Macromedia Director Player

Macromedia Director Player, formerly MacroMind Player, is a runtime application originally developed by MacroMind for playing back multimedia files created by MacroMind Accelerator or Director.

Product history
The software began as VideoWorks Player for playing back MacroMind VideoWorks files on Macintosh computers. After VideoWorks Professional became Director 1.0 in 1989, the player became known as MacroMind Player.

MacroMind Windows Player was introduced separately from Director 3.0 in 1991 and required Microsoft Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions to run. A utility called Gaffer allowed Director movies to be converted to a format that could be played back through the Windows Player, which was updated to version 1.2 with Director 3.1. It included an option to create self-running "Projectors". Additional players were developed for 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, FM Towns, IRIX, OS/2, and OS-9 (no relation to Apple).

Director Player for Windows (DPW) 3.1.3 was released by Macromedia with improved performance and functionality that finally achieved parity with the Macintosh version. DPW gradually increased in functionality until it replaced Director's own legacy codebase, starting with Macromedia Director 7. The functionality of Director Player was also implemented by Macromedia Shockwave Player, which could be played back from within a web browser.