A CD+G disc is an audio disc which contains graphics. The audio part of CD+G discs can be played on all Audio CD players. The graphics part can be viewed by any of the following devices:
Karaoke CD player
CD-i player (Philips CD interactive)
SegaCD
CD-ROM drive which supports reading R-W subcode information and a software CD+G player.
To my knowledge only Plextor CD-ROM drives (including recorders) can play CD+G discs.
To create CD+G discs you need a recorder which is capable of writing subcode information. All Plextor and Yamaha models can write CD+G discs. There are other recorders which support this. Check the documentation of your recorder to see if it supports this feature.
Unlike other Mixed mode formats (Audio and Data) such as Enhanced CD and CD-EXTRA you will NOT lose any space on the disc. So on a 74 min CD-R you can still use the full 74 minutes for audio tracks and add graphics to it.
Usage
Follow these steps to create a CD+G.
1. Load BMP file
Click on the browse button to select a bitmap (BMP) file.
The image file must have a resolution of 288x192 and 16 colors. This is the CD+G picture format.
There are many free/shareware image editors which can convert any image to this format.
My favorite is Paint Shop Pro (http://www.jasc.com).
2. Select WAVE file
Click on the browse button to select a WAVE file. This file must be an uncompressed WAVE file with a sample rate of 44100 Hz, 16 bit and 2 channels (standard Audio CD format).
If you used a CD ripper such as CD DAE 99, the WAVE file is automatically saved to this format.
Note: when playing a CD+G disc it will take 20 seconds before the complete picture is displayed. Therefore the length of the WAV file must be at least 20 seconds.
3. Select output file
This is the .cdg file which will be created by CD+G Creator. It contains both the audio and graphics data.
The .cdg file can then be used by recording software to write a CD+G track.
4. Write the CD+G disc.
To write the CD+G tracks you need recording software.
The best program to do this is CDRWin. A fully functional but 1X limited demo version can be downloaded at: http://www.goldenhawk.com
To write CD+G tracks with CDRWin, first click on the Record Disc button (first button), then click the Load Tracks button, select CD+G for the disc type and load the .cdg file(s) which were created with CD+G Creator.
The tracks will be written by clicking on the Start Recording button.
