When you play Todd Rundgren's The Individualist interactive CD in a multimedia desktop system, you get the equivalent of a music video accompanying each song. You can instantly cue to any audio track chorus or verse by highlighting an interactive lyric text. The CD also has a live performance taken from Rundgren's video No World Order Tour. This lets you play video director by choosing among four different camera positions to produce custom music videos of the show.] [Main article text follows ..] Imagine listening to glorious digital stereo on your car's CD audio system. But when you arrive home and put the same CD into your computer's CD-ROM drive, you can listen to the audio, plus view interactive music videos, lyric sheets, artist biographies, and interviews, CD+ (also know as Enhanced Music Compact Disc) format lets you do all the above and brings the audio CD into the era of interactive content delivery using desktop multimedia systems. CD+ address the problem with today's interactive CDs, in which the lyrics, photos, graphics, and videos are stored on track 1. When you play track one of current interactive CDs on a standard audio CD player, the resulting grating, buzz-saw sound can damage the speakers. The new CD+ format eliminates this problem. CD+ is a two-session format that works on current-generation multisession CD-ROM drives and all standard audio CD players. CD+ lets content producers put audio tracks of first-session audio as standard CD-DA (Red Book Compact Disc Digital Audio) alongside CD-ROM computer data that was recorded in a second session, An audio CD player that encounters the lead out end of the audio session won't try to play the computer data. Todd Rundgren, a well-known cybertainer in the music industry, is making his new CD, the Individualist, available only in the CD+ format. Rundgren describes the Individualist (see the screen), which should be available by the time you read this, as a 'multimedia album' designed to run on both PCs and Macs. With the CD in a multimedia desktop system, you get the equivalent of a music video with each song. Major industry players - including Apple, Microsoft, Philips Electronics, Sony, and the Recording Industry Association of America, which is the trade group that represents U.S. record labels - have endorsed the CD+ Blue Book specification. Microsoft is also backing the CD+ with its release of Symmetry, a CD+ development and authoring tool that supports WinG graphics acceleration, WinToon cartoon animation, and Surround Video. Macromedia (San Francisco, CA) also expects to release its Director Enhanced CD Toolkit for the Mac and Windows this fall. However, CD+ is not the only interactive CD format. Content producers are also using ActiveAudio's Track Zero format which was announced last year. Track Zero has advantages over CD+. Unlike CD+, which requires multisession CD-ROM drive, Track Zero works on single-session CD-ROM drives as well. And although Microsoft says it will include full CD+ support in Windows '95, the company hasn't said if it will support the format in Windows 3.1 or NT. ActiveAudio already has drivers for the Mac, as well as three versions of Windows. Whether they use Track Zero , CD+, or another format, these new interactive CDs are another example of how PCs and Macs are becoming entertainment appliances. [End article] Web address for Interactive CD Information For more information on Microsoft's latest list of CD+ compliant multisession CD-ROM drives for Windows, go to, http://www.eden.com/cdplus/index.html Mac and PC users can view ActiveAudio releases at: http://quicktime.apple.com/qtmusic.html and get additional information on the Track Zero specification at:- http://quicktime.apple.com/AA_MENU.HTML [There is a short paragraph on how CD-ROM drives will double over the next year.]