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Support the Developers! Winter Steam Sale on CD-i Games

I love it when retro games are brought to current platforms. It makes life easier - for a couple bucks you can boot up these CD-i titles on PC (most likely all via DOS ports).

This time of year, Steam has deep sales - allowing you to snag some games for as little as $1!

And thus ends your handy guide.
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Info*Travel* to the Kiosk!

Following up the consumer distributed "Bell Atlantic Info-Active Electronic Directory", a kindly dev named Jefferson Ogata brought to light another rare gem(!) in the Interactive Dreams Facebook group - a Bell Atlantic-branded kiosk demo centered around the Washington DC area - titled "Bell Atlantic InfoTravel: Washington, D.C.".


Take a good look CD-i collectors! You'll never see this one again :)

Much like the Info-Active Electronic Directory, the kiosk disc is a thorough, well-laid-out-flow of information that's a breeze to navigate. InfoTravel's multimedia (videos and voice-over commercials with hip-bouncin' stock music) capture the point-in-time with all it's nostalgia... well see for yourself. Kicking things off with an intro from Bell spokesperson James Earl Jones:

A few neat things in the video:

At 15:05, I spy Kramer hanging up on the wall!




At 15:28, here a disinterested Euro who sounds high on heroin promo Bardo bar!



At 22:40, calling the White House, I got a complaint or two to make!



At 25:30, The Philips Collection art museum.


I lost track of time while browsing through this multimedia disc, in the process recording almost 40mins of video. I'd say that's a good sign of a well-put together product. You'll also see in the video an event-based calendar which is an interesting thought, and presumably would have resulted in regularly-updated discs being sent out.


A few interesting interactions... You may notice this disc has options to:

  • Make number based selections from a remote.
  • Initiate a phone call(!).
  • Print!
The later two functions are the first time I've seen these thoughts demo'd and were a neat addition.


Another shoutout to our hero Jefferson Ogata for making this disc come to light and sharing it with us. Developers are the make-or-break for these obscure items to either be preserved forever, or shut away forever.

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*Ring* *Ring* That's the future* of Multimedia calling!

Preparing for the almost-inevitable rise of society's multimedia console future, Bell Atlantic released one heck-of-a-good info-directory!

This image is an asshole and won't center for me.

The Charm: A thorough and well put together reference for the areas of Washington DC, Maryland, and some other state I've never been to. The highlights here for me is the "showcase" section - poke around seating sections at the ballpark and follow the multimedia-Metro lines! Searching for names and places - querying ain't half bad!

Watch below as I take a journey testing out the disc's ability to look up important information and services:


The Fail: Not a lot in the way of sound and no motion picture or cartoons to accompany.

Thanks to Blazers for this loan out!

Scans and rom available for download here.

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Bavaria Film

A neat interactive studio tour of Bavaria Film, a massive European film production studio.

In this program, you click around a map of the lot to find the different areas where films were made.


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Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

There is precious little time in this world, so I'd rather not have to do a blog post everytime a new video is uploaded to our channel.

To ensure you don't miss any fun playthroughs of multimedia etc. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Enjoy fresh videos served up surprisingly somewhat regularly.

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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.
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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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".
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"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:


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Dumping Method 1 (Easy Method): Dumping with IsoBuster

 Among the ways to dump CD-Roms - the easy way is IsoBuster. Multiple track discs will NOT dump as preservation grade with this method. But single track discs should dump perfectly.

Step 1: Download IsoBuster (free version) for Windows.

Step 2: Insert your disc into your disc drive, then after a moment launch IsoBuster.

Step 3: Dump with IsoBuster twice (if you have another disc drive use that one next time around) + check that both dumps have matching hashes:

Step 4: Want to see your dumps preserved properly in Redump.org database? Reach out to me! You will be credited for your work.

Step 5: To help track revisions, write down the little ring codes near the hole on the data side of the disc, or scan it.

~ BONUS! ~

Check the discs for metadata flags. You can do that by:

Step 7: Downloading this Windows app.

Step 8: Follow this video guide and record the MCN output (a metadata flag). Most common values will be "Not encoded on CD" or all 0's.

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Preservation Loan #001

A fantastic batch of CD-i discs has been properly dumped and preserved with Redump.org thanks to the fantastic Blazers who loaned them out.

Historia del Arte Español - now dumped completely - is a 10 disc set chronically art through the centuries for - you guessed it - the country of Spain. I've never been one for redundancy, so rather than uploading all these videos, I'll point you in their direction from a pre-existing YouTube upload.

Additionally, I received a handful of miscellaneous treasures and oddities:


 A few mentions: AIMS's ACT Prep study program, "Kilby Predicts" (the first disc of the two disc VCD set "CDi See It Hear It Feel It"), Breast Self-Examination (featuring animated breasts), Pyramid Adventures: Episode 1: Treasures of the Lost Pyramid - a kids edutainment title that's on the rarer side, and of course I do love to dump and verify "Demonstration Discs" to paint a clearer picture of their software builds - "Wings of the Gulf" being a rarer VCD produced by The Discovery Channel.

Kilby Predicts


Of the gems, Kilby Predicts is a fun / surrealistic video starring Udo Kier where we get a flavor of what "multimedia platform" is supposed to mean.

Thanks again to Blazers for putting up the goods to ensure this big slice of the CD-i library pie is forever preserved.
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USA Re-releases into Europe

 It's known the first handful of CDi titles were re-released into Europe (although it's unknown the exact count). These re-releases most often start with 600 or 699 - instead of the US releases which start with 310690 commonly. However there are more than a few 310690 releases for sale out of Europe in distinctly European-style cases, further clouding the issue.

Additionally I noticed another mention-worthy instance. Same re-release serial, however the case is different AND there's a space in the middle of the serial for the western-style case.




The extent of variants and re-releases for CDi's are not well documented, but perhaps the above clue can add to the pool of information regarding the subject.

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The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe

CD-i goes period High Art with the release of "The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe".

Robert was a New York photographer rubbing elbows with the likes of Grace Jones and Andy Warhol. He was well known for gay and BDSM style photography, which makes this CDi release a little less exciting than it could be - since the release limits itself to... flowers. Despite the blandness of the subject matter - the title is one of the more sought after from CD-i collectors due to it's rarity.

You can watch the entirety of beautiful low resolution art in it's entirety thanks to Retro Pals YouTube upload:


One thing the release has going for itself is a distinct aged art style for it's packaging that is as kitschy as the glorious CD-i console itself.

This Photo CD release has now been preserved and high resolution scans are available here.
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Compact Disc Interactive Title Library [STDDCDICAT BK02]

Known to many as being the booklet accompanying a lot of USA longbox releases, "Compact Disc Interactive Title Library" has some interesting unreleased releases mentioned here and there.


The cover of our beloved tome.


The familiar "Go" title listed here.

While "Flowers & Foliage" was released, the follow up "Fruits & Vegetables" didn't make it to the table.

"Folkways", was renamed to "Uptown Blues" based on the serial number.


"Batter Up!" was renamed to "Power Hitter".

 The catalog can be found scanned here on Archive.org.

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Andrew Lloyd Webber & Billy Ray Cyrus

 Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Premiere Collection Encore is a CD-i Digital Video release that can be a little tricky to track down if you're in the US, while the European version seems to be plentiful and cheap.


One interesting thing to do with your CDi discs (perhaps often more interesting than playing them), is to dig around in the booklet. You can often spot unreleased titles - be it unreleased regionally - or unreleased altogether.

An unreleased regional title is mentioned "Skiing: An Adventure in Apsen" (serial# 310690129-2).
Additionally on the list is "Billy Ray Cyrus: Live".



Presumably the same content as this Polydor VHS release:


It's a good thing you can always dust off your VHS player and snag a copy on tape to enjoy Billy Ray's glorious mullet in it's prime glory.

Scans for the USA release of Andrew Lloyd Webber are available here.

I'm selling my copy of the Andrew Lloyd Webber release on eBay here. Buy it so I can keep the cycle of preservation going. (SOLD THANKS!)


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List of CD-i Games still for Sale (PC)

Want an easy, cheap way to play CD-i classics without owning a console? Support the devs who are still selling their games on PC! This list is Steam-centric, but some of the titles are also available on Good Old Games (gog.com).

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A Tower of White Label Demonstration Discs

Yes, it's true. I'm far too lazy to arrange these into something easier on the eyes. So here you are - a tower of discs.

Some Demonstration Discs were released with serial number variations - Treasures of the Smithsonian for example - data matches. A Visit To Sesame Street Letters has a title & serial variation - data doesn't match. So far I have found that White Label Demonstration Discs largely match some iteration of retail release - more dumps are needed (both retail and Preproduction) to paint a clearer picture.























I'm collecting my Preproduction scans here on archive.org. I hope to add more as budget and lucky finds permit.

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