Welcome to The CD-Info Company's CD Information Center. This site is a central reference point to learn the basics about Compact Disc development and production technology and the industry. Please read About The CD Information Center for additional information regarding the goals and philosophy behind the site's concept.

CD Labeling Series Begun

A new series about the various ways to label CDs and CD-Rs has started in the Technology section. See CD Labeling for the introduction and links to the articles. This is the first attempt in this site to have links to related product reviews in our subscription publications. By keeping the CD Information Center articles general in tone, we are trying to maintain the public-service aspect of this site, while still being able to provide more in depth coverage of commercial products in the other website. Let us know what you think of this idea.

CHANGES ANNOUNCED

21 March 1997. Some of the features of this website are moving to a new home. Please visit the CD-Info Company's new online publications at http://www.cd-webstore.com. We will continue to make the CD Information Center available as a public service to introduce newcomers to Compact Disc production, but in order to expand and improve our information services we have designed two new electronic publications, Burning Issues, for CD developers and CD-R users, and Pressing On, a trade magazine about CD and CD-R media manufacturing. Come by and have a look!

Recent Awards

Another award, this one from the Reader's Digest Look Smart site. Their Editor's Choice award was given to two of our pages -- Andy McFadden's CD-R FAQ (updated 2/18/97, and 1 year old as of this issue) and this one ("What's New"). The Editor's Choice selections are found in their website under these categories:

/ Computers & the Internet / Hardware / Peripherals & Storage / CD Recorders & Players

/ Computers & the Internet / Hardware / Peripherals & Storage / Storage & Drives / Optical & CD-ROM

/ Computers & the Internet / Multimedia, DTP & Graphics / Authoring & Publishing / CD-ROM Publishing

/ Computers & the Internet / Multimedia, DTP & Graphics / Presentations / CD-ROM Publishing

/ Computers & the Internet / Getting Started / Your Computer & You / CD-ROM

Net Guide has awarded The CD Information Center their "Gold" rating, including five stars for content. To see the review use the icon at the bottom of this page and search their "Best of the Web" for the term "cd-info". Here's what they said:

Users and developers of compact-disc applications will appreciate this thorough collection of resources relevant to the medium. Topics include software and hardware technology, manufacturing and packaging, humor, history, and industry events.

Housekeeping:

A complete site Table of Contents is available. (Updated 1/29/97)

Application Developer's Section

Ulead's Media Studio 2.5 is the subject of a series of reviews by our Aussie curmudgeon, but the first module, Album, seems to have mellowed him... Nov 10, 1996

If you've wondered how to do animated GIF files for your web or CD-ROM publications, have a look at Newbies' Corner. Step-by-step instructions with some background on graphics formats make it sound soooooo easy!

FAQs!

There are now three FAQ postings in the Technology section. one about the Hewlett Packard 4020i SureStore CD recorder, compiled by Greg Volk. DVD is a very hot topic in CD circles these days, and now, thanks to Kilroy Hughes we have a DVD FAQ. The CD-Recordable FAQ compiled by Andy McFadden for the comp.publish.cdrom.* USENET newsgroups is posted here in the Technology section. Updated 4/18/97 This award-winning FAQ is one year old as of February '97, and has appeared in this site since its first edition.

Industry Events

In the Industry section there is a list of Trade Shows, Conferences and Seminars of interest to new media people (12/08/96).

Industry Happenings

New ANSI Standards See the press release from ANSI subcommittee IT9-5 about the two new standards recently produced by that group.

August 7 An update was added to the story published here Aug 4th about Philips' announcement concerning DVD patent licenses. See the update in DVD news August 8 Yet another comment about the DVD licensing story was contributed by Dana Parker. Read the first article for background, then link to this one from there.

Previously published news stories may be found through the news archive page

Sponsors

Rimage has recently reorganized their entire company to focus exclusively on CD-R. Link to their website from their sponsor splashsheet here and read about it in their press releases. Also, the Rimage "Producer" CD-R automated recorder/duplicator, has been awarded the designation of "Product of the Year" by Imaging magazine. Congratulations!

One of our sponsors, Adaptec Software Products Group, operates a popular email list about using their CD-Recordable products. The list had been off-line due to technical problems, but it's available again as of January 9th. Sign up for the EasyCD email list at their website. The URL can be found in Adaptec's sponsor's splashsheet.

Elektroson, makers of GEAR CD-Recordable software, are the latest company signed on as CD Information Center supporters. Please see the entire list of CDIC site sponsors. These companies are showing their public mindedness and openess to sharing the "insider information" that can help users make the most of their investment in compact disc technology by contributing to the research and publishing we are doing here for the good of the entire industry. Thank them by visiting their "splashsheets" and linking to their sites to discover what they do and how you can work with them.

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Bibliography Update

See the Bibliography for information about reference books, magazines, email listservs, newsgroups and other links that pertain to Compact Disc. The "Other Links" area includes pointers to some articles from publications such as Tape/Disc Business magazine's online version, and a link to a user's view of audio CD-R. (Updated 01/27/97) Another text reference is found in the Technology section's Terminology page, which has a glossary of terms used in this site, and a list of CD glossaries found in other websites. Updated 1/27/97

Articles

The History section has a subsection of commentary by some well-known analysts in the field. We've had articles by Dana Parker, Norman Desmarais and others in the site for some time, but now the links to these and some new pieces are gathered in one convenient place. 02/09/97

"Jan 29, 1997 The past few months have seen some major changes in the CD manufacturing industry. Several companies have closed, or been sold..." For the rest of this story, see the article called "CD Replicator Attrition" in the History/Commentary section.

A major new subsection has been started in the History section. If you wonder how compact disc industry and technology came into existence, read this series of articles about CD Pioneers. Updated 01/27/97

Publishing a CD? One very important step in the process, but one that is frequently forgotten until the last minute, is selecting appropriate packaging. Read about the choices in an updated article contributed by Univenture -- a company who have been in the business of CD packaging for years. Updated 8/21/96

As a result of a discussion about CD-Rewritable in Adaptec's Easy-CD listserv, Kaz Chigita has collaborated with Katherine Cochrane on an article that explains how the data layers in both CD-Recordable and CD-Rewritable function. 8/5/96

A reporter from The Salt Lake City Tribune interviewed Katherine Cochrane about the present and future of CD-R. The interview is online here in the "Commentary" subsection of "History and Futures." (7/24/96)

An illustrated HTML version of a presentation made at REPLItech International '96 this June 6th is online at CD-R Automation, Duplication or Replication. It includes explanations of these processes, tips on deciding when and why to use each, and some product information. Sorry, some of the product info (collected the week before the conference & expo) was already out of date when the presentation was made -- this field is moving fast! However, there are links to websites for many of the companies mentioned, so you can find their new models from this page.(6/21/96)

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Is there a CD-R media problem? This piece is based on some media tests reported last year at Replitech International -- the data is old, but the background information about testing and media quality issues is still current. Originally published in Feb 96 CD-ROM Professional magazine. (6/19/96) This is a companion article to go with earlier published reports on CD-R Media Longevity.

Is the CD-Recordable media shortage real? What caused it? When will it end? Read about it in an article posted on May 23rd Updated 5/24/96.

CD-ROM drivers are a class of software that confuses many people. A new article about drivers and how they work, including a discussion of multiple drives and jukeboxes, has been provided by Intraco, Inc. in the Technology section. 5/24/96

Several articles of historical interest about CD-ROM and Information Mangagement have been contributed to the History & Futures section by Norman Desmarais. Updated 5/5/96

Industrial Directories

In order to enlarge and maintain our listings of CD replicators, recorder and software manufacturers, we have moved our industrial directories to our new site. The version of the CD-R software company list remaining on this site may not be as up to date or complete as the new one, but it is left here as a courtesy to our sponsors. (Updated 4/18/97)

Organizations

Information about several standards institutions has been added to the list of Organizations in the Industry section. (12/08/96)

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