redsakana6d ago
Misty

New blog post! I wrote about one of the weirdest CDs in my collection - a CD single with a few lo-fi music videos and the distinct vibes that this is the leftover wreckage of what was supposed to be a much bigger project that never came to pass.

https://cdrom.ca/music/multimedia/2025/07/01/moon-light-cafe.html

Jul 1, 2025 at 5:38pmWeb
Show threadMistyJul 1, 2025
The main feature is a single by Ai Orikasa, aka the voice of Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo, but her name doesn't even show up on the cover and the music video is distinctly lo-fi. I wonder if any of her fans even knew this song existed?
Show threadbriJul 1, 2025
@misty curious if it has any of the official ‘enhanced cd’ logos or if it was similar to the ‘rainbow cd’ i was discussing recently where there was sort of a panic moment by execs wanting to release mixed media stuff, and being impatient about the blue book getting finalized/the initial proposals being kinda wonky…
Show threadMistyJul 1, 2025
@brhfl No enhanced CD logo! The case has no logo at all, while the disc is just “compact disc”.
Show threadThorstedJul 1, 2025
@misty My first foray into these CD's was a similar disc which had a data track for the first track, on it was a installer for the newly released WordPerfect 6.0, also without any Enhanced label. Since then I have collected over 70 Enhanced CD's. All a bit different. My favorite being Weird Al. https://preservation.tylerthorsted.com/2024/06/14/interactive-quicktime/
Interactive Quicktime – Obsolete Thor

Show threadMistyJul 1, 2025

@Thorsted Oh fascinating! I've never seen this one. I knew Quicktime could do some complex interactive features, but I don't think I've run into an enhanced CD like this.

Aside from the "first track is data" and "second session" approaches, the early CD-i enhanced CDs went for the approach of tucking the data track into the *pregap* of the first audio track. Does a good job of hiding it away from CD players, but as you can imagine some computers freak out at the weird disc layout.

Show threadThorstedJul 1, 2025
@misty I know the CD-Extra standard had certain requirements, but most didn't follow the specs, so I have been keeping track of which disks come up as XA or CD-i in cd-info, versus mixed mode as your disc would likely be labeled.
Show threadnullscapesJul 1, 2025
@misty don't have anything to add but love this and love the site you've been putting together
Show threadMistyJul 1, 2025
@dull Thank you!
Show threadSylvhemJul 2, 2025
@misty Oooooh, I love those kind of weird CD!
Thank you for that article, it was a nice read. And your blog is definitely joining my RSS reader :3.
Show threadMistyJul 2, 2025
@Sylvhem You're welcome! Thank you for reading!