Can you have non-DVD content on a DVD-R?

Erk wrote on 2/20/2003, 3:40 PM
In other words, the kind "bonus content" available on some DVDs if you play them in a PC's DVD-ROM drive.

Say you generated all your DVD assets in DVD Architect, and then had Nero burn those assets plus some other files to a DVD-R. Would a set top DVD player just ignore those files, which would be accessible through a DVD-ROM drive?

G

Comments

videoman69 wrote on 2/20/2003, 4:45 PM
With my Spruce Virtuoso I have an option to do DVD-ROM.
I have done this with several titles.
We would have the DVD Video available for set-top or computer
and then computer users could access, PDF, graphics, Word Docs

Having this option in DVD-A would be great.
Come on SoFo lets open it up a bit for
some more manual options
bcbarnes wrote on 2/20/2003, 7:11 PM
I think you could probably do this now by preparing the DVD First, then copying files into the prepared directory structure, and then burning. I haven't tried it, but it might work...
dsanders wrote on 2/24/2003, 1:47 PM
This kind of stuff can be tricky. The best solution is for the DVD Authoring Application (i.e. DVD-A) to accept DVD ROM Data and have it burn the completed image to disc. You can not simply "Burn" the VIDEO_TS and other directories to a blank disc and expect it to work. There is a lot of "organizing" of the files that needs to be done behind the scenes to ensure high compatibility. You may get lucky and things may work for you, but you're going to be walking a hairy edge.

The main problem is that DVD players are not general purpose computers. In order to reduce the complexity of the players, the DVD spec requires the disc to be burned in a very specific way. For instance, I believe that the files in the VIDEO_TS directory must be burned in alphabetical order. Its this kind of organization that may or may not be enforced by your burning software. If you truly need to create a disc that contains DVD ROM data, I would suggest that you purchase a DVD Authoring applications that directly supports it.