Bypass "Resume" function of a DVD Player?

I'm not convinced that it is the nature of \ most players, but it certainly is a preference setting on Apple's DVD Player app. As such, unless you turn off the preference I don't think you can bypass it without some real jiggery-pokery, and even what I have in mind won't work if you resume into a track rather than at the start of a track.

If you are using Apple DVD Player, simply open the preferences and go to the 'previously played' section, where you can force it to start at the beginning, or always ask what to do. Are you seeing the same functionality on set top boxes?

OK- well in which case I need to review my opinions!

What you could try is to write a short script that sets a value in a GPRM, and allow an item to play only if that value is there. The GPRMs get cleared when a disc is ejected, so the resume feature may well have remembered where the disc was, but it shouldn't retain the GPRM settings.

However, this will definitely not work if the player is retaining the resume info and the user left the disc during a track... and gets sent back to that point in the track.

What I was thinking was that you could attach a script to every element of the project, with a script set as first play:

mov GPRM0, 1
Jump Menu1 //assuming menu1 is the fist thing you want users to see.

Now, whenever you go on from there to any element on the disc you can go to a script instead which looks to see if the value is in GPRM1. If not, send them to menu1, or whatever the first item should be. SO, a script would look like this:

Jump Track1 if (GPRM0 = 1)
Jump Script1 // the 'first play' script above

You would need to do this for every menu and track, etc, changing the first line appropriately. However, if you resume in the middle of a track the script would be bypassed and the playback would continue from there. It would only go back to 'first play' when the track end jump takes place and the appropriate script kicks in before you get to anywhere. You may even need to do it for menu and title calls (easy enough, set a script to do the same job as above, but put it in place for menu calls, etc)

Doing this is at best excruciatingly tedious (particularly on anything reasonably complex), and at worst totally ineffective. I am not sure it will be worth the effort as it can't be guaranteed to work all of the time, if at all.

We dont know much about your project so its hard to advise but you could ask the user via intro or packaging to return to the menu when they're done and disable Stop button on Tracks. But that could force more users to press Eject!!!

It might be easier to educate the client though. Tell them that that resume feature is not scriptable and you're at the mercy of the player. It's not like someone else can offer the service! You could make every asset check if the item you want to play has played, that way if a user does resume as soon as they want to go to the next track/menu they'll see what you want them to see.

Yeah as Hal said you could Script to check but depending what you want from your project you could make it much more simple.

Write one script that checks the value and sends the user off to the 'must see item' if it hasn't been viewed otherwise just plays as it should. Then assign it to everything as a pre-Script very fast. As long as you dont target Buttons & Chapters directly for Menu Calls and End Jumps you should be cool.

Make sure you have a Script to set the Value of the GPRM you're tracking too as Hal mentioned but no need to write loads of Scripts.

David,

You can script till your blue in any authoring system, but it will have no effect.

The only way you can force those set top players to unload the resume info for the disc, is to press stop twice (two times) before ejecting, or, play another disc in the interim.

Now, for some project types, it can be interesting getting the disc 'back on track' when viewers start to navigate again, in such cases of player disc insert resume. Some scripting may be useful in those cases.

Take care,

Trai

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Trai Forrester
TFDVD Research Labs
DVD Verification, Proofing, Pre-Mastering

Really? Do you not find that when you eject the disc on a menu that resume feature of the player does not kick in also? Pretty sure 100% of my players will not resume to a menu so I'm interested.

Fwiw I think it was clear that the scripting was a damage control thing not a fix.

Yes, that is correct. It's only when you eject from the Title domain (Track Video) that the player's resume on disc insertion kicks in.

Thanks,

Trai

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Trai Forrester
TFDVD Research Labs
DVD Verification, Proofing, Pre-Mastering