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By LEO SIMPSON The Philips CDI 210 interactive CD player At long last, after a wait of several years, Philips are releasing their interactive CD player onto the Australian market. Billed as the new wave in home entertainment machines, the Phil­ips CDI 210 will play audio and video CDs, CDI discs, and photo-CDs. CD interactive (CDI) players have been available overseas for about two years but it is only now that Philips are releasing a machine onto the Australian consumer market. In the intervening period, a lot of games and other interactive discs (eg, education4  Silicon Chip al) have become available and shortly, many movie titles are also expected to become available. What’s an interactive CD? Essentially, it’s like a CD-ROM. It can take the form of a video game or it might have a more serious purpose; it could be a video book on almost any subject, for example. You place the disc in the machine and you are free to browse through any section of the disc which you can select off the screen, using a remote control. These discs produce full screen, full-motion video as well CD-quality stereo sound. The CDI-210 will play standard audio CDs through your TV set’s stereo speakers, or if connected to your hifi system, through your stereo speakers. CD playing functions can be con­ trolled directly via the remote control and if linked to a TV set, you can also control the functions by pointing the cursor to the on-screen display and This is the opening menu screen. The machine will play audio & video CDs, CDI discs & photo-CDs. “clicking” on the desired function. Viewed from the front, the Philips CDI-210 has very simple styling and even simpler controls on the front panel. These are: On/Off, Open/Close, Play and Stop. All the other functions such as track selection, skip forward and reverse, pause and volume can be accessed only via the remote control. More comprehensive func­tions such as programming, shuffle, repeat and FTS (favourite track selection) are available via the on-screen display. The machine is relatively large, measuring 420mm wide and 95mm high, although at 290mm, it is not as deep as a typical VCR. The supplied remote control doubles as a game control and features a small joystick and four action buttons. This can be used with most games although there are optional wired re- This is an information screen. It can be displayed in one of several different languages. mote controls which are purely games oriented. Connection to a TV set is via a multi-way Euroconnector (SCART plug and socket) and if your set is not so equipped, you will need to feed the CDI machine’s video and stereo outputs into your VCR, via cables fitted with RCA plugs. One feature that is lacking on the CDI-210 is a headphone socket. This is a disadvantage, particularly if your TV set does not have one either, as then you can not enjoy the system without possibly disturbing other members of the household. CD player performance As part of our assessment of the Philips CDI 210, we put it through a full range of performance tests using Technics and Philips test discs and measuring its output with our Audio Preci­sion test set. The accompanying graphs show the frequency re­sponse and total harmonic distortion plots. As can be seen, the frequency response is flat from 20Hz to 20kHz within ±0.1dB while the total harmonic distortion is typically below .02% across the range, at maximum output. The remainder of the perfor­ mance measurements are summarised in the accompanying panel and they too are very respectable. We also found the machine to be an excellent tracker as far as disc defects were concerned and it appears to be more than usually proof against bumps and shocks to the outside of the case. On the other hand, we did feel that the audible noise of the tracking mechanism, a low level but annoying high-pitched squeak, was just a little The rear of the CDI-210 has a Euroconnector for connec­tion to a TV set & RCA sockets for video & stereo outputs. Facing page: the Philips CDI-210 with a small selec­tion of interactive CDs. There is a conventional infrared remote control which has a small joystick & four games buttons & a wired remote games control. July 1995  5 Measured Performance Fig.1: the frequency response of the CDI-210 is very flat. Fig.2: total harmonic distortion versus frequency at maximum output level. too obtrusive, particularly when play­ ing CDs. Video player performance For this review we were supplied with a selection of inter­ active CDs which were either educational or games. All featured full screen, full motion video, as opposed to CD-ROMs which have full motion video but displayed on a small portion of the 6  Silicon Chip comput­ er screen. The video standard used is MPEG-1 which involves considerable compression to restrict the video data. This allows a 1-hour movie to fit onto a standard size CD, an incredible accomplishment when you think about it. Actually, this product is a measure of how blase we have become about technological progress. A few years ago, the concept of a one-hour movie, Channel Separation Signal L to R 100Hz -87dB 1kHz -87.5dB 10kHz -87.5dB 20kHz -84dB Unweighted Signal-To-Noise Ratio (20Hz-20kHz bandwidth) Signal Left With emphasis -89dB Without emphasis -89.5dB Amplitude Linearity 0dB 0dB -1dB -1dB -3db -3db -10dB -10dB -20dB -20dB -30dB -30dB -40dB -40dB -50dB -50dB -60dB -60dB -70dB -70dB -80dB -80dB -90dB -90dB Frequency Accuracy Signal Left 20kHz ±2Hz 20.0008kHz R to L -87.5dB -87.5dB -83.5dB Right -89.5dB -90dB 0dB -1dB -3db -10dB -20dB -30dB -40dB -50dB -60dB -70dB -80dB -90dB Right 20.0008kHz digitally recorded, fitting onto a single-sided 12cm disc was just dream territory. Now it’s here, it works and that’s that. But to us, it’s still amazing stuff. To the eye, the video quality is on a par with that from a standard VHS VCR – certainly better than that from an average rental movie tape but not as good as can be obtained from a really good VHS HQ machine or from an S-VHS recorder. To explain further, the picture quality is essentially noisefree (ie, no snow) but the bandwidth is obviously restricted and the finer details are lost in the fairly coarse quantising process. Lest this assessment seem a little blunt, remember that the comparison with VHS tapes must be put into perspective. While a carefully recorded VHS tape may initially look pretty good, the quality soon begins to suffer with repeated playings and even if it’s just left in the box and not played, it will deteriorate. Video CDs on the other hand, should be very long-lived (no one yet knows how long) provided their playing surfaces or the pro­tective label are not physically damaged. Photo CD Where the CDI 210 really does excel is when it is display­ing still pictures from photo CDs. This medium has yet to really catch on in the consumer market place but as time goes on it is This screen is displayed when playing audio CDs. You can control the playing functions by positioing the cursor & then pressing one of the games buttons. sure to become very popular. Photo CDs have the advantage over ordinary slides and photo prints in that they don’t deteriorate over time and they have the advantage of large screen presenta­tion (via your TV set) without having to set up a slide projector or having to darken the room. The CDI 210 can preview all the pictures stored on a photo CD (something you can’t do easily with slides) and then you can program a slide show. You can determine the order in which the slides are shown, leaving some out if you wish, and you can also rotate them by 90°, to give portrait presentation, if that’s how the photo was taken originally. You can even magnify the central portion of the photo by a factor of two, and because of the very high resolution of the images stored on a photo CD, This is the opening menu screen when a photo CD is fed into the machine. You can preview all slides on a CD (see below) and program a slide show. there is no apparent loss of picture quality. That is something else that cannot be done with a normal slide projector. Truly, until you have seen your photos presented on your TV screen via this medium, you cannot appreciate how good it is. Games/educational software For the brief period for which we had this CDI machine, we were also provided with a small selection of games and education­al software. But while the potential of this medium is apparent, I was not really impressed with any of the games or the software, and nor were my children, who are usually keen to play with any product of this sort. However, it would be unfair to judge the CDI format on this brief encounter. After all, you would This is the slide preview screen, whereby all the images on the photo CD can be paged through. not judge an audio CD player on the basis of just a few discs, par­ticularly as none of the recordings might be the ones you would buy, given a wide choice. When movie titles become plentiful, the attraction of the machine is sure to increase considerably. To sum up, the Philips CDI-210 is another benchmark home entertainment product, in the same way as the CD player was when it was released back in 1982. It represents an enormous step forward in video recording technology but it is likely to be quickly accepted in the Australian marketplace, as it apparently has been overseas. It will be released in Australia in August this year. The price of the CDI 210 interactive CD player had not been set at the time of writing but it was SC expected to be under $1500. An image display from a photo-CD is bright, steady & more convenient to view than via a slide projector. July 1995  7