On different forums I read more interest in these CD-i to PC cards, an ISA or PCI expansion PCB that offers CD-i compatibility to your existing PC/CD-ROM setup. It is very rare to get hold of one and there is hardly any info on the internet, so let's combine everything here to see what we do know about these cards.
1. The CDi/PC 2.0 (ISA): Full-Screen, Full-Motion CD-i and Video CD Playback on a PC, by Philips Media Systems in 1993
The first one is the Philips CDI/PC 2.0 Board. Philips Media System made a ISA card CD-i emulator so you can play all CD-i titles on a PC. In 1993 Philips Media Systems released the CDi/PC card, which was a ISA PCB. ISA is an older technology (1980s) which has been replaced by PCI. ISA slots are longer, black (usually) and contain large, gold contacts. Data transfer rate is only 8.33MHz which is 16.66Mbytes/s (8.33MHz * 2 bytes). The more modern PCI slots are shorter, white (usually) and contain much finer contacts. The i2m card which you will find below was a PCI card.
Philips Media Systems made indeed a CD-i/PC card and I've talked to one of the developers around 2009 - The card was released, but only for the professional market, it never got an official consumer release. It performs without the CPU, so independent use, with all CD-ROM drives that support to read CD-i information (practically all major brands did that). It was a bit buggy however, and there were some compatibility issues. In the time this card was built, CD-ROM was the enemy so product managers were not eager to promote the PC/CD-i card to the public. It stayed in the professional area, for CD-i developers or specific tools. It was also VERY expensive.
Projects to create an emulator for PCs were unsuccessful. In 1993, Philips had in its public CD-i catalog, a CD-i PC. It was a hardware emulation card (ISA port), this package allows the execution of the CD-i software on a PC 386. Most CD-i titles have been developed on dedicated platforms (CD-i with hard drive) but soon the interest to develop an environment in PC / Mac was interesting.
2. I2M (PCI): CD-i 'Media Playback' / 'Authoring Board' Professional on PC or MAC, by International Interactive Media, 1996
The second card is the i2m pci card; It was a CD-i hardware emulator for the pc. Because its high price (They didn't sell many) they are very rare! I've never seen anyone for sale. There where two versions of the card:- Media Playback allows you to play cd-i titles and movies on your PC. - i2m CD-i Authoring Board enables you to write CD-i software and test it.
The CD-i authoring board is an expansion board that lets developers create CD-i applications directly on their desktop using an authoring package such as MediaMogul. In addition, developers may play back standard CD-i titles (including DigitalVideo, Video-CD and MPEG-1 Real Time Files) from a CD-ROM drive or emulate CD-i applications from a local hard drive or over a network. The preview capabilities also let users display CD-i assets on their PC or Mac in true color, resolution and aspect ratio prior to burning a disk. This integrated solution provides a cost-effective alternative to the 605 professional player and emulator for CD-i authoring, preview and playback. The Authoring Board operates under an entirely different operating system (CD-RTOS) and therefore has Mac or PC drivers talking to CD-RTOS drivers. The Authoring Board features four connectors. One is a main serial port, one shared RGB/composite video, one VGA connector and one stereo audio. When a splitter cable is connected to the serial port, one port can be used for a CD-i pointing device and the other is used for terminal functions.
In 1996, the company i2m has introduced a CD-i emulation card for PC / Mac. This card has been sold on the professional market and its price, excluding software, was $ 1,000. Once inserted in the PCI slot, the card enables the implementation of CD-i (including discs containing digital video (VideoCD)) under Windows 95/98. It uses all the resources of the host computer: the discs are read from the CD-ROM drive of your computer (the CD-i compatibility of this player is required, as is the case for the majority of CD-ROM), and may also access the hard drive (this to run an "image" before it is burnt). The application which allows to use the i2m card is called "CD-i Playback".
The software is designed to read disks of the CD-i authoring boards only. You cannot read CD-i style CD-ROMs directly with the software, unless you have a CD-i add-on board. Even if you have a CD reader compatible with the CD-i (Green Book) standard, there are still a number of obstacles in your way. The filesystem used isn't ISO-9660, and CD-i players are based around a 680x0 CPU and have special hardware for video and audio. It depends on what kind of disc it is, and what you mean by "use".
PhotoCD and VideoCD discs are CD-ROM/XA "Bridge Format" discs that play on CD-i players as well as dedicated players and computers. These use the ISO-9660 file system, and can be read with commonly available PhotoCD software and MPEG-1 players. DigitalVideo discs from Philips manufactured before June, 1994 are in CD-i format, not VideoCD format, and require additional hardware to be played on a PC. If your CD-ROM drive supports raw 2352-byte sector reads, it's possible to pull tracks off of a Green Book format disc, and extract audio or MPEG video data. This can be done by using the i2m card and software.
