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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7.12 How can I make a Photo-CD?
The Photo-CD specification is closely guarded by Kodak. The system was set up to provide extra
sales opportinuties for Kodak photo finishers, and not as a home-made system. Partly because of
contractual difficulties in obtaining a license for Photo-CD, most CD-Recording tools do not let
you create a true Photo-CD that can be played on Photo-CD players and CD-i players among
others. Especially the disc's layout format is a heavily patented standard. This is why some tools
let you place images in Photo-CD's picture format (Photo-YCC) on a CD-R, but they do not make
these discs compatible with the Photo-CD standard (see Will CD-i play Picture-CD? in section 5
of this FAQ).
Kodak sold a CD-Recording application to create Photo-CDs once, called Kodak Arange-it!, but
this software is no longer available. It seems like Kodak is rapidly replacing Photo-CD with their
new Picture-CD format which is not compatible with Photo-CD players nor CD-i players.
7.13 How can I play my pictures on my CD-i player?
As you can read in question 7.12, it is nearly impossible for the home user to make Photo-CDs.
Fortunately, there is good alternative alowing you to place your pictures on CD and view them on
a CD-i player. Using Nero Burning Rom version 5.0 and up (available from Ahead Software), you
can include still images in a Video-CD compilation. Such a disc with your photos can then be
played on CD-i players (it includes the Philips Video-CD on CD-i 4.1.1 application), but also on
PCs, on Video-CD 2.0 players and on most (Video-CD 2.0 compatible) DVD-Video players. This
makes your investment in time even more worthfull than making Photo-CDs (which cannot be
played on your current or future DVD player and most other equipment).
Just drag your JPG-files to the Video-CD section on the disc and they will be converted to MPEG
stills. From version 5.5 onwards, Nero will include an index screen with thumbnails of all pictures
that can be selected on the disc!
The MPEG still pictures are encoded in high TV resolution (as long as the source pictures are in a
high resolution), but they will be showed in a lower resolution when viewing the disc on a CD-i
player. The pictures can then still be viewed in a higher resolution on for example DVD players.
Note that the CD-i player needs to be equiped with a Digital Video cartridge to view the MPEG
stills, even though the disc might not contain moving video.
CeQuadrat/Roxio WinOnCD 3.7 and up offers similar functionality called the 'Photobook' feature,
but although the program claims to make a Video-CD compliant disc, it does not include a CD-i
application capable of showing these Video-CD 2.0 enhanced pictures. Future version will allow
you to replace the CD-i application by the Philips application that can be downloaded from
www.icdia.org.
Remember that in contrast to making a Photo-CD, placing pictures on a Video-CD is not a good
solution for storing your archives of pictures. A Photo-CD contains pictures in a very high
resolution (over 3000 x 2000 pixels) alowing you to make pefect prints of them, a Video-CD only
stores the pictures in TV resolution. Always preserve the original files!
7.14 How can I make a CD+Graphics?
Using CD+G Creator (which can be downloaded from the Other CD-i tools page in the
PC/Windows download section at www.icdia.org), you can create a CD-Audio disc with a
background picture for each audio track according to the CD+G specification. The tool does not
allow you to create moving graphics or colour loops, these features may possibly be included in a
future version. Please note that you need a CD-Recorder capable of writing subcode to record
CD+G data. Most Plextor models can do this.