02 Nov 2025 21 min read Philips CD-i

Preserving Discs from International Creative Digital Image

A few years ago, I wrote a post covering the Philips Model BO Videosynthesizer Prototype, which I purchased from a seller in the area between Brussels and Charleroi. Earlier this year, the same seller posted a listing for a box full of CD-i, VCD, and CD-ROM discs. They originated from International Creative Digital Image, per the seller. The lot was purchased by a fellow CD-i community member, who was kind enough to loan the discs to me for preservation purposes. A number of discs from the lot were picked up by a longtime CD-i collector, whom I trust will get them preserved as well.

The discs were dumped and saved following the robust Redump Disc Dumping Guide. Most of the CD-R discs required additional steps to dump properly. Each disc was dumped at least twice to ensure accuracy. Qualifying discs were submitted to the Redump database.

In this post, I'll go over a selection of discs that are the most interesting. I've looked at most of them only on a surface level. The post may be expanded with more discs and more detailed coverage at a later date if and when I find the time to do so.

About ICDI

International Creative Digital Image, or ICDI for short, was a company based in Charleroi that created or assisted with multimedia productions. They made titles on VCD, CD-i, and CD-ROM. It is clear that they specialised in video encoding, with most of their releases heavily utilizing FMV / MPEG video.
The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004:

INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE DIGITAL IMAGE SA; zetel: RUE DE L'INDUSTRIE, 13 JUMET; btw: 441-083-942; hr: 166-902; bijhuizen: 0; omzet: 14,587; personeel: 8; aard: 9999 niet-klasseerbare etablissementen; vonnis: 05/01/2004 CHARLEROI; einddatum vorderingen: 03/02/2004; curator: Krack Louis,Rue de Dampremy, 67,6000,CHARLEROI

-- Leemans, A. (2004, 20 jan.). Faillissementen verschenen in het Belgisch Staatsblad van 15 januari 2004. De Tijd 20-01-2004, p10.

ICDI's logo on the back cover of 'Space Ace'.

'High Quality MPEG', a fairly common demonstration VCD by ICDI.

Pressed CD-i Discs

While the lot consisted mostly of CD-R discs, there were a few pressed CD-i discs as well. Most of those were unfortunately in very poor condition, with deep scratches, disc rot, or both. These were mostly retail discs that are already preserved, though some were demonstration versions that had not been dumped yet. However, the contents of these Philips demonstration discs are usually (almost) identical to the retail versions of the same titles. Thus, likely not much of value is lost.

A selection of discs with varying levels of damage.

The most unique disc among the pressed CD-i discs was this "Copia en estado de pruebas" (Testing Phase Copy) of "Goya Grabador: Luces y sombras." Fortunately, it could be dumped without issues. The hashes of the dump don't match those of the final release of this title, indicating a difference in content.

CD-i CD-Rs

The CD-i format CD-R discs in the lot were mostly different versions of the same title, likely used for testing as they were being developed. Nearly all discs have a version and date written on them or printed on a cover insert.

A Night in Nylon City

"A Night in Nylon City" is an adult-oriented CD-i title co-developed by ICDI and released in 1995.

The lot contained three versions:

(Date format is DD/MM/YYYY.)

The retail release of this title is also version 1.04, going by the ring code. The date in the PVD is 18/04/1995. The CD-R containing version 1.04 thus seems to be the version that ended up being pressed for the final release, with the other versions likely being close to final as well, given the dates.

One of the 'A Night in Nylon City' discs with its cover.

Les Guignols de l'info... Le Jeu !

"Les Guignols de l'info... Le Jeu !" is a video game based on a popular French satirical TV show, released for CD-i, Windows, and Macintosh.

Different sources cite different release years, either 1995 or 1996. Looking at scans of the PC version, I've seen disc scans noting 1995 and back cover scans noting 1996. The retail release of the CD-i version has 1996 printed on the disc, and the date in the PVD is also in 1996. Given this and the dates of the beta versions, I think it's safe to say the CD-i port definitely released in 1996.

In addition to playable beta builds, the lot also contained two discs labelled 'Disque Démo' that contained a non-playable demo/trailer for the game. The video on both discs is the same, with the only difference being that the v1.01 disc loops the video, while the v1.00 disc stays on a black screen after the video ends.

Full recording of the non-playable demo.

One of the non-playable demo discs with its cover.

Overview of the playable beta versions:

(Date format is DD/MM/YYYY.)

One of the playable beta discs with its cover.

Maths Interactives

Out of all the discs in the lot, this one labelled "Maths Interactives" piqued my interest the most.

I couldn't find any information on this title at first. After some more digging, I found a manual for a PC CD-ROM version. More on that below.

Until proven otherwise, I'm assuming the CD-i version of this title was never released, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that it was pressed in very limited quantities and has gone undiscovered to this day.

As can be gathered from the intro and credits, this title was commissioned by "Conférence intercantonale de l'instruction publique de la Suisse romande et du Tessin," an organization overseeing public education in Switzerland. It was developed by pH Productions and CompuLearn, with ICDI handling the CD-i port.

The intro in the on-disc manual provides a good idea of what this title was intended for:

Maths Interactives is the first application to provide a link to the official school curriculum on your interactive television. For now, it provides information on the new methods for teaching mathematics that will be introduced in the primary schools of the French-speaking cantons in autumn 1997. In the future, it may be possible to extend this type of service to other subjects and to all school levels. (Translated with Kagi Translate.)

A quick walkthrough of the disc’s contents.

Space Ace

ICDI co-produced the CD-i ports of the famous Don Bluth games Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II and Space Ace. These are perhaps the most recognisable titles they worked on.

The lot contained two beta versions of Space Ace. The first doesn't have a version number and is labelled '7 lives' (26/10/1993). As you would expect, this version of the game starts with seven lives instead of the usual three. The second disc is from a later date (24/12/1993) and notes version 2.02.

The "7 lives" disc and the start screen showing the game starts with seven lives.

Naftaline "Field Dubbling"

One of the more peculiar CD-i discs was this one, labelled "Naftaline FDUB Mode."

Naftaline is a French cartoon from the 1980s. There were Naftaline titles released for CD-i, but ICDI was not involved in their production as far as I can tell.

The disc contains what seems to be a custom menu and playback application with a single episode of Naftaline. This is most likely just a technical test.

Screenshots of the video selection and playback menus.

Photo CD

The lot contained a single Photo CD: R.S.C. Anderlecht Season 1992-93

This Photo CD was a known title but had never been dumped, so I'm glad to have it preserved now.

The 'R.S.C. Anderlecht Season 1992-93' disc with the inside cover.

A selection of screenshots from the Photo CD.

PC CDs

Maths Interactives PC

In addition to the CD-i version, the lot contained a CD-R with a PC/Mac version of "Maths Interactives."

All files on the disc are from 2001, which is quite a difference from 1997, found in the PVD of the CD-i disc.

I managed to find this manual for the CD-ROM version, with a copyright date of 2002:

The 'Maths Interactives' CD-ROM disc with its cover.

As for the application itself, everything included in the CD-i version is in the CD-ROM version as well. However, it has been expanded with different difficulty levels and many more games.

This PC version seems much more like a finished product, unlike the CD-i version, which looked more like an MVP/PoC, given how little content it has.
Given the existence of the manual and the expanded content, I suspect the PC version was actually released to schools. By 2001, CD-i saw very little use outside a few niche use cases. PCs were much more common in classrooms at that point. This application installs entirely to the hard drive, after which the CD is no longer needed. I can imagine this being a big advantage in a classroom/computer lab setting where only one CD is needed, as opposed to needing one disc per CD-i player.

Of course, this is just speculation on my part, but I feel like it's plausible.

Guignols 2 Test 12.5 F/S

Another disc related to Les Guignols de l'info. It contains four .MOV files and a .TBL file that lists the .MOV files.

Only two of the videos are unique. It’s two videos in a set of two each, one labeled PC, the other labeled MAC. Their framerates are 12.5 FPS, which explains the disc label.

The directory listing of the disc, the contents of the .TBL file, and the technical specifications of one of the videos.

0:00

/1:08

SEQ1PC (video does not have audio)

0:00

/0:37

SEQ2PC

Philips Media Demo CDs

Two Philips Media demo discs were in the lot: one with both playable and non-playable demos, and the other with an interactive catalogue.

Milia 97 Demo MPEG 2

Another demo CD, this one containing mostly .M2V MPEG-2 video files, as the label would suggest.

In addition to the .M2V files, the disc also contains an MS-DOS executable and a Windows MPEG-2 playback application. I have not been able to get either to work yet. I suspect they require a specific type of MPEG-2 decoder card.

Milia 97 was an "international multimedia exhibition and conference" held in Cannes, France. It seems that ICDI was present at the exhibition and wanted to show off the then very young MPEG-2 format.

MILIA′97 - International multimedia exhibition and conference | Event | CORDIS | European Commission

MILIA′97, an international multimedia exhibition and conference, will take place in Cannes, France, from 8 to 12 February 1997. The event is organized by Reed Midem Organization. Interactive content providers and developers will be able to exhibit their products and establish…

CORDIS | European Commission

Some of the .M2V files contain just a single frame, together creating a menu. I suspect this is what you would see if the "demodisc" executable were to run.

VCDs

The large majority of discs in the lot were Video CDs, both pressed discs and CD-Rs. Most of them weren't very interesting, containing movies and TV shows from the 1990s with generic CD-i menus. As with the other discs, I'll cover the ones that stood out to me.

ICDI Video CD Digital Video Demonstration Disc

This disc, titled "Video CD Digital Video Demonstration Disc," was already preserved. However, I couldn't find any screenshots of it, so I made a few.

One thing worth noting is the volume label of the disc: "DEMO_MILIA." It seems this was another disc intended to be showcased at the Milia Expo. Perhaps these were even handed out, since it's a pressed disc.

Demo Disc 97 – Video CD

Yet another ICDI demo disc, containing menus and videos similar to those on the "Milia 97 Demo MPEG 2" disc.

Unfortunately, this disc was in poor condition and could not be dumped with consistent hashes. But the tracks containing the menus (and some of the videos) were fine, so we can at least see what those look like.

I suspect this disc was also used at the Milia 97 expo, perhaps as a quality comparison between VCD/MPEG and MPEG-2.

Sony Test

This disc, labelled simply "Sony Test," was also in rough condition. Like the disc above, this one could not be dumped with consistent hashes. Again, though, the menus and some videos were intact.

The disc contains a simple menu listing several videos, with 3 buttons each. Each button plays the same video, but seemingly from a different track. As has been speculated in the CD-i community Discord server, the button labels seem to correspond to different MPEG encoders available at the time: Sony, SGI (Silicon Graphics), and Sun (Sun Microsystems). So, most likely, this disc was intended as a quality comparison test between these different MPEG encoders.

MKFMV Video CD

Another disc that must have been some sort of technical test, labelled "MKFMV Video CD." It contains a custom menu with many playback options. All videos listed are short clips of promotional material for Marlboro.

Screenshots of the menus and one of the clips.

RTBF Mipcom 95

The last VCD I want to cover is labeled "RTBF Mipcom 95." The title already gives you a good idea of what it might be.

The RTBF is the public broadcaster for the French-speaking part of Belgium.

Mipcom is another trade show in Cannes, France, with this one being focused on the TV industry. This trade show continues to take place every year to this day.

MIPCOM CANNES - The International Co-Production & Entertainment Content Market

MIPCOM CANNES is the global market for entertainment content across all platforms. Join the global TV industry for 4 days of networking, meetings, screenings, and conferences

MIPCOM - The world’s entertainment content market

On the disc are many different clips from the archives of the RTBF, along with a very nice custom menu.

I think it's safe to assume that this disc was shown at Mipcom 1995. Other than that, I can only speculate. Given that Mipcom is mostly intended for TV broadcasters, I expect it was the RTBF themselves who were present at Mipcom, not ICDI, with the RTBF having commissioned ICDI to produce this disc.

Maybe this VCD would go on to be pressed and used as a handout at the convention. Again, though, I'm just speculating. It seems like a lot of effort to be just a one-off CD-R burn to show for a few days at a single trade show.

SyQuest SQ800 disk

After preserving all the CDs, the last item left to tackle was a single SyQuest SQ800 disk. It's a removable hard drive cartridge, essentially a hard drive platter inside a plastic enclosure.

The disk itself was unlabelled but had two notes slipped under the cover, both in French: one handwritten, which was difficult to read, and another printed. From the notes, it could be deduced that the disk contained audio files from a recording studio, Studio Hélios XVI. According to the header of the printed document, these files are for tests related to "Les Guignols de l'info: Le Cauchemar de PPD," a second Guignols game. Unlike the previous one, this game was released only for Windows PCs and Mac, not CD-i.

I didn't have the hardware to read such a disk, so I asked the HomeComputerMuseum if they could help. Luckily, they had the necessary hardware. After a quick trip to Helmond, I had a backup of the disk's contents.

As expected, the disk contained only audio files, in .AIF format, all of which are short voice clips related to Les Guignols de l'info. Most are very cartoonish and overacted, as you'd expect if you've seen clips of the show or the games.

Directory listing of the disk's contents.

Closer

While working through the entire lot took quite some time, I'm glad I did. Most of the items on their own aren't that interesting, but together they paint a nice picture of what ICDI was and did as a company. This is also the reason I felt like writing a post about it. Plus, once SEO works its magic, this information will be much easier to find. I hope this was an interesting read!