Eastman-Kodak Co reckons compact disks could be as ubiquitous a storage medium as floppy disks are today thanks to its new low-cost rewritable CD player. The company is also continuing to push Photo CD for personal computers with the official UK launch of its PhotoEdge and Renaissance imaging software, the annnouncement of its Shoebox Photo CD archiving system and the promise of additional authoring software later this year. The aim is simple: Kodak wants to triple the number of users with Photo CD installed on their personal computers. The new PCD Writer 200 player, Kodak says, owes much to the development of Photo CD. It is being manufactured by business partner Philips Electronics NV to Kodak specifications – that is to say it has a special security system that reads the individual bar-codes on Kodak Writable CD disks. It can also write to non-Kodak disks for all standard CD-ROM, CD-ROM-XA, CD-I players. It transfers data to and from disks at rates of up to 307.2Kbps – twice the speed of conventional writers according to Kodak – and supports multi-session recording, enabling disks to be updated up to 90 times. Access time is between 30ms and 70mS depending on the software being used to drive the system. Full error detection and correction, automatic disk write power calibration and SCSI-II interface for connecting to a host personal computer are also included. The writer costs UKP4,000 and is available from Kodak resellers in the UK. Kodak is also supplying writable ISO9660 file-compatible publishing software for an another UKP1,500. A single session MS-DOS version is available now with Mac and Windows versions to follow at the end of the first quarter. A Unix version is set for the second quarter and a multiple session version for all systems by the end of the third quarter. The write-once CDs for use with the system can store between 550Mb and 650Mb of data, text, images and digital audio – the equivalent of 550 5.25 floppies. They have a minimum life expectancy of 50 years and cost UKP17.50. This translates at around three pence per megabyte of data making the CDs an ideal low cost mass storage option for archiving, back-up and multimedia applications Kodak says. It reckons the disks could be used by large companies for disseminating information in-house or to customers – one US telephone company, for instance, uses writable CDs to send out billing information to customers. Low-volume publishers could also use it for runs of less than 100 CD-copies for which the conventional pressing process is too costly. This actually opens a Pandora’s Box as far copyright is concerned as Kodak recognises. It says it is working on the problem – with its barcode system for instance but is a problem that developers may also have to bear in mind. Meantime, it is also beefing up its Photo CD marketing. It reckons to have shipped over 100,000 Photo CD systems so far and estimates that there are another 200,000 home CD-I users with access to the technology. It describes such success as ‘spectacular’.

PhotoEdge software

And it is hoping that its easy to use imaging and database software will further boost take up of Photo CD on the desktop. Its UKP100 PhotoEdge software enables users to adjust images imported from Photo CD, TIFF, RIFF, BMP, PCX and RAW formats and export them to similar file formats, including EPS, in publishing applications. It can be used to change the focus, brightness, contrast, colour balance and sharpness of images; and to crop, scale and rotate. Images can be viewed in five resolutions from thumbnail to full detail and displayed on a ‘contact sheet’ screen. PhotoEdge is for 80386 personal computers up running Windows 3.0 and Macs running system 6.7 or higher. Kodak’s Renaissance software for desktop publishers enables text, graphics and images to be merged on the same page. It provides a toolbox and colour palette; tools for manipulating images; and can accommodate multiple page sizes. It also enables users to preview multiple images and create libraries of commonly used material. The system is available for

NuBus Macs and a Windows version is set for this year. It costs UKP300. Computers Unlimited is the appointed UK reseller. Kodak’s Shoebox software will enable users to store thumbnail images in a database with index and data and pointers to the actual image files that can be swiftly searched using keywords. There are English, French and German versions. It will run under Macintosh System and Windows. Both versions can retrieve TIFF, PCX, BMP and EPS files and to Kodak Photo CD Master and Catalog disks. The Mac version supports QuickTime movies and audio files. No price or availability