Using Director > Playing Movies over the Internet > Playing movies over the Internet overview |  |

Playing movies over the Internet overview

A Director movie can use the Internet in various ways: hosting multiuser sessions such as chats and games, streaming movies and sounds, retrieving data from the network, and interacting with a browser. Whether it is distributed on disk or downloaded from the Internet, a movie can use an active network connection to retrieve linked files, send information, open Web pages, and perform many other network activities.

To make a movie appear in a user's browser, you can save it as a Shockwave movie and embed it in an HTML document. The movie can play from a local disk or an Internet server. When the user opens the HTML document stored on an Internet server, the movie begins streaming to the user's system, and usually begins playing after the first frame's content has been downloaded.

You can also distribute a movie over the Internet as a projector—a packaged movie that the user downloads and executes. A projector plays in a stand-alone application, not in a browser. See About distribution formats.

While authoring a movie, consider how the movie will be distributed and played on users' systems. If the movie will stream from an Internet source, you may need to modify the movie for the best streaming performance, and to use Director's built-in behaviors to make the movie wait while certain cast members download. Controls and Lingo commands offer methods for sending and retrieving media and other information, interacting with a browser, and monitoring downloading.