More and more frequently we are being asked to help with making quizzes and other features to complement the DVD material. Sometimes this is a simple quiz where a number of questions arrive on screen and can be answered by any viewer, and sometimes they are far more complex with all kinds of game-play aspects to include.

Our advice is that you need to keep in mind the limitations of DVDs for this kind of thing. Whilst you can make superb quizzes, you are restricted by the number of memory slots as to how extensive the question selection and scoring can be. Trying to recreate a four player or team quiz complete with scoring and taking turns is a pretty complex task. Equally, having loads of questions in the quiz makes tracking what has been asked all the more difficult.

However, plenty of very simple quiz games can be made and the following link will download an ultra simple non-repeating quiz with just five questions. The idea is that you see what is involved in making the quiz rather than take it and use it as a template for a bigger game. Random question selection and tracking can be done in several ways, not only the way it is done here, for example. You may need more scripts of better structures if your quiz is reasonably complex.

Have a look at the project files in the zip archive here.

In DVDSP the items that you create when authoring your project, such as tracks and menus, all have an in-built numerical value. This can be useful if you are trying to create a framework for a project that will use different assets each time you use it. Using the values helps you keep scripts pointing at the right asset and end jumps relevant, even when you replace the tracks, etc. It isn’t foolproof, but it can be useful.

The tutorial page helps explain how the item values can be ’seen’ using a combination of scripts and then it is up to you how you use the information.

Randomising playback is one of those things that really ought to be easier than it is in DVD Studio Pro. Often you want to provide a quick way to offer random playback capabilities to your client, but it involves all sorts of difficulties - not least of which is preventing repeats.

In the DVD Spec, and with spec level authoring systems, you can set PGCs to be non repeating and random. In DVDSP, you can’t. Shame!

Instead of spending hours writing scripts, you could instead use stories and a simple script if you only want to randomise a low number of clips. You can read all about that in this article.

Once again, DVD-Replica.com have the information readily to hand about the scripting commands you may come across when building your own scripts. The major difference for DVD Studio Pro is that you only have 8 registers to play with, and the syntax is slightly different. The information is copied onto this site, but all credit remains with the DVD-Replica chaps… great work, adapted slightly here. Head over to DVD-Replica.com to see it in it’s original form, or click here to see the DVDSP specific result. It is almost identical…

Thanks to some great information over at DVD-Replica.com, you can easily find out about the SPRM meanings. To help, we have copied their work to this site, but please be aware this is entirely theirs and all credit remains with them. It is a fabulous piece of information, so go and check it out!