DVD player software for laptop

[Robert Bobson]

Hi ~

We need to play a DVD at an event, and the contains a dozen clips with still "slides" inbetween. The venue has a projector, but we can't attach a regular DVD player to it.

So we'd like to be able to play the DVD on a laptop that's connected to the projector, and we'd like to be able to play the dvd without needing to access an on-screen menu. we just want to be able to advance to the next clip by pressing a key on the keyboard - to create a seamless presentation.

can anyone suggest a dvd player software that will allow us to do this?

thanks@!

[Les Wilson]

By definition, DVD content is navigated only the way the DVD author allowed. You are limited to how the content was mastered on the DVD.

a) Rip the DVD and master it another way
b) Most DVD content allows skipping to the next track. You may find that you can do what you want using a combination of pause (at the stills) and the skip to next track button >>| on the DVD player controller (or it's keyboard equivalent).

Every laptop I've owned comes with a DVD player. However, these players notoriously pop up and disappear their controllers based on input and cursor movements. If you hookup in Mirror mode, all that is going to show on the projectors. Extended desktop mode solves that problem but you should make sure your laptop's DVD player supports it and can be configured to put the video out on the external screen and the controls on the built-in laptop screen. The Mac OS X player does this nicely. YMMV

[Vince Pachiano]

I'm not sure if I completely understand your workflow, but why not render the whole thing (both Clips and Stills) as a DVD movie. The clips would play as a normal, and the stills would "play" for 5 or 10 seconds.

Burn it as a standard DVD, pop it in the connected DVD player and hit PLAY

[Dave Farrants]

I do something similar for a singer with her backing tracks with video clips, I render each clip as .H264 then play out individually using ScreenMonkey (free).