The Assignment
For some time, the AWACS exhibit had been static because the expensive industrial laserdisc player failed often and was expensive to repair and/or replace. Further, the control system which allowed menu selection of AWACS video scenes was broken and the manufacturer could not be found. BCD was called to convert the laserdisc video to interactive DVD, and to provide a control system that would interface with the existing buttons in the AWACS simulator. .

Designing the System

Disc Geography

• Attract Loop
  Previously, the video screen showed a static video menu (from the disc) when the video was not playing, burning the menu image into the monitor. BCD suggested using an Attract Loop made up of 5 still images grabbed from the video. Each image of this slide show lasts for 10 seconds, and the sequence repeats if no button is pressed. There is a caption on each slide saying Press Button for Menu which prompts the user to press a button. This sequence is also a DVD Menu with 5 options, corresponding to the 5 available buttons. Pressing any of the 5 buttons takes the user to the video Menu screen with its 5 choices.
• AWACS Video (5 segments)
  Each of these 5 segments is a DVD Video Motion Menu. Any button press during the playing of a sequence returns the user immediately to the Main Menu. This decision was made because there are so many impatient school children who may not want to see a video segment through to its completion.

The BCD VC-16 required no special custom programming for this project. Exhibit technicians just connected buttons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to the ribbon cable of the VC-16.