The CD burning is the final activity in the project. It is where the final multimedia production is burned onto a CD-ROM for distribution.

CD

• To create the final, cross-platform CD-ROM

• Final artifacts for the project (one Director Projector, all of the other Director files containing the content of the CD, and video files).
• Blank writeable CDS
• CD-ROM burner (with the proper software installed)

Burning the CD-ROM
In this process all of the files are stored in a central location on the hard drive of a computer and then burned into a blank writable CD-ROM by a CDR drive (CD burner).

We encountered significant problems during the CD burning because we wanted to create a cross-platform CD. The largest of these was with the videos we included in the CD. The video files were not embedded in the Director pieces, because they needed to be available to both the PC and Mac versions. When the CDs were burned, the video files were exported to the CD, but the Director pieces continued to point to the location where they had been stored on the hard drive. The solution was to create a temporary partition on the desktop, place the files in the partition, and use those files to make the CD.

In addition, again because of the desire to create a cross-platform CD, once the items had all been assembled in the partition, the entire thing had to be moved to a PC to be converted into the correct format and saved in that environment. Then, the files had to be tranferred back to a Macintosh where they were integrated with the Macintosh versions and burned onto the CD. The process is much more involved and difficult to complete than it sounds.

Burning time for each CD was approximately 8 minutes. Several test burns were performed, so that we could make sure the CD functioned as it was supposed to. Numerous bugs were uncovered, most of which were fixed in the final version.

• Toast

• CD-ROM entitled Distance Learning: Spanning the Globe. No further activities.