Phantom Menace DVD: a follow-up: Reply from InterActual; more

To clarify yesterday's item on problems with the Star Wars Episode I DVD:

For most Mac users, the movie (Disc 1) plays just fine on their Macs. Problems are restricted to Disc 2 (Extras). Some Mac users have complained that they cannot even get this DVD to mount on their Macs. Others have had success getting the DVD to mount and even accessing some of its content. Accessing the DVD-ROM features and the additional content that depends on the web-link is a deal-breaker for all Mac users.

James Baker suggests that installing the Joliet File Extension may help for those unable to mount the disc at all.

As to the DVD-ROM content, several readers alerted us to information from InterActual (the creators of the content):

Web page reply from InterActual Several readers (including Keith Esau, Anthony Helm and Mark McAnally) pointed us to this InterActual web page. It explains why their InterActual-enhanced DVD-ROM features, such as used in the new Star Wars Phantom Menace DVD, will not play on Macintosh computers.

Email reply from InterActual David Snedigar received a related reply from InterActual Technologies Technical Support:

Thank you for contacting InterActual technical support. The decision to put Macintosh content on a disc is ultimately the movie studios' decision. The interface on the Macintosh consists of running the content through Netscape and when the play link is clicked, the Apple DVD Player is called up separately. It is more difficult to write an all-encompassing interface for the Macintosh, since Windows has DirectShow and the Mac OS does not. This allows our interface to hook on and display video within our interface using DirectShow compliant software decoders. Most software decoders on the market are DirectShow compliant. With the Mac, there is no such hook available.

We do have a separate Mac-compatible interface that is available to developers, should they wish to use it. However, Twentieth Century Fox opted not to include Mac support on this disc due to space limitations. Our company only designed and supports the InterActual software itself, but we have no input on creative decisions, other than to advise on what is and is not possible through our interface.

Since the main ROM feature of the Star Wars DVD is an exclusive Web link that requires detection of the Star Wars DVD by our own software in order to be accessible, our interface is required and this technology cannot be accomplished with simple Web pages. Again, this was at the studio's request, so as to provide users with exclusive online content. This type of feature is not possible with our Mac interface, even if the disc had room for our installer. It's tricky enough to do even in Windows, which has a significantly greater number of Web-specific tools available.

I may also want to point out that the Mac landscape has been and still is extremely volatile for a program like ours. Our Mac interface only functions under the following conditions:

• Mac OS 9.0.4 or above (not OS X)
• Apple DVD Player 2.3 or above
• Netscape 4.6 ~ 4.76 (Netscape 6x completely disables our features, even if it is removed)

Any deviation from the above requirements will cause our interface to cease functioning. The configuration above provided us with enough flexibility to at least start video from our interface (a simple "Play The DVD From The Beginning" is all we can do), but any change in these conditions takes this away, making it impossible for our software to work. So as you can see, these requirements drastically limit the number of users that can access Mac-specific content.

Okay, so the real question may be why did Lucas and company elect to choose a technology that they knew had no chance to run on a Mac? Surely, there were other solutions that would have worked.