ern2150
commented
2 years ago Why DVD for interactive media?
There are myriad ways to implement online interactive navigation that is driven by video. There isn’t a universal standard for doing so with web connected resources, strangely enough. Instead each platform figures out their own framework on top of a browser or dedicated application. This isn’t a bad thing - users get their pick based on their devices. It doesn’t make it easy to make interactive media, though.
DVD, however, eliminates some variables for everyone. This can of course be a limitation - no one is expecting first-person-shooter reaction times from a DVD remote/player interaction. It can also set expectations low so that the genuinely change-able, re-playable examples of games surprise people. Offline might feel like a limitation but it provides another layer of abstraction in some cases. Just because the player and media itself stay in their box, doesn’t mean the access to the DVD itself needs to do so. With an increase in affordable online storage, you can point people to an image of your DVD and then they can choose how to get it to their player.
It’s fun?
It’s odd that there really isn’t a simple offline universal interactive platform.
The Web seemed to promise some of this, but the client was always limited in some way. To vastly oversimplify, it skipped past being simple and universal to being complex, and universality is a slow burn. Browsers can, of course, operate offline, and even in local “closed” networks, but that’s by no means their primary use case.
DVD isn’t really simple, either, but it at least looks that way to the user. It is offline, of course, but under the covers it is less “simple” and more “low level.” It approaches being universal arguably more successfully than browsers ever will, but then it’s not being actively developed. Easier to hit a stationary target. Most players can support most features, even if the user’s controls don’t give them access to the more obscure features.