random slideshow on dvd

[cescpistol]

is it possible to create a random slideshow to be played in a dvd player?

[Lin Evans]

Yes and no - it depends on what you play the dvd on. Only an "executable" format can be random so if you create a random exe file an place it on a DVD as "data" and play it back on a computer, then the show will be random, but once it is burned into a DVD format for playback on a television, there is no longer any way to randomly cycle images. The dvd "player" in this case acts simply as a media device to hold the images and make them available to the OS via the slideshow program's instructions.

The computer is a "smart" device where the program which tells it what to do can be made so that by some algorithm, slides can be displayed in a seemingly "random" manner. Video is a "pre-packaged" or "canned" environment where each images has preset parameters. There is no way with current technology to create a "random" selection because playback devices are "dumb" devices which simply follow preset rules for display.

Best regards,

Lin

[cescpistol]

thanks for the clarification.