Users are able to interrupt the running sequence of a programme, go back to a previous step, request an explanation in another language and activate selections by clicking on command areas on the screen. The thumbstick remote control has right and left hand versions and a separate Roller Controller for children. CD-I titles range from SGD35 to SGD99 depending on the programme theme. Fifty titles are in the shops with 100 promised before the end of the year. The majority of them are educational programmes for children ranging from recognition of the English alphabet to bible stories and nursery rhymes.
Adults can travel a golf course, gamble in a Las Vegas casino or look at great art.
Titles to be unveiled soon include more bible stories, gardening, guitar tuition and Escape from Cybercity, an action adventure game. It remains to be seen whether the present mix of titles, all of them with their feet firmly planted in Western culture, is enough to popularise CD-I in Asia. A rival to CD-I, the Tandy Video Information System, was recently launched in America. Like the Philips system, TVIS doesn't yet have full motion video but it is promised. Commodore's Dynamic Total Vision, CDTV, offers graphics, text, audio, animation and computer data.