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What are the proffessional CDIs?

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 2:03 am
by smartlamppost
What are they, exactly? What can they do? Would they be much better than a regular CDI, or have their obsoleteness ruined their features? Do you have one? Thanks, I'd really love to know! :D

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:13 pm
by cdifan
There are many more professional CD-i's then there are consumer ones; I don't think a comprehensive list exists.

They range from in-house educational to technical demonstrations and anything conceivable in between.

Such CD-i's would often be just a component of a system and it would not be immediately recognizable as a CD-i except to technical people.

Some samples from the Dutch market:

- The Dutch drive permit organization "CBR" used a CD-i based system for the theory exams for the latter half of the nineties (this replaced a dia/casette player based system and has itself been replaced by a PC-based system). This was coupled with custom hardware to allow a single CD-i system to handle many tens of exam candidates; it was also coupled with a networked PC to handle certificate printing and central registration.

- The Dutch national airport for several years used a CD-i based system for their "Apron Safety Test"; it was a video-based test that drivers had to pass before being allowed to drive their vehicles onto the airfield (between the planes). This used a room of CD-i players that reported the test results of their individual users to a central PC that handled certificate printing and such.

- There was a disc called "Energie Potentieel Scan" that supposedly helped people to achieve energy conservation in their homes; I'm not sure of the distribution mechanism but it was probably freely distributed to the customers of some energy utility company.

- SPC did an Internet demonstration disc for Philips that served as a proof-of-concept of Internet on CD-i (it used a CD-i port of parts of the BSD-Lite TCP/IP stack and simple custom web browser).

- Remeron was a CD-i on antidepression medication that was used by medical salespeople, using portable CD-i players.

- Baxter had a CD-i on diabetic self-help (in several languages) that were on public display or for patient use in several hospitals.

- Philips had a "demonstration" CD-i for the full motion system (MPEG playback) that demonstrated the use of play/pause techniques including slow motion and seeking, as well as more exotic techniques such as window manipulation and seamless jumping (the latter very rudimentally).

- Lots of CD-i players came with an introductory disc on the CD-i system (not sure if this qualifies as "professional", though...)

I'm sure I could dig up others; but this should be enough to give you the general idea.

A large list (but by no means complete) can be found on the ICDIA site here.

CDi at Abbott

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 1:42 am
by oaacdi
From 1992 until 1998 I used to work for Abbott P h a r m a c e u t i c a l s in Puerto Rico. I was sent from time to time to their headquater office in Chicago. To my surprise, they had a training room full with Cdi players, but the kind that needed a caddy to load the discs.

Sadly, my trainings did not required the use of a Cdi.

I remember also like 5 or more coworkers that got the unit since I promoted it so well. We used to get together at home to play and watch movies on Cdi. And display the graphics on CD+G. It was so hight tech that a single machine could do so much and not be tied to a computer.

I miss the CDi years :cry:

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 1:50 am
by smartlamppost
cdifan wrote:There are many more professional CD-i's then there are consumer ones; I don't think a comprehensive list exists.

They range from in-house educational to technical demonstrations and anything conceivable in between.

Such CD-i's would often be just a component of a system and it would not be immediately recognizable as a CD-i except to technical people.

Some samples from the Dutch market:

- The Dutch drive permit organization "CBR" used a CD-i based system for the theory exams for the latter half of the nineties (this replaced a dia/casette player based system and has itself been replaced by a PC-based system). This was coupled with custom hardware to allow a single CD-i system to handle many tens of exam candidates; it was also coupled with a networked PC to handle certificate printing and central registration.

- The Dutch national airport for several years used a CD-i based system for their "Apron Safety Test"; it was a video-based test that drivers had to pass before being allowed to drive their vehicles onto the airfield (between the planes). This used a room of CD-i players that reported the test results of their individual users to a central PC that handled certificate printing and such.

- There was a disc called "Energie Potentieel Scan" that supposedly helped people to achieve energy conservation in their homes; I'm not sure of the distribution mechanism but it was probably freely distributed to the customers of some energy utility company.

- SPC did an Internet demonstration disc for Philips that served as a proof-of-concept of Internet on CD-i (it used a CD-i port of parts of the BSD-Lite TCP/IP stack and simple custom web browser).

- Remeron was a CD-i on antidepression medication that was used by medical salespeople, using portable CD-i players.

- Baxter had a CD-i on diabetic self-help (in several languages) that were on public display or for patient use in several hospitals.

- Philips had a "demonstration" CD-i for the full motion system (MPEG playback) that demonstrated the use of play/pause techniques including slow motion and seeking, as well as more exotic techniques such as window manipulation and seamless jumping (the latter very rudimentally).

- Lots of CD-i players came with an introductory disc on the CD-i system (not sure if this qualifies as "professional", though...)

I'm sure I could dig up others; but this should be enough to give you the general idea.

A large list (but by no means complete) can be found on the ICDIA site here.
Thanks; the one I want to know about is the 640, which I recently found on Ebay for a rather *ahem* "unsatisfactory" price. I want to know if it would be worth buying, or if it's just a cdi 220 with a mouse.

Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:41 pm
by phatrat1982
When I worked for Shop-Ko they used a CD-i for their training videos. This was in 2003 and I was so amazed to see a working system still being used.

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 1:14 am
by Gaara
I have an odd question on the portable CD-i players: Were they well made in terms of build-quality? Could they handle being sent in the mail a long distance? I am just curious since I wouldn't mind getting one as a novelty but I live in Australia and our postal service is, um, less than perfect.

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2011 2:04 am
by Shroo-man
as long as they are well packed they can. even full size players can survive. but if you're paranoid about players breaking being sent from overseas I have a player for sale, im also in australia btw