Re: [Phys-l] Video Encyclopedia of Physics Demos

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@mindspring.com>]

At 10:06  -0400 10/18/06, Bob LaMontagne wrote:

> The DVD is very klutzy. It requires sitting through a lengthy introduction
> about the Video Encyclopedia itself before running a demo. There is no way
> around this. Trying to get to the next demo that you want to use is very
> convoluted and doesn't always work so you have to start over and replay the
> introduction. I have found a way to "hack" the video and embed the
> individual demos into my Power Point. I know it's not legal and the company
> that bought the rights to sell the DVD version was not pleased when I told
> them how I did it, but I feel that once I bought the product I own it and
> can use it in a manner most convenient for me. I would certainly not
> encourage others to do the same. I really think the people who produce the
> DVD should make it more user friendly - the unwieldy interface has to be
> hurting sales.

I agree that laser disks had lots of cool navigational features, but 
DVDs are not devoid of that capability, at least when used with a 
computer rather than a basic vanilla DVD player. I use DVDs for this 
purpose a lot, and all I need to do is run the DVD before I want to 
use it and bookmark any part I want to show. The bookmarks are stored 
in the computer and when I play the DVD, I can select any bookmark at 
any time and the player jumps to the point I have marked. I give them 
names that are descriptive of what is on the clip I want and it is 
easy to find them almost instantly. I haven't used the Encyclopedia 
of Demos DVDs but I would imagine that one could go through any given 
DVD in advance and bookmark the beginning of each demo, giving it a 
suitable name, and then whenever you play it back on the same 
computer, you can go directly to the place you desire without having 
to go through any unnecessary preliminaries.

Unfortunately, laser disks seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs, 
so getting conversant with the way one can do that on DVDs seems to 
be worth the effort.

I also assume that, if one knows where the bookmarks are stored in 
the computer, you can transfer them to any other computer so you 
don't have to recreate them for every computer they will be used on. 
I don't know where they are stored on my computer, so I haven't tried 
that.

Hugh
--

************************************************************
Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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When you are arguing with a stupid person, it is a good idea to make sure that
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					Anonymous