Back into DVD code
It’s been interesting to get back into DVD programming. It has been nearly three years since we first dived into this area of technology and the code base hasn’t changed much since then – but a number of changes were needed.
Implementing DVD playback is certainly a challenge, which actually makes it a fun project. The main challenge is that the DVD interfaces provided by the system are designed primarily for interactive playback of DVDs (ala WinDVD, etc.). Getting these interfaces to operate in a way that a typical SSP user would want – the playback of a specific portion of a DVD title – is a bit challenging. There are a number of reasons for this. For one, the interfaces are not frame accurate. With a typical video file, you can mark start and stop points to the frame. The interfaces we’re using to provide that level of accuracy. There are also a number of events that can happen while playing a DVD, so ensuring that the DVD playback doesn’t bounce around from a title to a menu, also requires care. The video and audio streams can change from one title to the next (one may be 4:3 video, the next 16:9). Then finally, DVDs can be built in a wide variety of ways making their operation inconsistent from disc to another.
But we’re up to the challenge and I look forward to rolling out a better DVD implementation here in the near future.
(BE076)