Scream Bonus DVD-ROM trouble

[Kat9119]

I don't know if this is a glitch or what, but I just got the box set today and after finally getting the software to work I can't get most of the special features to work such as the game, screensaver, and the script area. All the rest of the features work. . . what I mean by not working is it will go to a blank white screen and nothing pops up no matter how long I wait. . . Anyone have the same problem?

[tomdkat]

What kind of DVD player software are you using and can you post the specs of your PC? (CPU speed, RAM, Windows version, etc..)

Peace...

[Kat9119]

Honestly I'm kinda dumb when it comes to finding out stuff about this computer since it has XP and its a new computer. . .

But here it goes, hope its right.

According to InterAcutal Support's website I have:

DVD Decoder: InterVideo Inc.
Operating System: WINDOWS XP Version 5.1
Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 with 16 bits per pixel
Graphics Info: VGA
DirectDraw Version: 5.1.2600.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
Audio Info: Avance AC97 Audio

Windows XP Office is what I have. . . if that is the same thing as listed above.

The DVD Software that came with my computer is Intervideo DVD 4

I'm not sure where to find all the information you've asked for. But here is what I could find.

Processor Speed 1665 MHz
XP Version 5.1.2600
Service Pack 1.0
Memory (RAM) 256 MB

Total Computer Capacity 116.45 GB

I can't find the CPU speed anywhere

I tried the 2nd Harry Potter special features and they work, so I think it may be this disc or perhaps they used different things to run. Or its just a messed up disc I have. As it is just brand new out of the box

[mrbroadway]

I'm having the exact same problem but here's the interesting thing. It used to work perfectly last time I used the disk about 6 months ago. Suddenly, I get the white screen for the game too. I don't understand it. Is it possible that the game was somehow supported by the web site and the support is no longer available? It's really a bummer cause the game was kinda fun.

[tomdkat]

Sorry I can't be of more help but hopefully Zoopster can be of more help.

Peace...

[Zoopster]

Hi guys,

Sorry to hear the DVD ROM feature on the Scream Bonus disc isn't working. There is a simple reason why it isn't working: the content is broken. No I'm not being a smart aleck... it really IS broken. The original developer of this content (not us) sent it to us on a hard disk for testing before the disc went into production. We tested it and found and reported numerous problems, and then next we knew the discs had already shipped. We never got a second look at it.

Among the highlights of the problems this disc had are the following:

1. Almost all of the links in the main menu page were incorrectly coded, so only the link to the Trivia game worked.
2. There is a "<saved from url>" tag in some of the main HTML files. This tag is automatically added to any HTML page that you send as an attachment and subsequently save from either Outlook or Outlook Express. The developer guys were emailing these pages back and forth through their internal email system, which is how these tags got there. At the time this was being worked on, IE5 was the browser of choice and it exhibited no problems with these pages. Unfortunately this code is viewed by IE 5.5 and above as a possible security breach (like a page that might have been introduced via a "back door"), and so the browser will not execute any embedded or scripted items in it. This could include a Windows Media audio or video clip, our own ActiveX object that we use to control DVD video, any number of Web-based trojans (of course), or in the case of this disc, Macromedia Flash. That's probably the reason for the white screen you are seeing; Flash won't load because IE thinks it is a hostile app that originated from outside.
3. The Trivia game feature was built using Macromedia Flash 4, and featured video clips from the series in MPEG format. These clips would play whenever you answered a question. However, when Flash was upgraded to version 5, this feature stopped working. It would report an error that a script in the Flash application was causing Flash to run slowly, and offer you the option to terminate the app. You could not proceed beyond that point. This issue still exists even if you have Flash 7 installed. I am not a Flash developer, so I can only speculate why this happened. One possibility is that the developer wrote the feature for Flash 5 originally, and then exported it as a Flash 4 app since we only had a license to distribute version 4 at that time. Flash has historically done some weird things when you try to export your project to a different version. That's just my theory though, so don't take that to the bank.

So, when is this going to be fixed? Unfortunately, it probably won't. Our company does not have access to the assets originally used to build this feature, and we would need that if we wanted to do a patch. We also cannot "reverse engineer" or decompile the existing Flash content to see what makes it tick, because it would be illegal for us to do so. Even though it's broke, it's still protected under laws of intellectual property.

Also, even if a patch were possible, it is likely that the user would have to copy the entire DVD ROM content of the disc to their hard drive in order for it to function properly. The DVD-ROM content on this disc clocks in at 1.3 GB, and at the time this problem was evaluated, copying that much stuff from the DVD was unthinkable. My how times have changed.

So unfortunately what is on that disc is a little bit of actual DVD video, along with 1.3 GB worth of non-working, useless DVD-ROM stuff. You can tell I'm not bitter...

Anyways, hope that answers everyone's question!