# Interactive DVD authoring

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interactive-dvd-authoring/475468>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 3, 2008, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interactive-dvd-authoring/475468 "2008-12-03T05:28:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2008, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interactive-dvd-authoring/475468/1 "2008-12-03T05:28:51Z")

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Either such a thing doesn’t exist for home use, or else my Google-fu is weak. Earlier, it occurred to me, that since interactive DVD games exist, then maybe there’s a DVD programming language, or IDE, or something. But so far, the only thing I found seems to be for [businesses](http://www.zoo-tech.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=36).  
So, is there anything out there for the average person to create their own interactive DVD games?

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**Author:** ![glenarma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@glenarma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glenarma)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2008, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interactive-dvd-authoring/475468/2 "2008-12-03T12:12:51Z")

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Not sure if there are any ‘off-the-shelf’ software products designed for creating interactive DVD games - DVD scripting doesn’t allow much in the way of programming freedom: most of the games you see are simply sequences of short movies and images with ‘hot-area’ buttons stitched together with a small amount of scripting. Take the media (video clips, images, sounds etc.) away and you’re not left with very much.

Professional DVD authoring houses either use [Sonic Scenarist](http://www.sonic.com/products/Professional/Scenarist/quicklook.aspx) or [DVD Studio Pro](http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/). It might be worth checking out a free trial of Adobe’s [Encore DVD](http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/encore/) program to work out how the standard DVD scripting language works (IIRC, it’s close to JavaScript in terms of syntax).

I can’t imagine that, once you get used to it, creating game DVD’s the traditional way would be that hard, though it needs some investment in visuals to make it appealing.

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**Author:** ![glenarma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@glenarma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glenarma)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2008, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interactive-dvd-authoring/475468/3 "2008-12-03T12:22:05Z")

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Also, a quick search reveals that most of the ‘quiz’-style interactive DVDs out there are authored with [DVD-Extra Studio](http://www.zoo-tech.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=36), presumably because the standard DVD scripting base doesn’t support complex programming such as random number generation, caches etc (the kind of thing you’d need for decent-quality quiz/poker-style games). Sadly, the product page linked above doesn’t specify a price tag, so don’t expect it to be cheap! :eek:

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**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interactive-dvd-authoring/475468/4 "2008-12-03T15:03:05Z")

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Thank you for the links, and Yeah, the (non shareware) DVD authoring packages seem to run from $200(US) on up.  
Oh yeah, and I didn’t even think to Google “DVD scripting”, glad you had that in your reply.