Question

Playing DCR Files in a Browser

Asked by: pmascari

I'm an experienced web developer but have not worked much with Director files.  I've been handed a site that was built about 5 years ago.  It's got several DCR files on it that worked at one time but no longer play, however, I do hear sound out of them...just no display.

When I download the files to my desktop and try to play them...same thing: sound but nothing else.  However, when I place them on my own development server they run just fine.

The only difference I can think of is the production web server I believe is IIS while mine is Apache.  But, that leads to another question...are DCR files web server dependent?  I ask because the files won't play correctly loaded directly from my machine either.

For reference, the HTML code for one of the file in particular is:

<html>
<head>
<title>Developing Quality IEPs</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0">
<object classid="clsid:166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/director/sw.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="640" height="480">
  <param name="src" value="open.dcr">
  <embed src="open.dcr" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/" width="640" height="480">
  </embed>
</object>
</body>
</html>

What's going on here?

One last note...I do NOT have access to the original Director files.  All I have are the DCR files which I've found can not be opened.  *sigh*

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Asked On
2006-05-04 at 20:26:46ID21839106
Tags

dcr

,

open

,

files

Topic

Adobe Director

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
12

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Answers

 

by: MediaMacrosPosted on 2006-05-05 at 07:13:55ID: 16614913

Make sure when you upload they are in binary mode. Uploading as ascii will corrupt it.  You might also need to set the mime type on the server.

 

by: pmascariPosted on 2006-05-05 at 07:24:48ID: 16615025

Thanks for your comment.

Allow me to clarify: this site has been up and working for 5 years.  Only recently have the DCR files stopped working properly.

I did not upload the files...they've been there for years so I doubt that's the problem.  I've discounted mime type on the server because the files do seem to load in the browser but I get only sound...no display.  This happens both from the production server and when loading from my PC.  However, it works fine when loaded from my development werver running Apache.

Other ideas?

 

by: MediaMacrosPosted on 2006-05-05 at 08:26:54ID: 16615684

External files?  Linux servers are case sensitive, so if its looking for "Image.jpg" it won't find "image.jpg"

 

by: pmascariPosted on 2006-05-05 at 08:35:03ID: 16615775

No...it is finding the files because I can hear it playing the sounds.  I think the production server is IIS.

Here is a link to one of the pages in question.  You should hear sounds like the pages of a book turning but no display.

http://www.educatorlearningcenter.com/iep/

 

by: MediaMacrosPosted on 2006-05-05 at 08:55:02ID: 16615988

Are the images in external casts or external files?
Are the web paths at all different?  
Can you hit the external files directly with no problems?

if you moved servers someone had to FTP the fiels over so be sure they were not corrupted in the process.

 

by: pmascariPosted on 2006-05-05 at 09:04:51ID: 16616091

Are the images in external casts or external files?
***I have no idea, but I don't think so.

Are the web paths at all different?
***No

Can you hit the external files directly with no problems?
***No.  All the DCR files are doing the same thing.  Every other file on the site (html, images, etc...) are fine.

if you moved servers someone had to FTP the fiels over so be sure they were not corrupted in the process.
***I have not moved the files.  The link I posted above has been active for 5 years.  I *copied* the files to my PC and tried to load them there...same problem occurred.  I then copied them from my PC to my personal development site where they then proceeded to work.  What the hell?

 

by: MediaMacrosPosted on 2006-05-05 at 09:21:20ID: 16616230

Locally you need all files in a fodler called dsqmedia to allow access to external files.

It sounds like something is being called from outside of Director and the paths are not resolving.  Most likely a cast file (cxt, cst, or cct)

 

by: pmascariPosted on 2006-05-05 at 12:24:21ID: 16617638

I do see some cct files but, like I said, I'm not familiar with Director cast files and I can't open these anyway because they are "protected".

What you're saying makes sense, but I can't figure why it works on my server and not the production server since I've set the file structure up exactly the same.  To my knowledge I've changed nothing.

Frustrating....

 

by: MediaMacrosPosted on 2006-05-05 at 12:52:50ID: 16617837

The 3 most common problems are...

1. File copied or uploaded incorrectly as ascii.
2. Files not set with the correct mime type on the server for that extension.
3. The file server is case sensitive and the fiels being looked for do not match the case of the ones on the server.  

With the symptoms you describe these sound like the likely options.

 

by: pmascariPosted on 2006-05-05 at 13:07:34ID: 16617941

What is the correct mime type for DCR files as well as the cast files you mentioned?  .cct in particular?

 

by: MediaMacrosPosted on 2006-05-05 at 13:38:49ID: 16618123

This is a note about it...

http://blog.fuelindustries.com/archives/000044.html

Here is the list that shoudl help...

application/x-director dir
application/x-director dcr
application/x-director dxr
application/x-director cst
application/x-director cct
application/x-director cxt
application/x-director w3d
application/x-director fgd

 

by: pmascariPosted on 2006-05-08 at 18:33:11ID: 16635773

It was the mime types.  The ISP had moved the site from Win2000 to 2003.  Well, IIS 6 did not include the SW mime types by default.  That's why the movies "all of a sudden" stopped working.  

Thanks for you help.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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