Phantom Menace DVD: Another reply from InterActual; Reader comments

From InterActual Following up on yesterday's posting regarding InterActual Technologies' statements regarding the Mac support of their software for the Star Wars Episode I DVD, we received a reply from Steve Zupan (Senior DVD Applications and Support Engineer of InterActual Technologies). He writes:

"I am writing to set the record straight about our company's support for Macintosh PC's. The information that was sent out in response to David Snedigar earlier was outdated and not entirely correct. The correct information regarding InterActual support for Apple systems is included in the Web article [ed. note: we linked to this yesterday as well]. We do not support the Macintosh platform for reasons explained in this article. We regret any misunderstanding that the previous reply might have caused and ask that you inform your readers."

Steve does not specify exactly what about the information was "not entirely correct." However, the bottom line remains the same in both cases: The web-linked material will not work with a Mac.

Update: InterActual answered our query: "The email incorrectly refers to PCFriendly, which is not the software on the title in question. As our web article states, PCFriendly had limited Mac support while the current version of the software, InterActual Player, has no support for the Mac for reasons outlined in the article."

Reader comments Frédéric Côté found the following HTML code on the Star Wars disc:

if (OpSys == "Macintosh"){
//If Macintosh platform detected, then load Mac-specific content
wleft=screen.availWidth-800;
wtop=screen.availHeight-600;

Joe Shea adds: "If you put DVD #2 into a PC and use the InterActual browser, you will find that all of the content is HTML or QuickTime."

The InterActual web page contends that the major reason for the lack of Mac support is the Mac's inability to play DVD-video embedded within an HTML page. That may still be the case, despite the above reader findings. However, the findings are also consistent with the email posted yesterday, stating that the DVD could have supported Macs, but a decision was made not to do so.

No subtitles? Jason Ellis found that he could not get the alien language subtitles to appear in DVD Player running Mac OS 9.2.1 or Mac OS X 10.1 on my PowerBook G4. He writes: "These subtitles for revealing what Watto is saying do show up perfectly on my Sony DVD player. Enabling different subtitle tracks with the controller does not get the subtitles for alien languages to appear properly."

Update: David Snedigar replies: "It is not just a Mac problem. I had problems with the same subtitles on my home Toshiba DVD player - where they sometimes would work and sometimes wouldn't, or sometimes pop up for only a brief instance. Pausing or stopping the disc and the playing again seemed to resolve it. I have seen other PowerBook users comment that stopping and starting the disc has resolved similar problems for them as well."