How do I make a video CD so that it will autostart and run from the CD? i.e., I want the media player and some sort of autorun command (I think) on the CD with the movie file. This will be for distribution of VCDs of a short infomercial for marketing purposes. I don't want the recipients of the VCD to have to rely on their own media players on their computers' hard drives.

-- Clarence Hathaway (gomred@aol.com), December 16, 2000

Answers

Clarence, I am a newbie in all this video editing industry myself. However, I am facing the same problem and so far I got this:

You have to convert your movie file to an executable one. I am not sure which softwares will do this, still working on it. I hope wome plug-ins will do the job. Flash is one that has options to export an AVI as an .EXE, for one. I hope all AVI´s, not only his .FLA and .SWF.

Anyway, besides that you gotta also have a file that orients the autorun. They are usually autorun.txt, containing those lines of code:

[autorun] OPEN=videoname.exe icon=iconforthemoviefile.ico

....

And, of course, both the video and its icon (should you create one for it) have to be located on the same folder, on top of the directory tree. Hope I have somewhow helped you.

André

-- André Senra (producao@studioeletronico.com.br), January 30, 2001.

Check out this site. They have several programs and a howto on creating autorun disks. http://www.doom9.net/

-- Steve LaBounty (slabounty@zdnetmail.com), March 27, 2001.