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CD-Interactive (CD-I)

In 1986, Philips and Sony again joined forces to create the CD-Interactive or CD-I format. This concept was quite ambitious, with the goal to develop both a format and a special new type of hardware to use it. In some ways this was the first serious attempt at what we now call "multimedia", with authors creating disks including text, graphics, audio, video, and computer programs, and hardware sold to handle all of these and connect to a television screen for output.

CD-I is derived from the original standard CD-ROM "yellow book" format, ISO 9660, much the way that CD-ROM Extended Architecture (CD-ROM XA) is. However, the format used by CD-I is somewhat different. A new class of disks called "bridge disks" has been created that will work in drives subscribing to either format.

CD-I never really took off, for one reason or another. It is still around, but isn't really very popular. CD-I compatibility is found in many PC CD-ROM drives, although many older drives won't support it.

Next: Video CD (VCD)

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