Specifications

CD-i FAQ 2000 Edition Revised February 21, 2001
Latest version and more CD-i info: http://www.icdia.org
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5.9.1 What Photo-CD variants are available? Do they all play on CD-i?
Kodak and Philips defined 5 different variants of Photo-CD aimed at various types of usage. All of
these types were based on the basic Photo-CD specification and are in accordance with the CD-i
Bridge specification. All can be played on all Photo-CD compliant playback devices like a CD-i
player.
• Photo-CD Master
The 'regular' consumer Photo-CD, as the ones made by photo-finishers. A Photo-CD master
contains pictures in up to 16Base resolution.
• Pro Photo-CD Master
Pro Photo-CD is aimed at professional photographers. It allows for the storage of larger film
formats than 35mm, for example 70mm. For this, an extra resolution is added to the Image Pack:
64Base which is 6144 x 4096. As a result, these images consist of 25.165.824 pixels, 32 times as
much as the photos of a regular digital camera. A Photo-CD player and a CD-i player can play
these discs in the regular way, however they make no use of this highest resolution.
• Photo-CD Portfolio
A Photo-CD Portfolio disc contains images in up to Base resolution, which is perfectly suitable for
display on a TV screen and still allow for zoom functionality. Photo-CD Portfolio is therefore used
as a prerecorded medium to distribute large amounts of pictures (up to about 800) in a suitable
way. A Photo-CD Portfolio may include sound in CD-Audio quality, pre-recorded playlists and
even selection items on a photo which refer to other photos or playlists. These interactive
features can be accessed on a Photo-CD player or a CD-i player when the appropriate CD-i
application is stored on the disc.
• Catalog Photo-CD
A Catalog Photo-CD only stores images up to Base resolution. This allows for the storage of
several thousands of images in TV resolution. Catalog Photo-CD is rarely used.
• Medical Photo-CD
Another professional Photo-CD variant, aimed at medical use. A Medical Photo-CD can be used
for doctors to store CT or MRI scans for later reference.
5.9.2 What are the differences between the various Photo-CD applications for CD-i?
As a result of the CD-i Bridge specification on which Photo-CD was based, every Photo-CD must
include a CD-i application to allow for the playback of the disc on a CD-i player. So far, Philips is
the only company that produced such a CD-i application. A version of it is included with most
Photo-CD authoring tools, and it is included on the Kodak PIW Workstation that is used by photo-
finishers to make Photo-CDs.
Naturally, Philips continued to improve the performance and features of this application, that's
why various versions of it excist. The version that is used on a particular disc is shown when the
Exit-function is selected from the main menu. Although many interim versions excisted that were
used internally within Philips, only a few of them were actually released to developers and Kodak.
The most important of them were:
• Version 1.x
The first version of the CD-i application for Photo-CD had a somewhat clumsy layout, and used
rather small buttons that were placed on screen all at once when the menu was recalled. It
allowed for the programming of photos in any other, for the rotation of pictures, and for zooming
at a fixed zoom factor. Furthermore, it could show an overview of pictures on the disc on a
thumbnail screen.
• Version 2.3
As from version 2 onwards, the style of the on screen displays and the over-all look of the
application was drastically changed. The menu that is shown on screen when a photo is
displayed now only displays the main functions, an extra menu can be recalled to access the
zoom function and the high/low resolution switch. This switch was added to speed up the loading