Philips cd-i PAL/NTSC switch question

[aboblyndsae]

I've got a portable Philips cd-i 370 with a PAL/NTSC switch.

Before I go wasting money (well, more money than I already have on the system) on European games, I wanted to clarify—can I play European games on an NTSC television with this? Or is the switch just for the system's own display?

[Bojay1997]

I've got a portable Philips cd-i 370 with a PAL/NTSC switch.

Before I go wasting money (well, more money than I already have on the system) on European games, I wanted to clarify—can I play European games on an NTSC television with this? Or is the switch just for the system's own display?

I don't know the specifics of your player, but every CD-i game should work on both a PAL and NTSC system as I believe Philips required all games to be region free and TV standard neutral. I have never had a problem playing PAL games on my stock NTSC CD-i players.

[Ze_ro]

I have several European CD-i games, and they all work fine on my NTSC system.

One of the few things they did right with the system.

--Zero

[coreys429]

What were the other good things about CD-I?

[aboblyndsae]

Oh, that's pretty neat then.

What were the other good things about CD-I?

It had the only console port of The 7th Guest, a game that still apparently doesn't run 100% correctly in DOSbox. And, er, that's the only one I've come up with so far.

[Bojay1997]

Oh, that's pretty neat then.



It had the only console port of The 7th Guest, a game that still apparently doesn't run 100% correctly in DOSbox. And, er, that's the only one I've come up with so far.

Voyeur was a pretty widely hyped and advertised game that was CD-i and PC exclusive. There are a number of others, but I just think it's a great historical alternative to trying to collect early multimedia CD-Rom PC games since the CD-i had a standard graphics and audio standard, so I know every game will work on my CD-i with MPEG cartridge.

[The 1 2 P]

What were the other good things about CD-I?

It had ONE good Zelda game and two duds. It had a game called The Joy of Sex. It also.....well, those two are the only ones I can think of.

[tom]

What were the other good things about CD-I?

PlayStation, of course (Nintendo, Philips, Sony co-op; source: Retro Gamer magazine).

But seriously, CDi was NOT a gaming console, but a VCD player/edutainment playing device. Games only played a third of CDis importance.

[aboblyndsae]

One more question that doesn't deserve its own thread—I have a pristine-looking copy of The 7th Guest, the rerelease version in a standard jewelcase. Not a single scratch or speck on the disc.

The music will occasionally start skipping throughout the game, and EVERY time you enter the coffin room after completing the basement maze, the game will crash. I've heard about the initial release being incompatible with certain cd-i players, but nothing about the rerelease. I have two other cd-i games, Apprentice and Litil Divil, and both run without any problems at all.

Do you think this is an issue of incompatibility, a defective copy, a problem with my system, or what?

[Ze_ro]

What were the other good things about CD-I?

Well, I was speaking mostly from a design standpoint... but here's some other things that I think they did a fairly good job on:

• Digital video support. Plenty of other consoles announced this, but the add-ons either never came out (Jaguar), or was poorly supported (3DO, CD32). No other system rivalled it's video performance (aside from maybe the LaserActive).
• Movie support. This sort of comes with the above point, since they're just VCD's... but they were branded with the CD-i name, and they got custom menus that only worked on CD-i. Unfortunately, CD-i movies failed miserably... but if you actually try watching one, it's surprisingly close to a DVD experience. Not necessarily in video quality, but you get menus, no rewinding, etc... Not bad for the time, really.
• Multimedia. This whole concept failed pretty badly, but of all the multimedia machines that companies tried to build, the CD-i was by far the most successful.
• Controller support. Alright, I know, the controllers mostly sucked... the included ones are basically meant for multimedia and not much else, but there were other more normal controllers available, and you also got a mouse, a trackball, a light gun, etc. Not having two joystick ports was a big problem, but there are still ways of hooking multiple controllers to the machine.
• Wide range of hardware choices. If you want something that looks like a game system, there's the 450. If you want something that looks like a VCR, there's the 910. If you want something portable, there's the 300's.

Keep in mind that the whole thing was designed as a multimedia system. And on that basis, it arguably succeeded. It didn't do so well as a game system, but then my coffee pot doesn't work so well as a space heater either.

It had the only console port of The 7th Guest, a game that still apparently doesn't run 100% correctly in DOSbox.

For what it's worth, ScummVM now supports The 7th Guest. It's only in the daily builds so far, but when the next release comes out, I imagine you'll be able to enjoy 7th Guest on Wii, DS, GP2X, PSP, and anything else that ScummVM runs on.

--Zero

[Playcosm]

I like particularly the background articles on the unreleased games on CD-i, because there are a lot! Moreover, when browsing through this list on CD-i, I remember the good stuff the system offered. Especially how they integrated digital video in their videogames, that was pretty unique in that time!