Best way to get a VCD to autorun.Is it rocket science!?

[michelle g]

Hi. I have searched hi and lo, but with all the fancy techno stuff discussed on this site, is there a straightforward way to autorun a video CD? Cigar for the best response!! Thanks

[Spicuzza]

WinDVD will play a VCD automatically.

http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/WinDVD_Download.jsp

[michelle g]

Thanks Spicuzza, but still lookung for a solution where video CD will play on anybody's Windows PC if I were to send the CD to them ( I've got WinDVD, works very well but not everyone has it installed of course.I've tried placing the WinDVD program on the actual disc, but doesn't really work ). I need a solution where it would autoplay on something pretty universal like Windows Media Player.

Thanks. Cigar still up for grabs!!

[Spicuzza]

That may very well not be possible. For example, in WindowsXP, I have purposefully shut off the autoplay function in both CD-Rom drives. I find it annoying as I don't necessarily want "to play" what I just put in the drive. Sometimes I just want to rip a tune from a CD, sometimes I just want to copy some sound effect or video special effect from CD-Rom libraries I have.

I understand what you're trying to accomplish, you want to be able to distribute your projects and have someone just put it in the drive and it plays. That simply may not be possible, due to personal computer configurations.

Personally, when I distribute video projects to others, I render 352x240 @ 2300 kbps simply burned as an MPEG-1 file on a CD-R. Then print "To Play" instructions on the CD envelope, 1) put in CD-ROM drive, 2) click My Computer, 3) click video file. Even the most novice of computer users can follows those instructions.

[rull_bull]

I have charlies angels on vcd and when i put the cd in my cdrom it autoruns..
the vcd have a internal player program thats named Sony Videopress Player / Internal
In the help file on the vcd it says that the vcd was authored with VideoPress.

[batty]

I worked on this problem a while ago and was able to make the VCD autoplay with the autorun.inf file in the root directory of the CD. However, this only worked for Windows 98/95 systems and not for Win2K (I did not try XP). The problem with the Win2K systems was that it did not allow "remote" access to Windows Media Player. I even tried including WMP on the VCD but that did not work either.

Eventually, I got autorun to work universally by keeping the video files in their MPEG1 format (i.e. don't burn a VCD but a data CD) and using a freeware program called Shellrun.exe that the autorun.inf initiates. This is a free program from PHD Computer Consultants (www.phdcc.com/shellrun/freeware.htm). It flashes an "advertisement" for PHD before running the specified program but that is a small price to pay for freeware that works. If you don't want the ad, I believe you can pay for a version without it.

For my requirements, I wanted the "VCD" to have more of a DVD like menu so I made a presentation in PowerPoint with buttons that hyperlink to the desired video. A little hokey but it works well and looks almost identical to the DVD version of this particular product video.

Of course this solution (nor any other) will work if autorun has been disabled on the computer like Spicuzza has done.

I hope that helps.

[rull_bull]

My vcd also have the autorun.inf file in the root directory of the CD.
And the vcd works on Win 95/98 and XP.
And it is a VCD not a data cd.

[Spicuzza]

Please note their warning from their web site:

The AutoRun basics page explains why ShellRun is needed, and cautions that AutoRun may have been disabled so you should always provide instructions for viewing your CD manually.