks audio, Microsoft Windows
Media Audio, and so on, can be used in conjunction with the DVD playing
in a window on the same HTML page. In other words, anything that works
in a Web browser can be enhanced with DVD. This is a key point: the hard
part of WebDVD development is not the DVD part; it’s everything else that
goes with it. Too many people get hung up trying to figure out what they can
and can’t do with WebDVD. The answer is that if you can do it in a Web
browser, you can probably add DVD to it.
The golden rule of WebDVD: Anything you can do with the Internet or
HTML, you can combine with DVD.