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Hyperlinks in Encore DVDRom content
Can anybody tell me the process for adding hyperlinks in files, set in the DVD Rom additional content feature of encore?
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10 Replies
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To create the links from your Encore menus to the internet, or on-disc ROM files (PDFs, exe’s, file folders, etc) you need eDVD 4. There is a good tutorial for using eDVD with Encore here:
https://www.dvd-makers.com/public/1176.cfm
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thanks for the reply.
I’ve looked into eDVD ad basically the program I’m making is running on security sensitive laptops, so we can’t have it rying to install interactuall player.I understood that somehow you could create a file that contained a hyperlink that we could put in the DVDRom folder in encore
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[Ian Oakley] “I understood that somehow you could create a file that contained a hyperlink that we could put in the DVDRom folder in encore”
Using Encore the only solution is DVD which, as you know, requires the interactual player. The only other authoring software that I know of that can create a link from a DVD to the outside world is Apple’s DVD Studio Pro. It uses a technology dubbed DVD@CCESS by Apple. It too requires installation of additional software (probably a java applet) on Windows machines in order to function.
External linking is not part of the DVD specification. That is to say there is no mechanism built into the DVD “system” to allow linking to material outside the DVD domain. EVERY solution ever proffered has required some sort of additional software in order to make this kind of linking work.
Dave
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If you don’t have too much content you can Double your content, sort of, and use a Flash approach for computer play. It uses Flash Projector (The menu can point to content on your DVD like video or the WWW). For set top play you can use the traditional method. They both live on the same disc. I’ve seen it done and that’s the total of what I know about it. Didn’t need to do it so I dropped it there. Hope that may help, I’m sure others know more or you can dig deeper. Of course you need a Flash player, but everyone has one of those. BTW … we’ve been using EDVD for a while and it’s working peachy, I understand the problem of installing a player but a lot of units already have the player installed.
Bpete
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I found a way to work around this issue today, actually.
If you simply need the audience to click a hyperlink and have a website actually appear, the easiest thing to do is:
1) Create a Word Document with the active URL as hypertext (i.e. “https://www.asdfjkl;.com”)
2) Then save that document as a PDF. Acrobat will recognize and allow for the hypertext functionality to occur.
3) Save that PDF into your DVD-ROM Content folder
4) Direct Encore to that directory folder as you normally would for all DVD-ROM assets.Just tried it out and it works perfectly. Almost everyone that has a computer has Adobe Acrobat installed, so there is no need of downloading/running yet another script. The DVD needs to be opened through the Windows Explorer to view the folder, and your PDF will be available to your audience.
Personally, I am making a sub-menu in Encore called “PC Features” to deploy a static image with text describing the process (whereas the content is not noticeable if the DVD player software on the CPU launches immediately).
I hope this was a solution that can work for you. All the best!
-Mark A. McKittrick
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Mark – thanks for that update on this thread. I have a question for you regarding what you spoke about. If I have a Word document with a list of other documents to look at and there are hyperlinks to those files (which would be included on the DVD) and include them in the DVD-ROM menu, will it show all of them in a list or what exactly shows up when you pop the DVD into a drive on a computer? Is it as simple as making a custom menu with one button to the documents and one button to the movie?
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rt@TomKaatz –
As I mentioned, when you create your Word Document with a list of hyperlinks, you need to “Save As” a PDF file format. Encore does not recognize hypertext in .doc files.
That being said, you will only see the DVD-ROM content in a CPU in the file browser mode. If the DVD Player software runs upon initial disc spin-up, you cannot access the DVD-ROM content.
This is why I created a separate menu button called “PC Features” (but you could call it “DVD-ROM Only Material” or whatever suits your design needs best) to have a sub-menu appear describing the process for folks to appropriately access the material.
I hope this clarifies the process a little more. I’ll try to dig up that project in question and snap some screen grabs so you can see exactly what I did.
Cheers,
MMcK -
I have been trying a few things since my post. I can include documents on the disk thru the standard method when you build a disk and that may suite my needs but I am intrigued by your idea of making a button called “PC Features”. When you click on that button, I get the impression that you link an access to other files. In Encore, the only thing that you can link to these buttons is some type of movie or playable content. Is that true? I will await your screen grabs to see exactly what you did. Thanks for your help.
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Mark, I did everything, but how do I link a button to that hyperlink? Do I import the pdf into the project?
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Hey Guys,
So, as I had mentioned, the hyperlink needs to be generated onto a PDF document. And then the PDF document needs to be included in the DVD-ROM content folder. This content can only be accessed by navigating through the file tree system of the disc. I have attached my rendition of the “how to access dvd-rom content” menu page so you can see who I approached this tecnho-hurdle.
I hope this helps.
-Mark
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