Recovering pics from ancient Director app?

[Bubonis]

While going through some old files, an artist friend of mine found an
application that he created in Director some 13-14 years ago (version
4.something). This application contains a slide show of images that he created.
Until he found this application he thought these images were gone forever so
this discovery was a pleasant surprise.

Is there any way to extract the images from this Director app? He has both
Macintosh and Windows versions of the application. If push came to shove he
could simply run the app and take screen shots of each image and then crop and
resave in Photoshop, but as there are a couple hundred images in the slide show
this is definitely a last resort. I downloaded the Director 11 trial but it
won't open the application file. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[mikromidas]

I have a program / utility called DirOpener which I found as a free download
"somewhere on the net". Sorry I can't help you with the URL, since it it quite
a long time ago. This will extract media content from .dir-files and also the
protected variety; .dxr-files. However no Lingo. It will rebuild a new
.dir-file with only the media content, and from there you can pick out the
pieces in it's native form. Exactly what you're after I guess. You do need the
.dir or .dxr-files for the project; it will not work on content baked into an
.exe-file.
This little utility can be used to infringe copyrights, but to actually do so
is still up to the user, so please don't do it. I have used it to extract
pictures for reuse from old CD-ROMs where my customer owmed the content anyway,
and the origianal developer was no longer around. I thought that was OK.

[Dave C]

I seem to recall that you could use Swifty Zena Pro
(http://www.buraks.com/swifty/) to extract DIR/DXR, CST/CXT files from
Director projectors. Not 100% sure that it will work on version 4
projectors, but you can easily try it (no cost). Best to try it in a
copy of the projector, just in case.

If the files are protected (DXR or CXT) you can use dirOpener
(http://www.j-roen.net/diropener/) to retrieve the media works up to
version 7 I believe). You will then have either an uprotected DIR or CST
source file, but without any scripts. The images should all be there intact.

Now you have version 4 source files that you can open with Director
4,5,6 or 6.5 (I think versions 7 or later won't open a version 4file).
This will be a problem because these are old versions of Director. You
may find someone with these old version willing to help you (for free or
perhaps for a small fee). At this point the images could be manually
saved to external bitmap files, or the process could be automated with a
script.

So is this easier than using something like Snagit to just capture the
image from the screen? That's your call I suppose. Of course this
assumes that the images are not partially covered by higher layer
objects on the stage. If that is the case then you don't have the option
of capturing the image and are stuck with the procedure I have outlined.

Good luck...

[Dean Utian]

Hi,

I've helped a few people update D4 file to D10. So, if you need help on that front,
let me know.

First, would be helpful if you have the DIR files. If you don't, DaveC has given
you a link to convert DXRs or DCRs to DIRs. But, it may be tricky. Once you have a
DIR, if it's a D4 one, you may be able to import it into D10 and tehreby import all
the content (cast members) as well . Once you ahve a working DIR with teh content,
simply select all the images in the cast, send them to a frame range (Modify > Cast
to Time), then Export the frame range as a BMP/PCT sequence.

I'm happy to help. I even have old versions of Director Trials if required.

regards
Dean

Director Lecturer / Consultant / Director Enthusiast
http://www.deansdirectortutorials.com/
http://www.multimediacreative.com.au
email: d.u...@unsw.edu.au

[Dave C]

Dean, those old trial versions can be like gold when you need them!

OT: What has happened to Updatestage.com? Have they finished with Director?

[Dean Utian]

Dave C wrote:

> Dean, those old trial versions can be like gold when you need them!
>
> OT: What has happened to Updatestage.com? Have they finished with Director?

Hi Dave,

I have Trials from version 7 onwards. And they do come in handy.

Updatestage.com - a bit of history.
* Was created by Gretchen Macdowall, who was a very active member of the
Director and Xtras community. She sold and supported many Xtras. The site also
became a popular resource for the Mile High Table and bugs and quirks list.
* At the beginning of last year, Gretchen retired from Xtra and Director work.
At that point, I took over the Mile High Table.
* A few weeks later, Mark Andrade bought the domain from Gretchen and asked if
the Mile High Table could remain on the updatestage site. I agreed and
maintained editing control of the page.
* In the last week, Mark has moved on from Xtra and Director work and started
shutting down his sites, including updatestage. I looked at taking over the
updatestage.com domain but that did not work out. So, now the updatestage Mile
High table is at:
http://www.deansdirectortutorials.com/MileHighTable/
A bugs and quirks list will come at some point too.

[Bubonis]

Thanks for the tips, all. :)

To clarify: I don't have the .dir or .dxr files. The only thing I have is an
.exe file (48.6MB) and a "classic" Mac application (74.8MB), both of which
being stand-alone projector applications. Also, there is no copyright issues
involved here. The artwork in question is original artwork created and owned by
my friend. The original files were lost in a house fire about ten years ago, as
was the computer that created them and a large number of other original files
(not to mention, well, pretty much everything my friend owned).

I ran the .exe file through Zena Pro which gave me seventeen (17) .dir files,
each one being 48.6MB. Each file is named after the application (so
"application.exe" gets me "application.exe_1.dir", "application.exe_2.dir",
etc).

If I run the first file through dirOpener I get what appears to be an
identical copy of the file (except that it's renamed). If I run any of the
other 16 files through it, I get a dialog asking me for "MUSIC.DIR" which I
don't have.

None of the files can be opened in Director 11, which is all I have installed.
I'll check around and see if I can find someone local with a copy of Director 4
that I can try. Thanks again, all. :)