News – Page 5 – The World of CD-i

Thank you Topxicemu and good luck!

Our Open-Source responsible Topxicemu, is leaving The World of CD-i team.
Belgian but living in Canada, this CD-i addicted have to say good bye to us.
His job and new projects don’t let him focus into the CD-i scene as much as he would like to.
He was always working on the shadow but did some great work along the years since I meet him 15 years ago.
He is the responsible of the still not concluded “CD-i Repair Guide” in French. We worked together to increase the information on the guide. Some websites and forums share the pictures of the guide, with the original file we will add it on The World of CD-i translated to English.
During the year 2019 he was mostly giving support to our user’s hardware problems.

At The World of CD-i, we are now 6 in the team, I will share with CD-i Fan the Open-Source section.

We wish you the best for your new career!
Thank you Brother!
Stay safe!

The 7th Guest – Remastered

Well, as we are in the middle of Halloween festivities, here is some creepy news!
The Israeli game developer company MojoTouch released the 20th Anniversary of The 7th Guest in a remastered edition!
The game has been released in 2015 for Android, available at Google Play for 4,59€, and game received its latest update on 29th February 2016 for version 1.0.0.8-11.

Number 2 in the USA and Top 10 in more than 84 countries, the success made MojoTouch decide to export it for Windows and made the 25th Anniversary remastered version in 2019 for 8,19€ (this year)!

Released on 14th April 2015 for AndroidReleased on 2nd April of 2019 for Windows

Watch the official android Trailer:

But how did they manage to make it?
They just found the right guy to make this job… Luc Rooijakkers, ex CD-i programmer from SPC Vision company.
The World of CD-i talked to him in exclusivity about his work for The 7th Guest – 20th Anniversary Remastered.

Luc Rooijakkers:

In July 2014 I got contacted by someone from MojoTouch, an Israeli game company.
They were developing the 20th Anniversary Edition with the IP licensed from Trilobyte and he was looking for someone to extract good quality voice tracks, and also German and French versions.
They were basing the Android version on the PC version, using the existing open-source ScummVM game engine.
Unfortunately quality of the PC audio files left something to be desired and it was only available in English.

He had already gotten out most of the videos using online tools but wanted more.
We did some back and forth on it and agreed on a price after I did some analysis of the game.
It turned out that many audio and video assets where in “processed” CD-i formats and thus not readily extractable using standard tools. After a considerable amount of reverse engineering I was able to extract almost anything that he wanted, except for some games that simple weren’t on the CD-i disc for space reasons.

This included all audio in three languages as well as a number of text screens in those same languages.
At the end of August, after I received payment, I delivered all the extracted assets (many hundreds of megabytes).
We had some general correspondence after that but my work was basically done.

I also provided him with all the game videos in CD-i MPEG format, but they ended up not using them.
The PC video files were a bit better resolution, looked somewhat less “blurred” and with less muted colours.
This came out better after upsampling and conversion to the format they were using.

Interestingly, I found out during the reverse engineering that the CD-i game uses a kind of “compiled” game scripts for all the interactivity, with a very general format and functionality.
It did not in any way look like the ScummVM code, not even in the “opcode” list based on the PC version assets.
My guess is that the CD-i makers re-used an existing “script compiler” architecture and/or game engine and wrote or recompiled all the scripts from scratch.

Due to the generality of the script codes, you could create many different “FMV” games using the same engine; the actual game as released is almost completely data-driven.
This could even be a “portable” engine, all the asset manipulation is in the CD-i specific parts outside the basic script engine and called using generic operators.

In January 2015 I got the official beta version of the 20th Anniversary edition for Android as a courtesy, and it is this version that the screen shots I sent you earlier were taken from.

Earlier this year a 25th Anniversary Edition also appeared on Steam, but it seems to be English audio only with subtitles.

Luc provided us with some pictures taken from the original game files, enjoy!

The CD-i Touchpad has a left-handed feature

The Touchpad with reference 22ER9017 is the one based on the Gravis Ultrapad and built by Logitech.

It has 4 buttons:
2 times button #1
1 time button #2
1 time button #3 (#1+#2)

A speed selector is available in the bottom front side, on the right. You can choose between normal speed and double speed for the cursor.

This Touchpad also have an amazing feature, not available on any other CD-i controllers: it is possible to be used by left handed persons. A selector is available in the top front side, on the left.

After activated it, just turn the controller upside down and all the controls will switch. The D-pad will work just like if the controller was in the correct position.

This feature is very similar as the Atari Lynx portable console, also for Left-handed persons.

The player’s remote controls (both wireless and the wired one from the 450 model) are also left-handed design, that is why button #1 and #2 are always isometric. But this time, no need to turn them upside down! 😉

And you, have you ever tried this Touchpad feature?

The Crayon Factory – Printable Painting Book

The Big Box version of The Crayon Factory included a 8 Crayola crayon set, and a painting book with the game’s characters and themes.
Thanks to Marco Parisio Java who sent to us the Italian Big Box version, we proudly invite you to download the PDF Painting Book and then, print it to let your children paint it just like in the 90’s!
16 draws ready to be print and paint!

You can download it right here:
The Crayon Factory – Painting Book

It is also available on The Crayon Factory page on the Download tab.

Unknown CD-i player discovered

Back in 2012, Alan_CDiZone found this unit on Digital Press, he posted the news on his now closed Philips CD-i Zone Facebook Page. He explained about the rumours of being a CD-i player used on surgery and medical places.

After our last find with the help of our website forum, Blazers showed his dentistry unknown title.

Now one day later, after sharing this news on Twitter, xsuicidesn0wmanx (@_sn0wX) confirm me his friend used a CD-i 450 placed on a metal box and dentist offices used it.

The CD-i was on eBay for $1000, but as nobody knew what it was, he finished to not sell it.

This unite sold by Intercare uses the 450 external power unit, a touchpad controller, a lock to block anyone to remove the disc and press buttons.

I can confirm we are really talking about a 450 as Alan confirmed the existence of a lateral power on/off like the 450 have. A Digital Video Cartridge is also included.

I have contacted Alan_CDiZone, who found it to let him know he was right!

xsuicidesn0wmanx is going to take better pictures for the site database.

Thank you xsuicidesn0wmanx, and also Blazers (not possible without your pictures)!

Unknown CD-i titles appears

Thanks to our website member Blazers, who post on our Forum pictures of unknown titles, we now know the existence of 2 more titles, even if not published by Philips because created way after the official abandon of the system.

I have two or three CD-i titles from the US that don’t seem to have anything at all online related to them. I may well have the only copies. One is a 4-disc set about Cosmetic Dentistry narrated by Dr. Ross Nash, D.D.S. The Ebay seller I purchased it from last year happens to be a dentist, as does his wife. They ordered it out of a catalogue many years ago. Sure enough, it did indeed play perfectly when I popped it into my DVS VE 200 player. So even though it doesn’t say CD-i anywhere on the packaging, it is indeed a CD-i!

The other possibly new CD-i is a set of 2 discs put together by the Michigan Judicial Institute in 1998 and 2000 to give users an overview of the Michigan Court system. These might be separate titles and not even the only ones in they made. One is a disc and case and the other is still shrink-wrapped. All I can find online that even remotely relates to these titles is a mention over at AtariAge about somebody owning a CD-i player that had a sticker on it indicating that it was once property of the Michigan Supreme Court. These titles flat out say that they are CD-i titles right on them, meant to be played on CD-i players.

Thank you Blazers!
This is a great discover for our community!

Watch Digital Video on CD-i and Video-CD under VLC player

Seventy7 from Preserve CD-i wrote and shared with us a very interesting guide that will let you quickly watch on a VLC player your Digital Video on CD-i & Video-CD discs.
To do that you will need to download Isobuster and VLC.

The guide is now available on our Downloads section in PDF format.

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