CD-I means Compact Disc Interactive. It is meant to provide a standard platform for mass consumer interactive multimedia applications. So it is more akin to CD-DA, in that it is a full specification for both the data/code and standalone playback hardware: a CD-I player has a CPU, RAM, ROM, OS, and audio/video/(MPEG) decoders built into it. Portable players add an LCD screen and speakers/phone jacks. It has limited motion video and still image compression capabilities. It was announced in 1986, and was in beta test by spring 1989. This is a consumer electronics format that uses the optical disc in combination with a computer to provide a home entertainment system that delivers music, graphics, text, animation, and video in the living room. Unlike a CD-ROM drive, a CD-I player is a standalone system that requires no external computer.

It plugs directly into a TV and stereo system and comes with a remote control to allow the user to interact with software programmes sold on discs. It looks and feels much like a CD player except that you get images as well as music out of it and you can actively control what happens. In fact, it is a CD-DA player and all of your standard music CDs will play on a CD-I player; there is just no video in that case. For a CD-I disk, there may be as few as 1 or as many as 99 data tracks. The sector size in the data tracks of a CD-I disc is approximately 2 kbytes. Sectors are randomly accessible, and, in the case of CD-I, sectors can be multiplexed in up to 16 channels for audio and 32 channels for all other data types. For audio, these channels are equivalent to having 16 parallel audio data channels instantly accessible during the playing of a disk. Some useful references about CD-I are: “Discovering CD-I” available for $45 from Microware Systems Corp.; “Introducing CD-I” ISBN 0-201-62748-5; “The CD-I Production Handbook” ISBN 0-201-62750-7; “The CD-I Design Handbook” ISBN 0-201-62749-3.