Question about DVD players running software

[Roboramma]

I'm looking at putting together a DVD that will work in a special way, but I'm not sure if it's possible.

I know I could do it if it were to be run on a computer, but I want to run it on a DVD player. I don't know if they are capable of it, however.

The idea is basically as follows (this is a slighlty simplified version, but it's basically how it would work):

The DVD has on it say 20 video clips. A-T.
When it plays it chooses between playing A and B first, each with a 50% chance.

It has a database for each clip. The entries sort of look like this:
A: C, F, G - 1/3
So when A plays, the DVD now chooses between playing C, F, or G, each with a 1/3 chance.
Similalry, if it chose F, it looks up the entry for F:
F: H,T, Q, 1/3
And chooses between H, T, and Q.

It would be slightly more complicated than that, but basically it would work like that.

Are DVD players capable of this? The programming would be pretty simple.
If they are capable of running a program like that, rather than just playing video, what language would I write the program in?

 

[D2011]

Just get one of these .

A more comprhensive description is here

That way you can do everything on your pc, then watch it on T.V & wont have to worry about the dvd player.

The DVD players that can do what you are talking about do exist I believe, but are very high end Hard disk DVD players & much more expensive than the Dlink Media player above.

D2011

 

[Modified]

I'm looking at putting together a DVD that will work in a special way, but I'm not sure if it's possible.

I know I could do it if it were to be run on a computer, but I want to run it on a DVD player. I don't know if they are capable of it, however.

The idea is basically as follows (this is a slighlty simplified version, but it's basically how it would work):

The DVD has on it say 20 video clips. A-T.
When it plays it chooses between playing A and B first, each with a 50% chance.

It has a database for each clip. The entries sort of look like this:
A: C, F, G - 1/3
So when A plays, the DVD now chooses between playing C, F, or G, each with a 1/3 chance.
Similalry, if it chose F, it looks up the entry for F:
F: H,T, Q, 1/3
And chooses between H, T, and Q.

I've never done it, but from a quick look at the dvd command set, it looks to be possible.

what language would I write the program in?

At the root, it's an assembly-like language. I would suppose that DVD authoring tools give you a friendlier language that gets compiled to that, but I've never used one.

 

[MortFurd]

Looking at the Command set, I don't see how you could. The commands deal with bouncing around between video clips, there's nothing there that would deal with counting or making random numbers.

 

[Modified]

Looking at the Command set, I don't see how you could. The commands deal with bouncing around between video clips, there's nothing there that would deal with counting or making random numbers.

Look more closely. The "commands" have a lot more functionality than their names imply. SetGPRM can perform arithmetic on two registers, and generate random numbers. Follow the link for that command to see all the possibilities.

 

[Roboramma]

Thanks, Modified.

I'll have to take some time to look into it to see how to do it, but I'm encouraged by the possibility.

It's great if it can be done, because what I'm looking at would be a DVD for sale, so it's much, much more useful to me if it can be played in a DVD player than if it can only be played on a computer.

 

[Modified]

Thanks, Modified.

I'll have to take some time to look into it to see how to do it, but I'm encouraged by the possibility.

Since there is no data storage in the conventional sense, your database idea won't work (unless you can fit it into a few registers). The choice of which clip to play with what probability will have to be hard-coded. If you have to create many different DVDs like this, you should probably write a program to generate the code from such a database.