[Ed. note: This article was originally published on the Macintosh edition of Nautilus, Vol. 3-9 (August 19, 1992).]
Table of contents
Introduction
What is Photo CD?
The Business Angle
The CD-audio/Photo CD comparison
Photo CD technology, and the "multi-session" mystery
Summary
Developers Corner
by Richard A. Bowers
Copyright ⌐ 1992 by Richard A. Bowers
The Future of Consumer CDROM: Picture This!
Introduction
CDROM has pointed the way to the future of publishing in a wide variety of professional, business and reference environments. But the medium has hardly gotten to first base in that Nirvana of marketing: the "Consumer" market.
I have always had some difficulty with the concept of a "consumer" market that is separate and apart from any specific group of customers that buy the product. Are not librarians, business people, scientists and school teachers consumers? In the minds of many they are not. They represent niche markets. Some companies and the trade press have a big problem recognizing that many (if not most) highly successful publishing operations work within lucrative niche markets. These observers want the home-run. They want products that every household lusts after, and preferably in multiple copies.
Thus the entire CDROM enterprise takes the hit for the lack of imagination and/or competence of organizations like Philips, Commodore and Sony who have failed to make mass market CDROM available through their CD-I, CDTV or Data Discman systems. The trade press apparently feels that if a product fails to meet the standard established by CD-audio and the VCR, and RIGHT NOW, it deserves only a patronizing sniff and is written off.
Well, hold onto your seat belts, sports fans, because there is a new player on the team, a whiz-kid from the boonies of Rochester, New York. This kid has only dabbled in the big leagues of electronic publishing so far, but has a sterling reputation in most of the other enterprises undertaken in the past.
The whiz kid is Kodak, and the name on the bat isn't Louisville Slugger, it's Photo CD. If Kodak starts off by hitting only singles, it will be doing better than any of its predecessors. It is very likely, though, that it will start off better than that. By early next year we will start seeing doubles and triples. Not only is that good for Kodak, but it also means that Kodak will be bringing a lot of other team members around the bases to score. Everyone wins, and then the game is not over, but just beginning.
Sherlock Holmes might say "The game's afoot." Times change. Sherlock Bowers is here to tell you, "The game's a Photo CD!"
What is Photo CD?
The Big Idea: Photo CD is to photographs what CD-audio is to music, and an extension of Kodak's leading position in supporting traditional and digital photography. The system enables the photographer to take photos in the normal way, but for a small additional cost those images can be captured on CDROM and played back through a special player attached to a television. At first blush, this might be interpreted as Kodak's vision of the beginning of the end for transparencies and slide shows. But the significance of the system and Kodak's marketing effort goes well beyond this simple conclusion.
At the product level, Photo CD is both a data format and a consumer electronics device for playing photographic discs.
The data format is designed to capture extremely high resolution color graphics, and it is proprietary. Don't panic! This is not just another case of another incompatible data format. First of all, it is non-standard for all the right reasons. The new format is necessary in order to capture the data at a resolution required for the system to perform its tasks, not just because Kodak wanted to be different (like some vendors we know). Secondly, Kodak has been working diligently to see that all the necessary step-down translation tools are in place when the product is introduced, creating as open an architecture as possible. And virtually all the major operating system and application software developers have been enthusiastic about creating the utilities necessary to accept the format. This acceptance may, in fact, be happening more quickly than the acceptance of encapsulated PostScript by the same developers. More on this later.
The consumer device contains a special CDROM reader based on the CDROM XA format. The device is attached to a television and operated through a simple remote controller similar to the TV or VCR remote. The object of the game is to play back your still photographs on the screen, with the added capability of re-sequencing (which Kodak calls "shuffling"), hiding specific pictures, etc. By this time next year (starting in early 1993), tools will be available for adding titles, sound-over, animations, etc. A broad spectrum of publishers are already considering creating titles (especially those comprised largely of images) playable on Photo CD, including text, music and narration.
The Photo CD player also is a standard player for audio discs. It connects directly to your stereo amplifier.
The Photo CD disc is usable on a CDROM XA drive in a computer-based environment, which will add new dimensions to the product's capabilities, as well as enhancing desktop publishing and multimedia production.
The only bad news in this picture is that current owners of CDROM drives may have to acquire a new drive to utilize Photo CD with their computers. First, the system requires a CDROM XA drive, and there are not many of those out there, with exception of the Apple Macintosh environment. Second, the drive must be capable of handling "multiple sessions" (see explanation below in "Photo CD technology, and the 'multi-session' mystery") to be completely compatible. This capability may be available as an upgrade to existing CDROM XA drives. Expect, in any case, that you will have to suffer some change and at least some expense to fully utilize Photo CD if you are currently a CDROM owner.
The Business Angle
August 15 is the magic date for the launch of Kodak's Photo CD system. The players will be available in a few thousand consumer electronics stores and a few hundred of the larger camera/photography stores. If all has gone according to plan, you should have seen ads for the new system, if not had a chance to lay hands on one at your local emporium, by the time you read this.
Three models of the machine are expected to be ready to sell at launch. The low-end basic product will have the sequencing and hiding capabilities, and has a suggested list price of $450. The mid-level machine has all the basic capability, plus a 2X zoom and the ability to pan around the image to frame it on the screen. It has a suggested list price of $550. The high-end machine will incorporate all the other capabilities, and will contain a 5-disc changer for loading multiple discs and delivering presentations with images from any and all discs. It will have a suggested list price of $650.
Kodak expects (and apparently encourages) some discounting of these prices, so look for the basic machine to be priced at about $399.
All players, including the 5-disc changer, double as standard audio disc players.
The key goal, of course, is to attract the attention of photographers. Qualex, the Kodak subsidiary that will provide processing services, has announced five centralized processing centers and has published a list of 1000 retail dealers around the country who will offer processing services. The list is available in PHOTO forum of CompuServe, or from Mr. Steve Pflum, Director, Electronic Imaging, Qualex, Inc., 3715 East Grove Street, Phoenix, AZ 85040; 602/437-2006, 602/437-9342 (fax).
Here is how it works: You take your favorite camera and snap away. Take pictures of your summer vacation, good old Aunt Minnie, babbling brooks and babies, portrait shots of your product line, whatever. Take the roll of film to one of the Photo CD dealers for developing, and specify you want a Photo CD. You get back the standard collection of negatives and prints (or slides), plus a disc on which the same images are recorded. Kodak expects the processing cost for this entire service -- for a typical 24-exposure roll of film -- to be about $25, or about twice the cost of normal processing for negatives and prints alone. We're talking dirt cheap here!
The disc has a total capacity for about 100-140 images. So, after shooting the next roll of film, you take the roll and the disc to the processor. They provide the same service, except this time they append your new pictures to the old disc until the disc is full.
Want to convert some of your existing photos or slides? No problem. Take negatives, prints or slides to the same processor, and they will convert them. The price for this service will be somewhat higher, because each image must be handled individually. Kodak expects the price of this conversion to be on the order of about $1.50 per image. For those who have never experienced the pain of paying for data conversion, this price may seem high. But trust me, this is the most cost-effective image conversion system on the market, by as much as a magnitude!
Kodak is not releasing their projected sales expectations (surprise!), but they do manage some interesting arithmetic. For example, Kodak projects that about 50 billion photographs are taken each year. If they achieved a 1% market penetration for Photo CD, they will be capturing 500 million photographs per year on disc. At 100 images per disc (and this is probably a high average), they would expect to produce 5 million Photo CD discs per year. How many players does it take to consumer 5 million discs? How long will it take to reach that level (or beyond)? No one knows, and Kodak is not sharing its guesses. But the stakes are obviously high.
Why is Kodak doing this? Certainly there is plenty of public relations material that describes Photo CD as continuing the tradition of leading in technology, giving customers new products and flexibility and all that sort of thing. It is all true, of course, but not necessarily a complete explanation.
There is plenty of handwriting on the proverbial wall. Everyone is trying to figure out what it means. Kodak has interpreted part of it to read something like "Cover your ass, boys!" There is some perception that the photography market has plateau-ed, or soon will. I mean, come on, 50 BILLION photographs a year!? If you try to grow the market for photos, you move rapidly to a scenario where everyone is so busy taking pictures they don't have time to do anything worth taking a picture of. Not likely to happen.
If the market is peaking, then Kodak is left to scrap for market share with Polaroid and Fuji in a mature product line, much like Coke and Pepsi fight to sell every gulp of soda. One way to beat this problem is to create new markets, extending the product concept into new areas. Digital imaging is an obvious consideration. Digital images are creeping up on us from several directions: desktop publishing of print publications, electronic delivery of multimedia on CDROM, even HDTV. And while it is true that digital cameras have not yet reached mass-market levels, they are achieving increasing acceptance, especially among professional commercial photographers.
Photo CD is, in this context, a natural extension. But it is an enormous risk, perhaps the biggest business risk undertaken by an established company since the introduction of CD-audio. (Sorry, I just can't seriously discuss CD-I in the same light, although it was a major risk investment, and it has had a significant negative impact on Philips.) And Sony was not risking as much with CD-audio, so maybe the better comparison is the introduction of color TV in the 1950's. In any case, it is not too extreme to cast Photo CD in the role of "betting the ranch."
A major commitment has been made, and you can expect Kodak to pull out all the (f-)stops in promoting the technique and the technology. From their perspective, digital imaging is here, and permanent.
Consumer acceptance is vital. The good news is that the percentage game is on Kodak's side. Assuming there are about 50 million amateur and professional photographers in the US, you can bet that 90% percent of us are very casual about it. That leaves about 5 million serious photographers out there. Just like in every other category, only about 5-10% of any group can be considered early adopters of a new technology. If this holds, Kodak may not be out of line to expect to sell 250,000-500,000 machines in the first 12-18 months after the product is widely available. If most promises are kept regarding capabilities and so forth, the installed base can be expected to grow at least geometrically after that for a few years.
I have doubts that such a system will ever achieve the market penetration of CD-audio or VCRs, but it really does not have to in order to be a legitimate barn-burning success.
Interesting to note were the concerns of professional photographers expressed in a recent CompuServe conference regarding copyright protection, security and encryption. They were not nearly as concerned about the openness of the system as they were about protecting their work. Kodak representatives' responses were not well received because Kodak is more concerned right now about getting the product moving. Just another example of fitting technical capabilities to all the needs of a broad user base.
The CD-audio/Photo CD comparison
It seems natural to compare various attributes of CD-audio with Photo CD. Such comparisons can only be taken so far, but they can be instructive. And Photo CD has the opportunity go in entirely different directions, as we will see in a moment.
First, Photo CD benefits from the CD-audio experience as far as consumer acceptance is concerned. Apart from the obvious (like CD-audio was there first), consumers have some understanding of how such a product will work, even if they don't realize it yet. For example, your audio CD plays music from track to track, and the order can be programmed to suit your needs. Photo CD works in exactly the same way, only you are programming the display of images rather than the playing of music. A nice bridge from the known to the new.
Second, the technology strategy is similar. When Sony and Philips engineered compact disc for music, they used a very intense data-sampling rate. Digital music is recorded at something like 24,000 samples per second, far beyond the ability of the human ear to hear. But they felt this was necessary to mimic as closely as possible the analog recording while improving upon it. The music on a high-tech CD can easily be recorded on a clunky old cassette with perfectly acceptable performance. Any degradation is absorbed because the resolution is so high to begin with.
Kodak's proprietary imaging format is like that. Photos are recorded at a resolution far beyond the capabilities of any other scanning or reproduction technology (except high-grain photographic film). This "excess" depth in resolution allows the user to "step-down" to other common formats (like PICT) with literally better quality than can be achieved any other way. This means that Kodak's format is far enough ahead of the rest of the pack, that other technologies have a long way to go to reach Kodak's standard, giving Kodak some breathing room in the larger scheme of things.
Third, from a marketing perspective, Photo CD stands to have an even more significant impact than CD-audio.
In spite of a great deal of valuable publicity in business and computer magazines, CDROM is still an unknown quantity to the vast majority of the consumer market. Photo CD is being promoted to a huge cross-section of the consumer marketplace -- not just those customers who own computers, but that much larger group that takes and appreciates pictures. Thus Kodak's efforts have the potential to introduce the idea of digital multimedia and CDROM to a vast marketplace that would not otherwise have been exposed to the technology for a long time. This elevated consciousness cannot help but to increase awareness and demand for more CDROM-based products in all environments.
We should not forget that a major reason for the success of CD-audio was Sony's brilliant ploy of providing players and music libraries to classical music radio stations. Customers could sample the benefits of the new technology for free and in unexpected places, like their living rooms and cars. Photo CD will likely offer that same opportunity for pictures (and ultimately for full multimedia) by catching consumers unawares with the chance to sample the benefits of the product in camera stores and other venues. Never discount the power of surprise and delight to motivate consumers to buy.
Fourth, and certainly not least, the Photo CD is just flat pretty. They are gold, not silver. They have a striking appearance, and any display in a commercial environment will attract attention. Expect that some people will have Photo CDs made just for the kick, even if they don't acquire a player until later. Any product that has cosmetic appeal helps to sell itself, and that is a great advantage.
Photo CD technology, and the "multi-session" mystery
The consumer player will be manufactured by Philips. You have to give them credit: they have found a way to mitigate some of the overhead they have incurred in ramping up for a disappointing CD-I product. Philips is also providing the CD-write-once devices to do the disc recording in the processing shops.
A Photo CD will play in a CD-I machine. So all 12 of you out there with CD-I boxes can get into Photo CD immediately.
Polaroid has developed a high-speed, high resolution scanner to handle snapshots, which will be available to the processing shops.
The proprietary compression scheme and data format are being supported by virtually every major computer and operating system vendor. Apple has been one of the most aggressive adapters. They promise to incorporate a function in an upcoming release of the MAC O/S (System 7.xx) which will automatically import Photo CD images as PICT files.
Applications developers are also climbing on board rapidly. In the DOS/Windows environment, Micrografx, Corel, Imagen and Halo reportedly already support Photo CD. A host of Macintosh announcements are expected at MacWorld. A long list of usual suspects -- Aldus, Adobe, Software Publishing, etc. -- are expected to incorporate Photo CD compatibility in upcoming releases.
In the computer environment, choices of CDROM drives are limited today (that is to say, literally as of this writing). While a number of drive manufacturers have announced intentions to produce compatible boxes, Kodak has compatibility-certified only three as of mid-July. They are the Apple SC CD150 (which is made by Sony), Sony's CDU-6211 (a SCSI drive for both Mac and PC), and Sony's CDU-6205 with the XA controller CDB-X10. Kodak is in the process of testing additional drives as they are submitted by the manufacturers. These are all "single-session" drives (see discussion below). At a minimum, look for this level of compatibility from Hitachi, Philips, NEC and Toshiba. For updated info, contact Kodak's information center at 1/800-242-2424, ext 77.
An important consideration for the future of Photo CD in the computing environment is the availability of so-called "multi-session" drives. When the Photo CD processor finishes recording images on the disc, the processing system writes the table-of-contents (or VTOC) that essentially closes the disc and makes it accessible to ISO 9660 systems. That is a "session." Under Kodak's design, the consumer can take his disc back and have additional photos added later. The second and later additions are new "sessions." Kodak's player will read all the images, regardless of the number of sessions recorded. There are, as yet, no stand-alone drives from other vendors that can read sessions after the first. Thus the use of Photo CD in a computer environment (for desktop publishing, or title production) is limited to the images recorded in a single session or processing pass. Technically, a multi-session disc is called Mode 2, as opposed to standard "Red Book" and "Yellow Book" Mode 1, the standards which define CD-audio and CDROM, respectively.
Be forewarned: some drives are not even capable of accessing Mode 2 at all, which means they cannot even read a "single-session" disc. I have heard that CD Technology, an OEM of Toshiba drives in California, is preparing a software fix for some Toshiba models which will enable them to read single-session. Kodak is not aware (again, as of this moment) of any other vendors offering similar services for other drives. Contact CD Technology at 408/752-8500.
It remains unclear whether this problem can be solved through driver software alone, or if it will require new controller cards or even a new model of drive. All the major vendors are addressing the issue, and product solutions should be at least known, if not available for purchase, by year end. Some Hitachi drives can be field-upgraded with a removable ROM.
Summary
I am excited about Kodak's effort. While I do occasionally take gratuitous (but justified) shots at CD-I and others, it is not necessary to knock other vendors to be effusive about Photo CD.
The technology is well-thought-out, the strategy is clear, the tactics appear to be comprehensive, and Kodak has assembled a powerful team of partners who are willing to go out on the limb with them.
It is much easier to see this as an "idea whose time has come" than other CDROM-based products. The focus is not on a gee-whiz about the technology alone, but rather on what the technology can DO. This makes for a much deeper, much healthier overall concept. The new functionality requires a minimum of explanation. It is close enough to well-established practice to give the consumer the confidence to try something new.
And talk about promotion! Have you ever seen a Kodak presentation or commercial without having to surreptitiously wipe away a tear? They can make still-pictures speak far more effectively and eloquently than the bulk of video produced by amateurs and professionals alike. The technology is well-packaged and non-threatening. And Kodak will add the sheen to make it useful and fun.
And what about video, anyway? Can any technology succeed without video? In my view, video is vastly over-rated and over-used as a communications technique. I direct you to previous discussions in this column to support this claim, rather than repeat it all. I will only say here that Kodak (and its competitors) have made a big pile of money by enabling regular folks to record still pictures. Photo CD will not be hurt by a lack of video support.
And who is to say how this might evolve? The consumer electronics guys like to sell lots of different boxes for different functions. But there may well be a future integrated machine that combines the functionality of Photo CD, the VCR, the CD-audio player and the game system. Consumers would love it. And it would certainly free up a lot more space in the ol' entertainment center for TITLES, PUBLICATIONS and SOFTWARE!
When the all-caps start flowing, I'm getting too EXCITED! But not too excited to be interested in your feedback. Are there topics you would like to see discussed? Do you think I am off my nut? Would you like more information? So don't be shy! If you have any comments or questions, address them to Rich Bowers c/o NAUTILUS, either by e-mail or voice mail.
Addendum:
Images stored on a Photo CD disc are 24 -bit color which can be specified at five resolutions:
Base/16 128 lines by 192 pixels
Base/4 256 lines by 384 pixels
Base 512 lines by 768 pixels
4*Base 1024 lines by 1536 pixels
16*Base 2048 lines by 3072 pixels
Unless otherwise specified at processing time, all images are stored at the base resolution, which gives the disc the capacity of about 100 images per disc. The number of images is then proportional to the specified resolution. Higher resolution results in fewer images. Lower resolution results in more images (with the potential of hundreds of images per disc). While there is certainly some degradation of quality at lower resolutions, Photo CD's display software presents all resolutions to the maximum possible benefit on a television screen. Those who are using these discs for desktop publishing or other professional applications will be concerned about the quality; consumer/viewers will probably be less-aware.
This means that Photo CD has strong potential for title creators who want to provide long sequences of images. Note, however, that sound (and in the future, text) eat into the available space for images. So multimedia productions, as in all other environments, will have to balance dynamically the amount of space required for each type of data to be included.
Late announcement: From an August 4, 1992 press release:
Easy Access to Photo CD Images Today
Photo CD Access software features an easy to use, familiar, menu-driven graphical interface that allows users to load, edit, and export their images to applications that support bit-mapped color or bi-tonal images. With Photo CD Access software, users can control image attributes such as orientation, resolution, color format, and display area.
Kodak also provides Photo CD Access Developer Toolkit software. This enables independent software vendors (ISVs) to integrate support for Photo CD images seamlessly into software applications.
With Photo CD Access software, or a Photo CD-enabled application, and a CD-ROM XA drive, users can access Photo CD images today. CD-ROM XA single-session drives that currently support the Photo CD format include the AppleCD 150 and Sony CDU-7211 for the Macintosh, and the Sony CDU-7211 and Philips/Magnavox CDD461 for DOS systems. CD-ROM XA single-session drives allow users to read the first session of images written to the Photo CD disc.
Leading CD-ROM drive manufacturers such as Philips Consumer Electronics, Pioneer Communications, Sony Corporation of America, and Toshiba Corporation, plan to offer Photo CD-compatible multi-session CD-ROM XA drives later this year. Photo CD users can add images to Photo CD discs in more than one session. Multi-session CD-ROM XA drives read images appended to a Photo CD disc at different times, using the full capacity of the Photo CD disc.
Pricing and Availability
Photo CD Access software is available this August for the Macintosh (System 6.0.5 or 7) and DOS (Windows 3.0 or 3.1) operating systems. The manufacturer's suggested retail price is $39.95. Photo CD Access software can be purchased directly from Kodak by calling 1-800-242-2424 extension 53.
The service of transferring 35 mm negatives or slides to Photo CD discs is available now through photofinishers and commercial labs across North America. To locate a nearby photofinisher or lab that provides Photo CD services, consumers can call 1-800-242-2424, extension 36.
