From Camera To Tv Via Cd

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday May 7, 1991

By HELEN BURNIE

FROM next year you will be able to store any 35mm negative or slide on compact disc and project it onto your TV or computer screen.

Developed jointly by Kodak and Philips, photo-CD players will show pictures on TV as well as play audio CDs.

Photo-CD players could have a sizable market. Kodak estimates that worldwide there are 250 million 35mm cameras in use, snapping more than 85 per cent of the 50 billion photographs shot each year. Kodak's technology for photo-CD players will be licensed to other manufacturers.

Market analysts expect that a bottom-of-the-range photo-CD player could retail for roughly $500.

More sophisticated models, including magnification and tilting capabilities plus enhanced audio features, should retail for about $1,000.

Photo-CD will be compatible with NTSC, SECAM and PAL television formats as well as with proposed high-definition TV standards.

They will also be playable on personal computers equipped with CD-ROM XA disk drives and high-resolution screens.

The system will include players which handle both audio and photo-CDs, a workstation for producing photo-CDs from negatives or slides, and thermal printers and paper for producing prints via the photo-CD.

However, average consumers will take their film to photo-finishers for conventional developing.

The photo-finishers will use their CD workstations to "read" processed negatives or slides, and "write" digitised pictures onto photo-CDs.

Miniature images of the photographs on the photo-CD will be displayed on the CD case. Each CD can hold up to 100 photographs.

Very high quality prints can be made directly from the photo-CDs with a thermal printer, as the colour, granularity and sharpness are similar to those of prints made on photographic paper from original negatives.

Also at the Kodak stand will be the Create-a-Print II enlargement centre. This will soon be in photographic shops, to be used in a do-it-yourself fashion, rather like the way you might use a photocopier in a print shop.

It's a simple matter to enlarge sections of your negative up to 17 times.

You can also fix some faults in your photography. The colour can be improved and the horizon straightened.

Then just press a button and minutes later your enlargement rolls from the machine.