Demonstration Discs: Spotting the Real and the Fakes

Interactive Dreams took a pretty good stab at how to identify fake "Demonstration Disc"s, but I've had a hankering to do a guide with more pictures.

Behold, a real / official Philips CD-i Demonstration Disc.

White Label "Demonstration Disc"s are particularly vulnerable to faking, because A) There are known to be real / official Zelda ones and B) Blank, White Label CD-Rs are available to buy readily.

Print your own Zeldas and you too can become rich!

So how do we know what is real and what is fake?

Here's a look a a couple tell tale aspects of a real, official White Label Demonstration Disc.

Above: Unlike white label CD-Rs, Demonstration Disc labels don't extend all the way to the edges, leaving a silver ring at the center and the outside. Sometimes the center ring is slightly off-center even, which is fine.

Above: Near the ring codes, you'll find a very distinctive USA CD-i way-of-doing things. One long bar with two little square dots. I've seen many ring codes in my life, but none I remember with this pattern other than CD-i. Sometimes there will be additional text such as "MADE IN USA" and/or a random letter stamped as a ring code in addition to the main mastering code style you see above.

Additionally, you'll notice that the above color of the data side is a clean silvery color, whereas CD-Rs usually have an aqua or rainbow color:

Distinctive CD-R data side color.

------------------------------QUIZ------------------------------

Here's a question you won't find in 3rd Degree, which of the following sets of discs off eBay are real and fake?

Set A

Set B

------------------------------ANSWERS------------------------------

Set A is fake.

Set B is real.

The giveaway, is the distinctive silver rings in the center and outside of the disc label.

------------------------------Scammed? Fight back!------------------------------

Have you been scammed on ebay? Report the seller and start a refund. You will get your money back. If you do not, you're just setting up another person to be scammed and are as bad as the scammer yourself. Sending pictures of the CD-R side to ebay support and sharing this article with the ebay support should be a reasonable enough evidence.

Antonio Vega: Oceano De Sol

Would you invite Antonio into your hole sol after a drink of scotch?

Antonio Vega is a Spanish musician. I haven't heard of him before but he's got a Wikipedia page translated in 8 different languages going for him, so there's that.

So what is there to say about this neat little obscure gem? The Scotch commercial has a hell of a catchy jingle with a lovely lady that likes to do hair whips. See it for yourself:

Track 2 contains a truncated, audio-only version of the Track 1 promo video / interview.

Another one from the Blazers collection. Scans available on archive.org.

The Memory Works For Names And Faces

"The Memory Works For Names And Faces" has a pretty self-explanatory title. It's a memory specifically geared towards remembering peoples' names and matching them to faces and vice-versa.

It serves its purpose well. If I needed to remember names and/or faces, well I'd certainly use it.

The Charm: What makes the release neat other than it's intended purpose is the fun animations in the CDi-signature style - you know - Zelda - squadallah! Granted, the game isn't loaded with them, and you'll only find them in one of the sections ("Name & Face Mnemonics") - but they're in there! And heck that's pretty rad in its own right. Now mnemonics are devices where we come up with silly visual images - and it delivers:

This lady does not fuck around.

What happens if you mess around with the lady above her.

Oy vey, look at that schnoz!

Hey stop picking on people with big noses!

Take acid, become the may queen.

The Fail: I wish there were more interactivity in the quiz-your-knowledge scenarios. We're supposed to "grab a pen and paper" instead of some in-game quiz functionality. A real lost opportunity for the devs. But all things considered, of the two I'd rather have the neat-o animations!

Watch the playthrough below, the animations start at 10:43.

Worth a note: The packaging is interesting and well put together. Not only do you get a pamphlet style-book with it, but the in-case booklet has color and is nicely put together for it's own purpose. Between the pamphlet and the jewelcase, I'm not seeing a barcode - we have it on authority that a big box exists for the release as well.

Scans are available on Archive.org. Rom preserved with Redump.org. Another fine gem from the Blazers collection.

Power Match

It's always neat to discover an unknown (or at least very obscure) game, and Power Match fits that bill. However, obscure games are often obscure for a reason - and can be boring / broken. At first glance, I assumed Power Match was some boring flip-the-top-half-and-the-bottom-half-until-they-match game - but it's not.

In the top half and the bottom half are individual interactive clues that lead you to match themes to the other half - until a match lands. Then you'll unlock interactive media for that theme. It's a neat little title that capitalizes on the multimedia angle - rewarding you for successful matches. Another gem from the Blazers collection.

Dumped with Redump.org. Scans are available on archive.org.

Weather Kitchen

 Among the gems Blazers sent over for preservation is the CD-i Ready edutainment release "Weather Kitchen" (Notated on the spine as "The Weather Kitchen"). The play tells us what types of "ingredients" go into different types of extreme weather - such as a blizzard or a tornado. It's a short playthrough with jammin' music to go along with it.

Scans at archive.org. Thanks to Blazers for the loan!

Preservation Loan #002

Another treat filled box of rarities has arrived from Blazers for preservation!

One of my favorite aspects of the CD-i platform is the grab-bag multimedia variety of releases, and we sure see them here!

A mix of edutainment and multimedia oddities:

The Demonstration Discs will often match retail, but it's important to verify them to help identify possible revisions.

This batch now preserves the US version of The Food of France, along with the business-minded Photo CD series "Getting Ahead", and the remote tourist viewing experience of Great Britain.

 

Thanks again to Blazers for this loan out #002.

Paint School I

Bust out those trackball controllers, it's time to to make beautiful artwork!

Paint School I contains several bordered backgrounds to choose from to make your masterpiece on.

Once you've got one selected, choose fill, or three paint brush widths for broad strokes or fine detail.

I found a surprising amount of colors and patterns to choose from - some of which were used in the artworks displayed below.

Fine Art.

Abstract Art.

Watch this masterpiece being made on Twitch!

 Bonus: I recently preserved a Swedish copy of the game at redump.org - scans are now available on archive.org here.

Arf! arf! woof woof arf! arf arf arf woof! (Hondenliefde)

Aaarf woof woof The World of CD-i.

Aarf aaf woof aaarf arf woof woof arf. Aaarf woof arf woof woof woof arf. Woof woof arf wof aaaarf woof woof arf. Aarf aaf woof aaarf arf woof woof arf. Aaarf woof arf woof woof woof arf. Aaarf woof woof arf wof aaaarf woof woof arf. Aarf aaf woof aaarf arf woof woof arf. Woof arf woof woof woof arf. Aaarf woof woof arf wof aaaarf woof woof arf. Aarf aaf woof aaarf arf woof woof arf. Aaarf woof arf woof woof woof arf. Aaarf woof woof arf wof aaaarf woof woof arf.

Woof aarf aaf woof aaarf arf woof woof arf. Aaarf woof arf woof woof woof arf. Aaarf woof woof arf wof aaaarf woof woof arf.

Extracting Video from CD-i Digital Video (CD-i DV) and Video CD (VCD)

 This is a pretty quick and easy guide.

First you'll want to download IsoBuster (free version) which is capable of reading the Philips CD-i filesystem (required for CD-i DV, but not for VCD).

 CD-i Digital Video

Here is the "RTF" folder on the disc.rtf is an extension commonly used for "rich text file", however for CD-i sometimes it is used to store video files (sometimes .rtf files on a CD-i are NOT video files). You can rename the .rtf files to .mpg and whichever ones are movie files should play in VLC (or other video apps). Note the "CDi" icon underneath "Track 01" - this identifies the disc as CDi format and not VCD.

Additionally, you can find a table of contents plain "films.txt" text file here.

Video CD (VCD)

Video CD has a Windows-compatible filesystem, so using IsoBuster isn't necessary (you can just copy the files over with File Explorer). However, here's a look of the location from IsoBuster if you prefer to extract with it.

Copy over those .dat files to your computer drive and rename them to .mpg. They should now play fine for you in VLC. Additionally VLC has an option to play VCD discs in your drive:

1. Open VLC
2. Media -> Open Disc
3. Select "SVCD/VCD" bubble.
4. Choose the proper "Disc device".
5. Hit "Play".

"Philips" - a CD-i Digital Video disc

 

Ambiguously "Philips", with a title so generic this one could be a mean one for collectors to track down - thankfully it's preserved via Preserve CD-i's better half Blazers.

Contents

The disc contains 9 CD-i DV videos - a few of the uploads were immediately flagged for copyright violation, so here's what's left on YouTube:

Scans are on archive.org.