CD+Graphics was a format that never really caught on. It let music discs pack some graphics, maybe liner notes, and mostly song lyrics into the otherwise empty space on a CD. It was never intended for displaying full-motion video, but that didn’t stop [Adam Gashlin] from getting a Bad Apple, with lyrics, running on any device that will play CD+G.
The main challenge is that CD+G gives you 300 screen commands per second, which is plenty for updating text on the 48×16 blocks as the lyrics scroll by. But if you want to send custom blocks and draw images, that’s 2.5 seconds per screen: a lousy framerate.
[Adam]’s first trick is to drop the resolution way down, which gets him into the 8 FPS range. Only update the blocks that change pushes this up to a respectable 17-20 FPS. But you can see the updates, and that’s distracting. It really needed buffering.
If you don’t know Bad Apple, it’s in black and white. And like many old graphics engines of the day, CD+G uses a dynamic palette of colors. [Adam] uses this to pack four frames into one, switching between them using palette swapping. (Absolutely check out his “rainbow” version of the video to see how the palette-swapping trick works.)
In the end, his demo has audio, triple-buffered video, and lyrics at 16.3 FPS. It’s slower than the fastest video-only version, but it looks so good, and [Adam]’s explanation of all of the graphics tricks he uses to get there is the real star of the show.
If you want to see Bad Apple running on yet more minimal hardware, how about a 16×2 LCD? Or a much more ridiculous implementation? How’s regexes in Vim for absurd? Got any Bad Apple hacks of your own? Let us know in the comments or the tips line. You can never have too many.
I love this, same all all other excellent Bad Apple hacks, and I especially like the CLUT trick. The rainbow mode is fun to watch.
But… that’s not a karaoke version of the track, this has the original voiced lyrics by nomico. They’re great, but if you’re gonna put it on a karaoke machine, why not go all the way?
(the instrumental version was released in the albums Lovelight and Plastik World, IIRC)
Coincidentally, I have a similar karaoke machine on my bench, awaiting a Raspberry Pi brain swap. Now I have to go on a side quest and find a CD burner.
Actually, CD+Graphics was perhaps very widespread. But not very known in public.
Many CDs with CD+G data didn’t even have the logo, so the numbers are unknown.
CD+G was one of those technologies from the early 90s that came and went silently, I think.
Just like graphical chapter menus on commercial Video CDs.
They were there, years before DVD, but only visible on Philips CD-i players and similar devices.
PC software VCD/MPEG players and DVD players didn’t show them.
Neither did most no-name VCD/SVCD players so common in Asia, Japan, China, Brazil ezc.
It needs a CD-i era VCD player to show them. Maybe a 3DO or something.
Turbo Duo and Sega CD also did CD+G
Sega CD and Turbo Grafx CD (and TurboDuo) did CD+G
LaserVision had units for these systems and a karaoke one, but like 3DO you were UBER rich to get one.
The only disc I know I have, out of … a lot … is Information Society’s mainstream debut, which seems appropriate. (I’m also proud to say that I am and some friends contributed one or two items to the bonus disc of “Don’t Be Afraid”, which hopefully gives some nerd cred :)