Discipline Global Mobile has recently released several outstanding records which contain bonus live concert video in Windows Media Player format. These recordings include 44 minutes of exceptional video and music hidden on disk two of King Crimson's live "Heavy ConstruKction" release from Crimson's performance on June 23, 2000 at the Citta Della Musica in Rome, and the piece "Never the Same Way Once" on Bill Bruford's band Earthworks latest recording "The Sound of Surprise".

The DGM for Mac OS page (formerly The Heavy ConstruKction for Mac OS page, when all we had to worry about was the King Crimson release) collects together what is currently known about the solutions to the problems that some Mac OS users have experienced attempting to access this video.

If the suggestions you find here do not resolve your problems, please file a report with us so that we can continue to gather the information that will help us diagnose and resolve these frustrating issues. The contributions from other users have proved crucial in getting us this far.

Please note that this is an entirely volunteer effort; Bill and I do not work for King Crimson, Discipline Global Mobile (DGM), or anyone else connected with the band or associated record companies. We're simply long-time fans of the band's music, and happen to use the Mac OS to get our work done. We can't take on general Macintosh troubleshooting questions, and certainly are the wrong folks to whom to be expressing your feelings concerning DGM's record releases.

Be well,
David Craig
Bill Chachkes

Start Here:

In case you haven't noticed already, all links to pages not on this server open in a new browser window. Just close the new window and the DGM for Mac OS page should still be lurking somewhere underneath.

Before proceeding, make sure that you have a recent version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player correctly installed on your system. If you've been experiencing problems with DGM bonus video, your first stop should be DGM's page:

• Mac OS Video Playback Instructions (DGM)

If the instructions and suggestions offered there don't help, then continue on with the suggestions we've collected here. If nothing you find here enables you to view the video, please file a report so that we can continue to develop our base of solutions. Thanks.

Finally, please note that the problem-solving strategies offered here are focused on versions of the Mac OS prior to Mac OS X. What we know about viewing the video under Mac OS X can be found in the list of questions and answers below.

Specific Questions & Issues:

• How and to whom do I report problems or make requests?
• How do I file a report about my experiences?
  
  
• When I insert an enhanced DGM disk into my Mac's CD Drive, my computer tells me that "This disk is unreadable". What do I do?
• I can open CLICK_ME.HTM in my browser, but it won't play the video for me.
• I can play the video, but I have problems with it.
• Where do I get the Windows Media Player?
• Can I play the video directly in the Windows Media Player?
• Can I copy the Heavy ConstruKction video to my hard drive and play it from there?
• Can I view the video using Mac OS X?
• What's the password?
• Do you have other drivers available for me to try?

As noted above, this is an entirely volunteer effort to straighten out this mess. It's not our fault, and we don't want to hear about it; you're preaching to the choir. If you have something you'd like to say to DGM, please post to the DGM Guestbook. On the other hand, if you have problems playing the video that you can't resolve with the help already offered here, please file a report and we'll do what we can to figure out what's wrong and help you, as our time permits.

You can share with us what you know about what works and what doesn't by filing a report describing your experiences. The link will take you to a form that will help us gather the kind of information that has helped us get as far as we have in resolving the issues that people have encountered. Your input is greatly appreciated. Once you've submitted your report, you will be linked back here.

If you receive a message that says "This disk is unreadable by this computer" when you insert a DGM enhanced CD (such as disk two of "Heavy ConstruKction") into your Mac's CD drive, the problem may be a strange interaction between the version of the Apple CD/DVD Driver installed on your system and the disk. Versions of the Mac OS prior to Mac OS 9.0 (inclusive) seem to mount the video data partition — named "KINGCRIMSON" on the Crimson release and "EARTHWORKS" on the Earthworks recording — of the disk containing the video just fine; Mac OS version 9.0.4 refuses to mount the video portion, and will only mount the partition containing the audio tracks. (You first have to click "Eject" in the "unreadable" error dialog to tell the computer to quit trying to read the partition with the video data.)

Please Note: By all accounts it appears that upgrading to Mac OS 9.1 (or later) represents a complete resolution of this issue for most users. Only Mac OS 9.0.4 appears to be afflicted with this problem. If this is not the case for you, we would very much appreciate that you file a report describing your experiences. (What we know about Mac OS X so far can be found here.)

If you receive the "unreadable" message using ANY version of the Mac OS prior to 9.0.4 (including Mac OS 9.0), or using Mac OS 9.1 or later, please file a report describing the details in order to help us further understand and resolve the issues you and others are experiencing. (If you don't know precisely which version of the Mac OS is installed on your machine, you can easily check by visiting the Apple Menu while in the Finder and selecting "About This Computer". Note that the differences between Mac OS 9.0, Mac OS 9.0.4, and Mac OS 9.1 appear to be crucial, so please double-check if you are in the least bit uncertain.)

If you are using Mac OS 9.0.4 (Macs were shipping with 9.0.4 for most of 2000), you should be able to access the video partition of the disk using the Apple CD/DVD Driver from Mac OS 9.0. To use it, open the Extensions folder inside your System Folder and find the file "Apple CD/DVD Driver". Make a copy or backup of this extension before proceeding. (You will likely want to revert to the most current version of the driver for purposes other than accessing Heavy ConstruKction.) Once you've backed up the current CD/DVD Driver, open the Extensions Manager — it's in your Control Panels folder — and use it to disable the Apple CD/DVD Driver. (Moving the Driver manually from your "Extensions" folder to the "Extensions (Disabled)" folder should have the same effect.) Next, download the Mac OS 9.0 version of the Apple CD/DVD Driver:

Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.3.1 (Machines with DVD support & most other newer machines)
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.2.2 (Older machines with no built-in DVD)

(Note: you should not need these drivers if you are using any version of the Mac OS prior to version 9.0.4 or any version of the Mac OS 9.1 or greater; do not attempt to use them if you are. Instead, please file a report describing in detail the problems you are experiencing.) Decompress the driver using Aladdin's Stuffit Expander. (You should already have a recent copy of the Expander on your system if you are using Mac OS 9, possibly in the folder Internet:Internet Utilities:Aladdin.) Then drop the CD/DVD Driver into your Extensions folder. (You did make that backup copy already, didn't you?)

Restart your computer. You should now be able to mount the video portion of the CD. When you insert the disk into your drive, an icon titled "KINGCRIMSON" (Heavy ConstruKction) or "EARTHWORKS" (Sound of Surprise) should mount on your desktop. (The partition containing the audio tracks may also mount.) If it does not, please double-check that you have correctly installed the driver version 1.3.1 into your System Folder, restart your computer, and try again. (You can determine the driver version by selecting the driver in the Finder and choosing "Get Info" from the File or contextual menu; the version number is listed near the bottom of the Info box.) If you are still receiving the "This disk is unreadable" error message, please file a report describing the details in order to help us further understand and resolve the issues you and others are experiencing.

You can use the Extensions Manager to enable the Mac OS 9.0.4 Apple CD/DVD Driver and disable the older driver you just downloaded when you wish to revert to the newer driver. (The drivers you download from this site have been renamed with the version number added at the end to make them easy to distinguish.) It is not recommended that you leave two different versions of the same driver simultaneously enabled. (Only one of them should load, but unless you know what you're doing you can't be sure which one that will be. If you do know what you're doing, then you don't need this advice.)

(There has also been the suggestion that Apple's CD-ROM Software 5.4 has solved problems for some users, loading this old driver in your Extensions folder alongside or instead of the current "Apple CD/DVD Driver". We have not directly encountered users with this problem running versions of the Mac OS prior to 9.0.4, nor does the version 5.4 CD-ROM Software appear to help in our experience. If it has helped you, please file a report at the link above to help us determine exactly what's going on.)

For experts only: the video clips on the DGM releases are stored on ISO 9660-formatted data partitions of the CD-ROMs. If the drivers above aren't working for you and your computer still can't mount the data partition of the disks, the experts among you may wish to experiment with other drivers we have available. If you hit upon another strategy that enables you to mount this partition, please tell us how you did it! Also note that there may be a shareware solution available soon that can mount the disk without having to revert to an older driver. When it becomes available, we will link it from here.

Finally, users of Mac OS 9.0.4 may wish to try the drivers from Mac OS 9.1. However, in this case the Apple CD/DVD Driver alone is not enough. You must use both the Apple CD/DVD Driver and the Foreign File Access extension from Mac OS 9.1. Only try these if yours is a newer machine:

Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.4.3
Foreign File Access 5.3.3

As above, please make absolutely sure that you make backups of the Mac OS 9.0.4 versions of these extensions before proceeding.

If you are using Internet Explorer, first make sure that you are using Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5. It has proved more forgiving and will often correctly play the video from CLICK_ME.HTM when older versions of Explorer and Netscape will not. (Internet Explorer 4.5 will not reliably play the video.)

If you are using Netscape, first, make sure that you are using a recent version of Netscape — at least 4.7.X. If you are still experiencing problems, some success has been reported with the following (admittedly rather odd) procedure:

1. Open the Windows Media Player and set up its preferences.
2. NOW install the Windows Media Plugin into Netscape's Plug-ins folder.
3. Restart your computer, holding down the command (Apple) and option keys while the machine proceeds through its startup sequence. When the computer asks if you would like to "Rebuild the Desktop" file, let it do so.
4. Finally, it may help to open the Windows Media Player before opening the CLICK_ME.HTM file in Netscape.

Since you're probably only reading this if you've already tried and failed to persuade Netscape to load the video into the Media Player, you can start fresh by removing the plugin from Netscape's plugins folder, trashing (and deleting) the Media Player's preferences, and starting again from scratch as outlined above. And yes, we know this is weird.

If you are sure that the Windows Media Player has been correctly installed, and neither Explorer nor Netscape is working for you, you can also try opening the video directly in the Windows Media Player. (Netscape in particular seems to dislike the fact that the Heavy ConstruKction video is hidden inside an invisible folder on the CD; see the instructions below for copying the video file to your hard drive and making it visible.)

First, be sure to check whether or not you are using a current version of the Windows Media Player. Also make sure that you are using a recent version of Netscape (4.7.X), or Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5; Explorer 4.5 for Mac OS seems to have much greater difficulty playing the video than does version 5.

If you can play the video, but playback is not smooth, stutters, stops, causes your browser or the Media Player to crash, or other similar problems, you may be experiencing memory-related issues. Try closing all other open applications, increasing the memory available to your browser and/or the Media Player (via their respective "Get Info" windows), or even turning off virtual memory (via the Memory control panel.) All of these strategies have been reported to help resolve playback issues. It may also help to copy the video to your hard drive and play it from there.

(If you have an older machine, it is also possible that your machine simply doesn't have the horsepower to play the video smoothly. The Windows Media Player is quite demanding on both platforms.)

It is also worth noting that the Heavy ConstruKction video especially does not respond well to being rewound or fast-forwarded; the video may drop out while the sound continues. This is a known problem with the video itself, and there's apparently not much to be done about it.

All of that said, some users are still experiencing well-defined and repeatable dropouts in the Heavy ConstruKction clip. Perversely, newer versions of the Windows Media Player seem to be more likely to be affected. We have not yet been able to hit upon the "magic combination" which eliminates these problems for those users who experience them. It would be helpful to gather information on which version of the media player your are using if you do not see such dropouts; please contact us.

Download the latest version of the Windows Media Player from Microsoft's Windows Media Player or Windows Media Player for Mac OS X page.

The latest version for the Classic Mac OS (Mac OS 9.X and before) that we've seen as of January 8, 2002 is 7.1.2.1203.

The latest version for Mac OS X (Mac OS 10.1 and later) that we've seen as of January 8, 2002 is 7.1.3.

Yes. Just launch the Windows Media Player by double-clicking on it and open the video from within the Media Player (File -> Open..., then navigate to the location of the .asf file containing the video on the CD). However, you won't be able to do this if the file containing the video is invisible to the Mac OS, as the Heavy ConstruKction video is. (The Earthworks video isn't an invisible file, so opening it directly in the Media Player shouldn't be a problem. The Heavy ConstruKction video is also not invisible to Mac OS X, so can be played directly from the CD from within the Media Player as well.)

To play an invisible video (like the Heavy ConstruKction video under Mac OS 9.X or before) directly in the Media Player, you will probably have to copy the video directly to your hard drive from the CD. If you've found a way to play the Heavy ConstruKction video directly in the Windows Media Player under the classic Mac OS without copying it to your drive first, please tell us how you did it!

Yes. Here's how:

1. Copy the CD ROM portion of the CD to your hard drive. (You will need just over 72 MB of free space to do this.) One way to do this is simply to drag the KINGCRIMSON icon onto your hard drive, or into whichever folder you wish to store the video.
2. The video is hidden in an invisible folder called "DATA" which resides in the same folder as the CLICK_ME.HTM and README.TXT files. To open the video you must first make the video file visible to the Finder. Any of the many popular utilities for modifying file attributes will do. Here are the instructions for Apple's free ResEdit. (You can download ResEdit from Apple or from CNet.)
   1. Open ResEdit.
   2. Select "Get File/Folder Info" from ResEdit's File menu for the folder called "DATA" that resides in the same folder as the CLICK_ME.HTM and README.TXT files that you just copied to your hard drive.
   3. When the info displays, you should see that the "invisible" resource attribute will be checked as selected. De-select it by un-checking the box. This will make the DATA folder and its contents (including the video) visible to the Finder.
   4. Quit ResEdit.
3. Now that the DATA folder is visible, you should be able to locate the video file "KCROME.ASF" inside it. This file is in Windows Media Player format; you will need at least version 7 of the player to open and view the video file.
4. Sit back and enjoy!

(The "DATA" folder on other DGM enhanced CD releases should not be invisible, so the fancy stuff should only be necessary for the Heavy ConstruKction disk.)

Yes. However, you will need both a recent version of Mac OS X (the version current as of August 2002 is 10.2; however, anything 10.1 or better should do) and an older (i.e. Classic) version of the Windows Media Player, at least to view the Heavy ConstruKction video.

In spite of the release of a Mac OS X-native Windows Media Player, we have had better luck viewing the Heavy ConstruKction video using the Windows Media Player for the Classic Mac OS and running it in Classic. Attempting to view the Heavy ConstruKction clip in the Mac OS X-native player gives the message "This file may not play correctly because it was compressed by using a codec that is not supported." The clip opens and one can see the video, but there is no sound. Indeed, the audio was encoded using the VoxWare MetaSound codec, support for which has apparently been dropped by both Microsoft, and VoxWare. (In case you were wondering, yes — we agree that the lameness of this is simply breathtaking. Don't feel picked on, though. Windows XP users are in precisely the same boat: this is a Media Player/licensing issue, not a platform issue.) Unless we can find a hack that will enable the native player to use the VoxWare codec from Classic versions of the player (it's in the "Voxware Sound Component v1.5" system extension), the only option is to use the Classic player running in OS X.

Fortunately, the Earthworks "Sound of Surprise" audio was recorded with a different codec, and works just fine in the OS X version of the Media Player.

So far, we have been unable to persuade the Windows Media Player plugin to work with the Mac OS X-native Internet Explorer, so you must play the video directly from within the Windows Media Player itself, or use a Classic browser instead of an OS X-native browser. For best performance, we do not recommend this latter approach. Either way, since the Windows Media Player is greedy under the best of circumstances, and you are effectively running it under an emulated operating system, performance may not be spectacular.

(Some users have reported that Mac OS X 10.0.X mounts the data partition that contains the video but the Finder shows that it has no files on it. Is there a way to access them and play the video? We're not sure yet. If you've learned anything you think might be useful, please file a report and share with us what you know! Still, you'd in any event be better off installing at least Mac OS X 10.1.)

We don't have a great deal of experience with the video under Mac OS X yet. We welcome any reports you'd like to share with us on the subject. Thanks!

Heavy ConstruKction: "rome"
The Sound of Surprise: "discipline"

(Without the quotes, of course. What, you been livin' in a box?)

The password is simply a marketing strategy designed to increase fans' familiarity with DGM Web and DGM's informational mailing lists. If you have any thoughts on this subject, the proper place to express them is in the DGM Guestbook.

Yes. However, these will almost certainly be of no help to you unless you are receiving the "This disk is unreadable" error, and in all cases we have encountered so far, the drivers linked above have resolved this error. If your experience is different, and you find that another driver is required to mount the data partition of the disks, please file a report letting us know. We'd also be happy to receive copies of any driver versions not on the following list.

Don't mess around with these drivers unless you are sure you know what you're doing. If one of them makes your computer explode, don't come whining to us about it, though as always, we'd appreciate it if you would file a report telling us what happened once you buy a new computer. And please be sure to remember to make a copy or backup of the CD or CD/DVD driver extension that is currently installed on your system before proceeding. Further instructions can be found above.

Here are the drivers we have available so far:

Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.4.7 [Mac OS 9.2.1]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.4.4 [Disc Burner 1.0.1]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.4.3 [iTunes 1.0]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.4 [Mac OS 9.1]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.3.9 [Mac OS 9.0.4 w/ Mac OS CPU software 2.5]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.3.8 [Mac OS 9.0.4 w/ Mac OS CPU software 2.3]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.3.5 [Mac OS 9.0.4]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.3.1 [Mac OS 9.0]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.2.2 [Mac OS 8.6]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.2 [Mac OS 8.5 w/ Apple DVD Software 1.1]
Apple CD/DVD Driver 1.0.1 [Mac OS 8.5]
Apple CD-ROM 5.4 [Apple CD-ROM Software 5.4]

Foreign File Access 5.3.3 [Mac OS 9.1]
Foreign File Access 5.3.1 [Mac OS 9.0.4]