CD-i member Orlando Arroyo shares his memories about how he got into CD-i, and this was, like with many others, thanks to the CD+Graphics format. Before the CD-i was launched, Warner Brothers experimented with this new embedded graphics feature on a Audio CD, and one of the few players that supported this new format, was the Philips CD-i. Orlando Arroyo: "I found an article about CDs hidden videos. I was about CD+G. So, I am an etternafan of Donna Summer and in that article they showed that her 1989 album Another Place and Time was released as CD+G. Then I remember seeing a Memorex CD-i player at radio shack and it listed CD+GRAPHICS as one of the discs that the unit will play. I also saw a demo of a CD-i and I was speechless. Then another electronic store had a JVC CD+GRAPHIC player (that I bought decades later) and they were diispling Laura Branigan's CD+G title. Since the CD-i played multiple disc types, I went the CD-i route. FYI, it took me 16 years to find a CD+G copy of Donna's Another Place and Time since not all pressings were CD+G encoded!!! I was th only one having a CD-i player and my friends used to meet and play and they love it. And they in fact bought the unit! From the 220 to the 550, I can recall 6 of my friends buying CD-i!!! Happy memories!!!"
Finally Orlando Arroyo shared a nice overview of the laser disc technologies that ended with CD-i (with CD+G along the road)
CD-i member Orlando Arroyo also shared nice scans of the CD+Graphics history that shows the importance of formats like Laser Disc and its importance in the development of the CD formats, including CD+G and CD-i.
[Orlando Arroyo, thanks for sharing!]