CD-i or Compact disc Interactive is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player and format developed jointly by N.V. Philips in the Netherlands and Sony Corporation in Japan and released in 1991. The first Philips CD-i player, initially priced around US dollar $400, was capable of playing interactive CD-i discs (its native format, also known as Green Book (CD-i standard)), Audio CDs, CD plus G (CD+Graphics), Karaoke CDs, and Video CDs (VCDs), though the last required an optional Digital Video Card to provide MPEG-1 decoding.

=CD-i software=

Early software releases in the CD-i format focused heavily on educational and self-improvement titles, with only a handful of .

Although extensively marketed by Philips, consumer interest in CD-i titles remained low. By 1994, sales of CD-i systems had begun to slow, and in 1998 the product line was dropped. With the home market exhausted, Philips tried with little success to position the technology as a tool for kiosks and industrial multimedia.

=CD-i players=

In addition to consumer models, professional and development players were sold by Philips Interactive Media Systems and their Value-added resellers. Philips marketed several CD-i player models.

The CD-i 220 player, designed for consumers, was available at major home electronics outlets around the world.

The CD-i 605 player, designed for professional applications and software development, contains a floppy disk drive and connects to a computer keyboard and other computer peripherals. It can also be connected to an emulator and has software testing and debugging features.

The CD-i 360 player, a portable player designed for the professional market was not available 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 device could be easily transported by sales representatives.

Besides Philips, several other manufacturers produced CD-i players, including GoldStar / LG Electronics, Digital Video Systems, Memorex, Grundig, Kyocera, NBS, Highscreen, and Bang-Olufsen, who produced a television with a built-in CD-i device.

=Technical Specifications=

CPU *16-bit 68070 CISC Chip (68000 core) *Clock Speed of 15.5 MHz

Display *Resolution: 384x280 to 768x560 *Colors: 16.7 million w/ 32,768 on screen *MPEG 1 Cartridge Plug-In for VideoCD and Digital Video

Operating System *CD-RTOS (based on Microware s OS-9)

Other *1.5 MB of Main RAM *Single Speed CD-Rom Drive *Weight With DV Cart 1,460 Kg, Without DV 1,210 Kg *ADCPM Eight Channel Sound

Playable Discs

CD-i Accessories

=References=

*[http://www.consoledatabase.com/faq/philipscd-i/phillipscdifaq.txt Official Philips CD-I FAQ] *[http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/history/snescdrom.html SNES CD-ROM at Gamers Graveyard]

=External links=