#Photo CD, CDI, Tandy
12 messages in this thread
Is there now — or do we expect sometime soon — a drive that is photo CD
compatible (XA?), CD-I, and Tandy — the new thing that Tandy is coming out
with that connects with a TV.
Specifically, I would like to get a drive that could read the cd's that go
into the CD-I and Tandy into my PC and have them work there also. Is this
likely to be possible?
– Dan
Everyone gets hung up on the data format issue (like CD-I vs XA, etc)
without considering that these systems are entirely different, everything
outside the disc format itself, that is. Since CD-I is a closed
environment with its own OS, Tandy is a flavor of DOS/Windows, and Photo-CD
is both a use of a particular data format (useable on many systems) and a
hardware system, it is unlikely you will find the "dream" product you seek
any time soon. Esp. Philips and Tandy have too much at stake in making
their products the "winner" in a fundamental competition for market
awareness and share.
I understand.
To the extent that the issue is software, not actual physical format
differences then eventually some creative person will develop software to
read it.
To the extent that the difference is physical differences in the CD format
then it would require a clever drive — like the Maxoptix optical drive
that can read and write MO (magneto optical) and WORM drives.
My assumption is that each of these formats will have specific titles that
the others won't — perhaps an incorrect assumption — and my goal is to
eventually tie my PC, TV, stereo, … together and be able to play all of
them on all of them.
The fact that the marketplace won't cooperate is no reason to keep asking.
– Dan
It seems there is emerging a pretty good mix of titles – some are developed
cross-platform, and others are unique to specific systems. There are fewer
CD-I titles to be found in other-platform versions, probably because of the
specific nature of the development process. But there seem to be
increasing numbers of titles available for both Mac and MPC, for example.
And I certainly would encourage you to keep asking the question. It may be
like water wearing down stone, but eventually there must be some
accommodation for people with your concerns!
Rich
Someday perhaps.
Now if I can get my poor long suffering spouse to let me wire the PC to the
stereo and TV and attach the cable connection to all of them …
– Dan
>and Photo-CD is both a use of a particular data format (useable on many
systems) and a hardware system…
Essentially correct. But – Photo CD discs are ISO 9660 (industry standard)
compatible. This means that they will play on any platform, as long as you
have compatible application software.
Paul
CD-I discs are also ISO 9660, aren't they? They're mastered on Sun
workstations. I don't think there's any technical reason Philips can't
write software to play CD-I discs on PCs or Macs, they just haven't chosen
to do so.
> I don't think there's any technical reason Philips can't write software
to play CD-I discs on PCs or Macs, they just haven't chosen to do so.
Good point. I think you are right. Neat idea.
Paul
1) PhotoCD are Bridge format, not ISO 9660. Bridge format is close to ISO
9660, but has extensions to handle appendable CD. An ISO 9660 driver can
only read the data that was written in the first recording session. You
need a Bridge Disc format driver to read data that has been written in any
following sessions.
2) CD-I is CD-I format, not ISO 9660. CD-I uses a mutant form of ISO 9660
that is real close to ISO, but different enough that many ISO 9660 drivers
probably couldn't read it.
A bigger problem with reading CD-I discs on some CD-ROM drives is that th
data tracks on a CD-I disc are not included in the discs Table of Contents.
The Table of Contents is a list at the beginning of every CD that lists
what tracks are on the disc and what format they are. That's how your
audio CD players can tell you how many songs are on your CD: it reads the
Table of Contents. On a CD-I disc, the data tracks are left off of the
TOC.
Another big problem is that CD-I discs use a different sector format than
ordinary CD-ROMs. Last and not least, CD-I discs have special Audio
sectors that are designed to be played by dedicated sound hardware in the
CD-I player. That could be overcome, but combined with the other problems I
mentioned, it's unlikely that anyone will go through the effort of writing
a driver soon.
Matt,
Thank you for the education.
Paul
Dan,
The answer is no. For now anyway.
As Rich said, the fact that so many formats *physically* use Compact Discs
as storage media (because they're cheap and large), doesn't necessarily
mean they're meant to be compatible. Floppy disks are a smaller example of
this: it's like asking for a floppy drive which allowed use of all computer
disks. To do that, you'd also need each one of the different target
computers 🙂
That said, I think that it's possible that eventually CD-I playback
capability will be built into CD-ROM drives much as external audio playback
capability was later added. It's just a matter of consumer desire and
retail cost… and the hardware cost will drop as Motorola continues
towards their goal of putting the core CD-I functions onto one chip
(predicted for 1994 or so). Which still leaves an external 1-meg of RAM and
probably an MPEG decoder.
best – kevin
Using the floppy disk as an example, it is possible to read and write
multiple machine formats — at least popular ones — on different machines
(MAC and PC — I think) so there is hope yet.
Thanks for the info.
– Dan