Company on the Track of Compact Disc Technology That Does It All

What do you get when you marry a television, a stereo, a compact disc player, a keyboard and a powerful microchip?

A system that, in theory at least, offers everything from encyclopedias to lessons and video games with high-quality pictures and sound. Add a disk drive for storage, and it would work like a home computer. Or connect it to the computer you already have.

But the goal, in fact, is for these so-called interactive compact disc systems to supersede home computers for most non-business uses. And, at the forefront of software development for this computerized CD technology is a little Burbank company called The Record Group, headed by former Warner Communications executive Stanley Cornyn.

With funding from PolyGram, a record company, and Warner Communications, Cornyn is trying to speed development of a new generation of CD players and get rich by making programs they can run. To give potential customers an example of how the technology would work, the Record Group has prepared a simulation of a CD tour of London in which the viewer can choose to go left or right at a fork in the road, or investigate an interesting curio shop.

‘Information Appliance’

Viewers also would be able to visit Chaucer’s London, or Shakespeare’s, on the same journey.

“What we really see happening,� Cornyn said, “is a pop information appliance for the home.�

Cornyn also is proposing programs that would provide music accompanied by the listener’s choice of on-screen pictures, sheet music or lyrics in various languages. Other proposals call for talking maps, catalogues with sound and pictures, games and a variety of reference books.

At the heart of the effort to produce an “information appliance� is the laser-based compact disc technology whose accurate sound reproduction already has made it a hit for recorded music.

Thanks to their enormous storage capacity--1,000 to 2,000 times the average computer floppy disk--CDs have begun to be used during the past year for storing computer data. About 5,000 compact disc data-readers have been sold worldwide, according to Link Resources, a New York market research company. All were sold in the last year, mostly to businesses but some to libraries.

Now, however, CDs are generating interest as a multifaceted home entertainment medium. That role got a big boost this month with the announcement by Sony and N. V. Philips of a joint standard for compact disc equipment to do all the things Cornyn is talking about. (Sony and Philips are the CD patent holders, and Philips is PolyGram’s parent.)

The lack of a standard has been a major stumbling block to widespread acceptance of the technology, both for CD-I, or interactive compact disc, and its more business-oriented parent, CD-ROM, the read-only systems used for databases, records storage and encyclopedias. The data-readers sold so far use 10 or more different operating systems, none compatible with the others.

A CD-ROM standard is in the works, though, and its formulators, a group of high-tech companies including Microsoft, of Bellevue, Wash., also are working with Sony and Philips to bring CD-ROM and CD-I together.

If unified standards are adopted, users could buy a CD reader with a keyboard and a microprocessor that, when connected to a TV, could “play� any disc, yielding sound, pictures and text.

Wide Potential

The potential uses are myriad. A single CD could hold the contents of all U. S. telephone directories or a catalogue of all music recordings, Cornyn said. Grolier’s nine-million-word Academic American Encyclopedia is already on CD and takes up just 12% of the disc. If Cornyn gets his way, encyclopedia discs also will offer pictures and sound.

But the potential uses of interactive CD go beyond data storage. In fact, a single CD could easily hold an entire package of software, including word processing, spreadsheet, personal finance and other programs, along with a dictionary and other information. To learn how to use the software, users could listen to the CD itself for instructions.

But there are skeptics. James Porter, editor of Disk/Trend Report, a computer industry publication, said it is unclear whether consumers will accept the new technology, adding that they “aren’t going to be able to buy anything soon.�

Critics also point to the equipment’s limitations. Users can’t record text, data, or anything else on the discs, and the video isn’t like a regular movie: graphics will be sharp, but movement will be somewhat jerky.

Solutions Likely

But, within the next couple of years, proponents say, those hurdles will be overcome. Businesses already can buy equipment, allowing them to store their own data--once and inalterably--on compact discs. Technology also exists in the laboratory for storing and erasing information, said Bert Gall, product planning manager for Philips Subsystems and Peripherals in the United States. Despite some complications, full-motion video also is likely someday, experts say.

Philips and Sony aren’t waiting, though. Gall said the two companies hope to have an interactive CD machine on the market for $1,000 by the fall of 1987, with prices falling to $500 soon after. The package would include a player equipped with a microprocessor, a keyboard and provisions for connecting the machine to home entertainment equipment.

Software for the new equipment should sell for about $40, Cornyn said, although the gear should be able to run programs such as Lotus 1,2,3 that cost many times more. And, unlike floppy disks, cassettes, or record albums, the new CD software would defy home duplication, at least until more advanced equipment comes on the market.

Fun Programs the Key

But entertainment programs will be the key if the multibillion-dollar market that Philips is predicting is to come about. That’s where Cornyn’s little company comes in.

A native Angeleno, Cornyn spent 25 years with Warner Bros. Records and Warner Communications, mostly in advertising and marketing. He won two Grammys for his album-liner notes, was nominated for three more, and finished up at Warner Communications as senior vice president for the Record Group, a Warner research and development unit that was spun off in late 1984.

Cornyn is also a consumer electronics buff who lives in a futuristic Sherman Oaks house complete with a public address system, swimming pool stereo and high-tech climate controls. An entire wall of his large den is covered with electronics.

“Stan has been the kind of resident far-out thinker at Warner Communications for some time,� said Steven Sieck, a Link Resources vice president. “People say Stan really is a guy who has influenced the nature of CD-I mediums.�

He did this, industry sources say, by promoting broader entertainment uses of CD technology and by arguing for standardized equipment for entertainment and business uses.

Oracle of Technology

Gall said Cornyn helped persuade Philips and Sony to pursue interactive CD with his “brilliant and interesting ideas about how optical storage could be used for entertainment.� Cornyn’s 10-employee firm gets financial support from Warner Communications in addition to Sony and Philips, but he won’t discuss how much, or other details of Record Group’s financial picture.

“My company is coming to the crisis of, ‘Does anybody want to pay for the records?’ � Cornyn said. “There are no players out there.�

He said the PolyGram unit of Philips has provided enough money for the Record Group to keep working another year. Cornyn also is trying to persuade several other major electronics companies, including Sony and Matsushita, which makes Panasonic and Technics products, to provide money.

Industry sources said Cornyn has a good chance of succeeding.

“The potential is quite huge,� said Almon Clegg, general manager of the Matsushita Technology Center in Secaucus, N. J. “In terms of software development, Cornyn is really the guru.�

A few others are trying to write interactive CD software, but their numbers are small. Bryan Brewer, president of Earth View Inc., a small company in Ashford, Wash., working on CD software, said the need for sophisticated production equipment makes it tough to work out of a basement or garage, both cradles of the personal computer revolution.

Experts also cite the chicken-or-egg syndrome: there are no interactive CD players, so hardly anyone wants to write software. And, without programs, the big companies know, CD readers won’t sell.

But companies such as Warner and Matsushita see great potential in interactive CD. “Phillips and Sony are extremely serious,� Gall said.