In a decision that appears to lend greater credibility to Eastman Kodak Co’s Photo CD technology, rival Agfa-Gevaert AG has bought a licence that will enable it to develop the interface between Photo CD and its own Digital Print System, soon to be available on the Benelux market (CI No 1,852). Photo CD is the standard developed by Eastman Kodak and Phi-lips Electronics NV that enables images on standard 35mm film rolls be recorded on compact disks. The Agfa-Gevaert DPS system, on the other hand, is said to be capable of producing extremely high quality pape-based copies from digitally recorded images; once Agfa-Gevaert has developed the interface, then, an integrated DPS-Photo CD system would sell to organisations that needed both a con-venient way of storing large quantities of photographic material and fast access to hard copy. It also effectively means that Photo CD no longer relies totally on the take-up of Philips’ Photo CD and CD-I players – which would let CD-based images be viewed on a monitor or television screen for its success. Agfa-Gevaert in Mortsel near Antwerp says the DPS systems, which in Germany sell for the equivalent of $47,000 each, will be on sale in the coming weeks. A spokesman for Agfa-Gevaert in Germany would not say how much the Photo CD licence cost.
