February 12, 2001

InterActual Player 2.0

Figure 2: InterActual Player 2.0 (click figure to enlarge)

InterActual Player 2.0 is the latest WebDVD product from InterActual Technologies. InterActual Player 2.0 plays DVD-Video and CD-Audio titles integrated with HTML content stored on either the DVD disc or the Internet. InterActual Player 2.0 is a media playback architecture that allows the content to be authored once and delivered across multiple platforms with a consistent user interface. It supports a majority of hardware and software DVD decoders available for the Windows PC, and also provides limited playback support on Apple Macintosh systems. InterActual Player 2.0 is also expected to support a number of Internet connected set-top DVD players and video appliances. Figure 2 shows a sample InterActual Player 2.0 graphical user interface with one of the standard player skins. Player skins can be customized by the title developer or by the end user to provide a content specific look and feel for the Player 2.0 GUI.

InterActual Player 2.0 allows the content owner to control the look and feel of the users experience, providing several methods to transparently connect to the Internet. Internet or Web content can be authored directly onto the DVD-Video disc or embedded within HTML available on a live web server. These connections can be based on events that are user initiated or triggered by the content itself. The primary features of InterActual Player 2.0 include:

	Cross platform support. Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 based PC's, Macintosh and Internet connected DVD set-top players.
	Broad DVD decoder support. Supports all leading hardware and software DVD decoders and navigator programs including Microsoft DirectShow.
	Backward and Forward compatibility. Backward compatible with all PCFriendly-enabled titles. Will work with any DVD-Video or CD-Audio disc.
	Scalable playback. Content runs in a scalable PC or Mac window or in full screen mode. This can be authored into the content by the developer.
	Customizable. The content developer can "wrap" the DVD-Video content in a customized user interface using various skins for the player's GUI.
	WebDVD integration. Seamless playback of Internet links authored into the content. The player can launch HTML content based on "events" authored into the DVD video, or conversely can launch DVD video based on embedded "events" in the HTML.
	DVD Authoring tool support. DVD-Video title developers can design in InterActual Player 2.0 features on their titles using their standard DVD authoring tools from Daikin or Sonic Solutions.

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