Since the format's birth, industry pundits and pioneers have made the case for the Web-connected DVD. Finally -- there is a way to combine high-quality audio and video (on disc) and e-commerce (on the Internet). Who wouldn't be excited?

But some of the early enthusiasm for "Web DVD" has dissipated. Developers have been hamstrung, not just by a lack of compelling applications, but by an absence of clear programming standards. Despite early predictions that the family PC would become an important platform for content delivered via DVD-ROM, few software publishers have seen a good reason to migrate.

That doesn't mean that DVD professionals have given up on the concept. Many forward-thinking producers still believe Web DVD is the future and progress continues to be made. "There are really no standards, and that's a drag," says Ralph LaBarge, managing partner of AlphaDVD, a DVD development studio in Gambrills, MD. Among AlphaDVD's Web-enabled titles are Mars: The Red Planet and StarGaze, both of which are tied to Web sites that can control playback of the DVD content.

Making Movies 'PCFriendly'

LaBarge is widely acknowledged as a trailblazer, but the most prominent Web DVD applications to date have been Hollywood movie titles -- the sort of discs most likely to be booted up in a consumer DVD-ROM drive. New Line Home Video has perhaps been most aggressive, but other studios -- notably Warner Home Video and MGM Home Entertainment -- have experimented with live online chats synchronized to DVD content. Even smaller publishers commonly embed Web links in their titles.

InterActual Technologies is making these releases possible. It created PCFriendly, a software program that plays DVD-Video content on a PC and handles interactivity and Web links. Bundled with DVD-Video titles users were given the option of installing the program when using the disc for the first time. A revamped version, InterActual Player 2.0, was released earlier this year.

When the movie was the main thing and interactive elements just gravy, PCFriendly and InterActual Player became de facto standards. Though Hollywood's idea of interactive extras has been largely confined to script-to-screen comparisons and rudimentary Web links, innovation continues to take place. Columbia TnStar Home Video's recent special-edition release of Lawrence of Arabia, for example, includes features that simultaneously examine the film, its making, and the history of the Middle East using graphics and mouse-based interfaces, Of course, those features don't require a Web component to be compelling. And sometimes Hollywood seems to get it backward. Paramount's Mission: Impossible II, for example, requires consumers to download a low-resolution QuickTime file to see the film's theatrical trailer.

'The Poor Man's Web DVD'

InterActual's software is probably the best-known Web DVD tool due to its Hollywood roots, but developers, particularly producers of corporate DVD titles, have other options. Microsoft's MSWebDVD is a plain-vanilla Windows strategy that handles all aspects of DVD-Video playback and navigation, including menu selection, special features, and directional buttons.

"The poor man's Web DVD is the Microsoft API, because it's free," says LaBarge, who has developed titles using it and says it works "pretty well." Other producers, such as Luke Livingston of Creative Convergence in Acworth, GA, laud it as a solid open standard. "[MSWebDVD] is all HTML and browser-based. What I like about it is that it's open, simple to use, and it's easy to go get a DVD PC that will use all this technology," he says.

InterActual, though, may be on the way to dominance. The basic technology has been incorporated into authoring systems from Sonic Solutions. A rival system from Spruce Technologies was recently swallowed up when that company was purchased by Apple Computer -- which has, to date, failed to offer much in the way of Web DVD support.

To goose Web DVD development, InterActual launched its Inventor Connection, a subscription program that offers client licenses, development utilities and support and training at multiple levels. In a move aimed at corporate developers, InterActual last month instituted a new "QuickStart" level requiring a fee of $1000 per year and a software license fee of $500 for replication runs of 2000 units or less.

Who Speaks For The Industry?

Even though producers have tried to settle on standards, efforts to prescribe working methods for Web DVD developers have been unsuccessftil. LaBarge was one of the leading voices in an informal industry group called DVD Haiku that tried to hash out a single, workable specification for Web DVD production. Meanwhile, the DVD Forum established an ad-hoc group chaired by InterActual itself to investigate advanced interactivity and Internet connectivity as part of the DVD-Video specification. "We changed [DVD Haiku's] approach to trying to influence the Forum rather than publishing an independent recommendation:' LaBarge explains.

The main question for the entertainment industry is how to extend Web connectivity to set-top DVD players. The DVD Forum is reportedly considering software from InterActual, a system being promoted by Matsushita Electric, and also MPEG-4 as potential standards. MPEG-4 is gaining ground thanks to the efforts of companies such as iVast in Santa Clara, CA, which demonstrated at this year's NAB trade show that a single MPEG-4 transmission can include upward of 100 separate streams, includ ing video, 2D and 3D objects, pop-up menus, digital rights management mformation, surround audio, and more. But MPEG-4 remains a largely unformed and unproven technology, with few development tools available.

To CD Or To DVD?

As the DVD Forum evaluates issues on the consumer side, some Web DVD developers have gone ahead with corporate projects. New York City's Zuma Digital recently completed a project for clothing giant Guess that germinated at a record company that wanted a project demo to combine music videos by recording artist (and Guess spokesmodel) Tyrese with Guess marketing campaigns. Zuma eventually burned the Tyrese/Guess project to an 8 cm mini CD-R, which wound up influencing Guess itself to order a total of 10,000 discs in both CD and DVD versions. The DVD version, with its high-quality video, was solely for internal use, while the CD was handed out to customers at in-store appearances by Tyrese.

The main difference between the two versions of the project is video quality. Users watching the DVD version can click on an article of clothing while the video stream is playing to link to a product information screen with more details and an "order" button. Clicking that button links back to a live page from the Guess Web site selling the item being showcased on-screen. On the CD, viewers see product information listed below the video window with a picture of the item off to the left, and can click on the image of the product itself to reach the e-commerce links. The disc also includes links to a "VIP Lounge" at the Guess Web site, where user information and demographics are collected.

The DVD was created using Sonic DVD Creator and the standalone PCFriendly application separately, while the CD was built using Katabounga, a QuickTime-based multimedia authoring software package. At all times, Zuma sought to maintain key design features of Guess's Web site.

Livingston says the visually seamless integration of Web-style content and DVD-based multimedia is key to the Web DVD experience. "We integrate the design of the DVD window into the HTML," he says. "You can't see the borders of the DVD object -- the graphics transition from HTML into the Active X object to create one appearance. It's not a clunky video window in an HTML page.

"I can't wait to start integrating things like flash and animated HTML," Livingston continues. "Because the reaction time for DVD is instantaneous, you could have flash information that works together with the DVD, so that you could have 3-D animations pop up in the middle of your Web browser."

Livingston's Web DVD work to date includes a prototype of a distance-learning application for a foodservice company. Typically, training materials are delivered to branch locations on VHS tapes so that employees can pop them into VCRs and learn how to prepare specific dishes and use the kitchen equipment. "There is no way to capture and track that off-line learning," Livingston explains. "WebDVD sticks with the same paradigm of media-rich training, but captures that learning and tracks it."

A Solution For Today And Tomorrow

Looking forward, the possibilities are endless. As DVD becomes more ubiquitous, Livingston sees HTML-editing programs like FrontPage incorporating Web DVD functions, making applications that require specialized experience today a snap to author. For his own part, Livingston says Web DVD is the solution to a problem that has dogged multimedia producers -- the question of how to maintain video quality in online applications.

"Maybe within eight or 10 years everybody will have big fat pipes coming into their house and will be able to cache MPEG-2 in their home servers, and the DVD format might not be the way to deliver it," Livingston admits. "But this is a great intermediary step, and it's important to tell clients that this is here to stay for several years.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Knowledge Industry Publications, Inc.
Accessed from Computer Database Plus (c) 1997 Information Access Co. All rights reserved.