The multimedia retrospective continuesLooking at the unsupported CDi disks in my portfolio, I decided to search eBay for a Philips CDi Player, so that I could play the Raleigh Interactive Point-of-Sale applications that I worked on in the mid-1990's. The project was very much cutting edge at the time and was until quite recently presented as a case study on Philips website.
CDi or CD interactive was developed by Philips in the late 1980's and was basically an interactive TV format on a Compact Disc. The system was very much a precursor to today's DVD format, though it offered less than half the resolution and didn't really have sufficient capacity for full-length movies.
Although I had worked with CD-ROM at the time, the overhead in terms of hardware and maintenance cost was too high for many clients. At £300 per player, CDi offered a low-cost solution which could be rolled-out to about 150 Raleigh dealerships across the UK. The Raleigh CDi disc launched in January 1995 contained TV advertisements and provided access to the full range of products via an on-screen menu.
Because the system was designed for use on TV, the user interface had a 'chunky' feel, that worked well in a retail environment. Furthermore, I was able to push the boundaries of the CDi format so that product screens were actually displayed at full PAL resolution.
Raleigh updated this stand-alone interactive catalogue every 6 months which involved a great deal of graphic design work and subsequent encoding by Philips Multimedia.
CDi graphic screens were later modified for use on Raleigh's pioneering website which was launched a year later.
Raleighbikes.com and Raleigh Interactive (CDi) co-existed for a couple of years, but eventually the disk-based system was eclipsed as internet connections improved and the world wide web began to increase in popularity.
Even though the writing was on the wall, Philips Multimedia continued to evangelise about the CDi for some time. One interesting initiative was a CDi application branded as 'The Net on Your Set'. This was essentially a web and email browser which operated on an enhanced CDi player and incorporated CD-quality music and video clips to enhance the browsing experience. Combining TV values with (then, largely text based) internet content was an exciting concept, but it failed to take hold.
On Thursday I managed to buy a CDi player, so I look forward to visiting 'The Net on Your Set' and other multimedia gems from my collection.
posted by Paul Fillingham at 12:43 PM
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