Philips CDi

The Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I, later CD-i) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was mostly developed and marketed by Dutch company Philips. It was created as an extension of CDDA and CD-ROM and specified in the '' Green Book'', co-developed by Philips and Sony, to combine audio, text and graphics. The two companies initially expected to impact the education/training, point of sale, and home entertainment industries, but CD-i eventually became best known for its video games.

CD-i media physically have the same dimensions as CD, but with up to of digital data storage, including up to 72 minutes of full motion video. CD-i players were usually standalone boxes that connect to a standard television; some less common setups included integrated CD-i television sets and expansion modules for personal computers. Most players were created by Philips; the format was licensed by Philips and Microware for use by other manufacturers, notably Sony who released professional CD-i players under the "Intelligent Discman" brand. Unlike CD-ROM drives, CD-i players are complete computer systems centered around dedicated Motorola 68000-based microprocessors and its own operating system called CD-RTOS, which is an acronym for ''" Compact Disc – Real Time Operating System"''.

Media released on the format included video games and " edutainment" and multimedia reference titles, such as interactive encyclopedias and museum tours – which were popular before public Internet access was widespread – as well as business software. Philips's CD-i system also implemented Internet features, including subscriptions, web browsing, downloading, e-mail, and online play. Philips's aim with its players was to introduce interactive multimedia content for the general public by combining features of a CD player and game console, but at a lower price than a personal computer with a CD-ROM drive.

Authoring kits for the format were released first in 1988, and the first player aimed for home consumers, Philips's CDI 910/205, at the end of 1991, initially priced around , and capable of playing interactive CD-i discs, Audio CDs, CD+G (CD+Graphics), Photo CDs and Video CDs (VCDs), though the latter required an optional "Digital Video Card" to provide MPEG-1 decoding. Initially marketed to consumers as "home entertainment systems", and in later years as a "gaming platform", CD-i did not manage to find enough success in the market, and was mostly abandoned by Philips in 1996. The format continued to be supported for licensees for a few more years after.

Specifications

Development of the "Compact Disc-Interactive" format began in 1984 (two years after the launch of Compact Disc) and it was first publicly announced by Philips and Sony – two of the largest electronics companies of the time – at Microsoft's CD-ROM Conference in Seattle in March 1986. Microsoft's CEO Bill Gates had no idea beforehand that the format was under development. The ''Green Book'', formally known as the "CD-i Full Functional Specification", defined the format for interactive, multimedia compact discs designed for CD-i players. The ''Green Book'' specification also defines a whole hardware set built around the Motorola 68000 microprocessor family, and an operating system called CD-RTOS based on OS-9, a product of Microware. The standard was originally not freely available and had to be licensed from Philips. However, the 1994 version of the standard was eventually made available free by Philips.

CD-i discs conform to the '' Red Book'' specification of audio CDs (CD-DA). Tracks on a CD-i's program area can be CD-DA tracks or CD-i tracks, but the first track must always be a CD-i track, and all CD-i tracks must be grouped together at the beginning of the area. CD-i tracks are structured according to the CD-ROM XA specification (using either Mode 2 Form 1 or Mode 2 Form 2 modes), and have different classes depending on their contents ("data", "video", "audio", "empty" and "message"). "Message" sectors contain audio data to warn users of CD players that the track they are trying to listen to is a CD-i track and not a CD-DA track. The CD-i specification also specifies a file system similar to (but not compatible with) ISO 9660 to be used on CD-i tracks, as well as certain specific files that are required to be present in a CD-i compatible disc. Compared to the ''Yellow Book'' (specification for CD-ROM), the ''Green Book'' CD-i standard solves synchronisation problems by interleaving audio and video information on a single track.

The format quickly gained interest from large manufacturers, and received backing from many particularly Matsushita. Although a joint effort, Philips eventually took over the majority of CD-i development at the expense of Sony. Philips invested many millions in developing titles and players based on the CD-i specification. Initially branded "CD-I", the name was changed in 1991 to "CD-i" with a lowercase i.

The CD-i Ready format is a type of bridge format, also designed by Philips, that defines discs compatible with CD Digital audio players and CD-i players. This format puts CD-i software and data into the pregap of Track 1.

The CD-i Bridge format, defined in Philips' White Book, is a transitional format allowing bridge discs to be played both on CD-ROM drives and on CD-i players.

The CD-i Digital Video format was launched in 1993 containing movies that could be played on CD-i players with a Digital Video Cartridge add-on. The format was incompatible with Video CD (VCD), although a CD-i unit with the DVC could play both formats. Only about 20 movies were released on the format and it was stopped in 1994 in favor of VCD.

Commercial software

Applications were developed using authoring software produced by OptImage. This included OptImage's Balboa Runtime Libraries and MediaMogul. The second company that produced authoring software was Script Systems; they produced ABCD-I. Much of the CD-i software were promoted and/or published by American Interactive Media (AIM), a joint venture between Philips and its subsidiary PolyGram formed in Los Angeles in 1986, before its public debut, to publish CD-i based consumer software. Similarly in Europe, Philips Interactive Media was launched.

Philips at first marketed CD-i as a family entertainment product, and avoided mentioning video games to not compete against game consoles. Early software releases focused heavily on educational, music, and self-improvement titles, with only a few games, many of them adaptations of board games such as '' Connect Four''. However, the system was handily beaten in the market for multimedia devices by cheap low-end PCs, and the games were the best-selling software. By 1993 Philips encouraged MS-DOS and console developers to create games, introduced a $250 peripheral with more memory and support for full-motion video, and added to new consoles a second controller port for multiplayer games.

The attempts to develop a foothold in the games market were unsuccessful, as the system was designed strictly as a multimedia player and thus was under-powered compared to other gaming platforms on the market in most respects. Earlier CD-i games included entries in popular Nintendo franchises, although those games were not developed by Nintendo. Specifically, a '' Mario'' game (titled ''Hotel Mario''), and three '' Legend of Zelda'' games that are now infamous were released: '' Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon'', '' Link: The Faces of Evil'' and ''Zelda's Adventure''. Nintendo and Philips had established an agreement to co-develop a CD-ROM enhancement for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System due to licensing disagreements with Nintendo's previous partner Sony (an agreement that produced a prototype console called the SNES-CD). While Philips and Nintendo never released such a CD-ROM add-on, Philips was still contractually allowed to continue using Nintendo characters.

As announced at CES 1992, large number of full motion video titles such as '' Dragon's Lair'' and ''Mad Dog McCree'' appeared on the system. One of these, '' Burn:Cycle'', is considered one of the stronger CD-i titles and was later ported to PC. The February 1994 issue of '' Electronic Gaming Monthly'' remarked that the CD-i's full motion video capabilities were its strongest point, and that nearly all of its best software required the MPEG upgrade card.

Philips also released several versions of popular TV game shows for the CD-i, including versions of '' Jeopardy!'' (hosted by Alex Trebek), '' Name That Tune'' (hosted by Bob Goen), and two versions of ''The Joker's Wild'' (one for adults hosted by Wink Martindale and one for kids hosted by Marc Summers). All CD-i games in North America (with the exception of ''Name That Tune'') had Charlie O'Donnell as announcer. The Netherlands also released its version of ''Lingo'' on the CD-i in 1994.

In 1993, American musician Todd Rundgren created the first music-only fully interactive CD, ''No World Order'', for the CD-i. This application allows the user to completely arrange the whole album in their own personal way with over 15,000 points of customization. Dutch eurodance duo 2 Unlimited released a CD-i compilation album in 1994 called "Beyond Limits" which contains standard CD tracks as well as CD-i-exclusive media on the disc.

CD-i has a series of learning games (" edutainment") targeted at children from infancy to adolescence. Those intended for a younger audience included ''Busytown'', ''The Berenstain Bears'' and various others which usually had vivid cartoon-like settings accompanied by music and logic puzzles.

By mid-1996 the U.S. market for CD-i software had dried up and Philips had given up on releasing titles there, but continued to publish CD-i games in Europe, where the system still held some popularity from a video gaming perspective. With the home market exhausted, Philips tried with some success to position the technology as a solution for kiosk applications and industrial multimedia.

Some homebrew developers have released video games on the CD-i format in later years, such as ''Frog Feast'' (2005), ''Super Quartet'' (2018), and ''Nobelia'' (2022).

Player models

CD-i compatible models were released (as of April 1995) in the U.S., Canada, Benelux, France, Germany, the UK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and former Eastern Bloc. It was reported to be released further in Brazil, India and Australia in the "coming months", with plans to also introduce it in China, South Africa, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Philips models

In addition to consumer models, professional and development players were sold by Philips Interactive Media Systems and their VARs. The first CD-i system was produced by Philips in collaboration with Kyocera in 1988 – the Philips 180/181/182 modular system. Philips marketed several CD-i player models as shown below.

*The CD-i player 100 series, which consisted of the three-unit 180/181/182 professional system, first demonstrated at the CD-ROM Conference in March 1988.
*The CD-i player 200 series, which includes the 205, 210, and 220 models. Models in the 200 series were designed for general consumption, and were available at major home electronics outlets around the world. The Philips CDI 910 is the American version of the CDI 205, the most basic model in the series and the first Philips CD-i model, released in December 1991. Originally priced about , within a year's time the price dropped to .
*The CD-i player 300 series, which includes the 310, 350, 360, and 370 models. The 300 series consists of portable players designed for the professional market and not marketed to home consumers. A popular use was multimedia sales presentations such as those used by pharmaceutical companies to provide product information to physicians, as the devices could be easily transported by sales representatives.
*The CD-i player 400 series, which includes the 450, 470, 490 models. The 400 models are slimmed-down units aimed at console and educational markets. The CDI 450 player, for instance, is a budget model designed to compete with game consoles. In this version, an infrared remote controller is not standard but optional, as this model is more gaming-oriented. This series was introduced at CES Chicago in June 1994 and the 450 player retailed at in the Netherlands.
*The CD-i player 500 series, which includes the 550 model, which was essentially the same as the 450 with an installed digital video cartridge. It was introduced at CES Chicago in June 1994.
*The CD-i player 600 series, which includes the 601, 602, 604, 605, 615, 660, and 670 models. The 600 series is designed for professional applications and software development. Units in this line generally include support for floppy disk drives, keyboards and other computer peripherals. Some models can also be connected to an emulator and have software testing and debugging features.
*The CD-I player 700 series, which consists of the 740 model, the most advanced player and featuring an RS-232 port. It was only released in limited quantities.

There also exist a number of hard-to-categorize models, such as the FW380i, an integrated mini-stereo and CD-i player; the 21TCDi30, a television with a built-in CD-i device; the CD-i/PC 2.0, a CD-i module with an ISA interface for IBM-compatible 486 PCs.

Philips-CDi-220-wController-FL.jpg, The Philips CDI 220
Philips-CDi-400-Console-Set.jpg, Magnavox CDI 550 (NTSC) with its paddle controller. The CD-i's controllers were heavily criticized.
Philips-CDi-450-Flickr-Set.jpg, Philips CDI 450
CD-i-910-Console-Set.jpg, Philips CDI 910

Other manufacturers

In addition to Philips, several manufacturers produced CD-i players some of which were still on sale years after Philips itself abandoned the format. Manufacturers included:
* Magnavox (a Philips subsidiary) made rebranded players for the American market.
*GoldStar / LG Electronics, the LG GDI-700 (c. 1997) was a professional player with a Motorola 68341 processor, faster than the Philips model. GoldStar had a portable player, including another small one without an LCD screen.
*Digital Video Systems
* Memorex
* Grundig
* Kyocera made the portable Pro 1000S model
*Maspro Denkoh

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