The Compact Disc Digital Audio System was developed by the Dutch consumer electronics company PHILIPS Gloeilampen N.V. in cooperation with the Japanese consumer electronics company SONY Corp. and introduced to the market in Japan in 1982 and worldwide in 1983. The system, which consisted of an audio device ("CD player") and a sound carrier ("CD"), was conceived as a high-tech alternative to the established record technology and had three common advantages over it: digital sound storage improved sound quality, non-contact optical laser scanning reduced wear and tear on the sound carrier, and compact dimensions made it easier to handle and created new possibilities for use.
In order to create these easily comprehensible external advantages, considerable technical effort had been made. In contrast to record technology, where sound signals were stored as "analogue" images in a wave-shaped groove, which was passed through by a needle that oscillated during playback, the sound signals to be stored had to be sampled and quantised as numerical values during digitisation.
Advanced CD Technology
Since at high sound quality large quantities of such numerical values were produced (more than eighty thousand per second), digital audio systems - thus also CD players - had to have correspondingly high data processing capacities which could only be produced with considerable microelectronic circuitry.
The fact that the Compact Disc System embodied the current state of the art through the implementation of semiconductor lasers that had only just reached market maturity, the development of new types of aspherical plastic lenses and, last but not least, through the optical sound carriers, illustrates the great technological difference between the record and the CD - even though both were inexpensive consumer goods.
The fact that both systems serve the same purpose points to the decisive starting point of the development of the Compact Disc System. If completely new technologies are applied in such a way that an existing technical system is outwardly imitated and improved, the improvement of the product and not the internally applied technology is obviously in the foreground. On the other hand, it is the more elaborate technology on which the product innovation is based. It is therefore necessary to show under which circumstances novel technologies were used to develop a desired product level.
Compact Disc Innovation
The same aspect also gives rise to another question. Even if the relative continuity of the intended use of the record and the CD is recognisable as an essential feature, this does not provide an explanation for the difference in the technological levels. It is therefore questionable why there had not been an evolutionary further development of record technology before and why the CD in particular was able to prevail over competing but less highly technical concepts.
Two questions also arise about the technology itself. On the one hand, it is remarkable that different high technologies coincided so favourably in terms of their state of development that it was possible to combine them into one technical system. In addition, the question arises as to how a single company (Philips) could succeed in having such extensive knowledge at its disposal in order to develop, almost single-handedly, a completely new and technologically extremely sophisticated product.
Compact Disc Impact
Furthermore, the mere development of the technical product Compact Disc is not sufficient to cause, on the one hand, the rapid displacement of the established record technology and, on the other hand, a normative effect on digital audio technology. It is therefore appropriate to discuss the relationship between the concrete development of the compact disc system and public expert discussions in the transitional situation towards the digitalisation of audio technology.
In view of the widespread use of Compact Disc technology, the question arises as to what further effects the ubiquity of the CD had. The subsequent establishment of audio CDs as storage media for computer data (so-called "CD-ROM") indicates that the original fixation on the intended use (as a sound reproduction system) has been overcome and that other areas of application have also been opened up by the technology of the compact disc.
Procedure
In principle, a meaningful examination of the history of technology is only possible on the basis of authentic sources. If the development of the technology under investigation is not publicly discussed, but - as in the case of the CD - mainly carried out by one or a few cooperating companies, there is a danger that internal development processes, especially in the early phase, were not sufficiently recorded in writing and are not available in published form. If, as in the present case, the possibility of accessing the relevant documents in the company archives is not given, then it is the memories of the people involved that can complete the picture of the development history.
In fact, a number of people significantly involved in the development of the Compact Disc System agreed to provide information about the circumstances of its development in recorded interviews. In order to avoid distortions in the oral transmission of the simultaneously authentic and yet already processed information, all persons were given the opportunity to review relevant parts of the preliminary final version of this study.
This source material, which is particularly important for aspects of the history of CD development, also lent the investigation a narrative character that simplifies the accessibility of the subject matter.
In addition to orally transmitted information, internal research reports and personal, unpublished letters and notes proved to be informative, which - while preserving company secrets - were also allowed to be used to document the development history of the Compact Disc.
Finally, especially with regard to technical facts and aspects of general interest, it was possible to draw on a broad base of published sources.
Consumer Goods CD
"Everything we knew from the beginning was that it was a product with a market. "
Lou F. Ottens
Consumable technology
The Compact Disc Digital Audio System developed by Philips is based on a series of highly technical components. In contrast to the intuitively perceptible functioning of the vinyl record, the sound reproduction system developed for the same purpose has special technical features such as contactless laser scanning, digital coding and error correction procedures. Since the new type of compact disc became popular within a few years after its market launch in 1982/83, thus putting an end to the almost century-old tradition of the vinyl record, the conclusion is obvious that the use of research-intensive high technology is a guarantee for market success.
In fact, on closer examination, this supposed causality cannot be upheld. When discussing the development of the compact disc system, it becomes clear that scientific research and high-tech developments can at best have an indirect influence on the extent of economic success. Just as important as the use of highly developed technology is its shaping into a saleable product. This is particularly important in the field of microelectronics. Since electronic interrelationships cannot usually be understood by the later user, and the finished artefact is therefore perceived as a black box, pure high technology, no matter how appealing it may be internally, can only serve as an incentive to buy to a limited extent.
The compact disc system is a prime example of the culmination of numerous research and development efforts into one product. From the first idea to the marketing, the product aspect was always of central importance and formed a common thread, which was also followed by fundamental research work to realise the ambitious product goals. The most important goal was the creation of a new type of sound carrier medium that would hold its own on the market alongside the traditional record. The problem in creating such a competitive situation was the status that the record had achieved within almost one hundred years due to worldwide compatibility.
The use of high technology was therefore exclusively necessary to create internal technical advantages over the now mature record technology, which could be recognised externally by potential buyers, but which were not allowed to lead to complicated usability. The "camouflaged" technology of the CD, whose advantages could be perceived even without special knowledge, fitted smoothly into the existing market of the record and led to the silent displacement of the latter within a few years.
Interestingly, the discrepancy between complex high technology and uncomplicated product appearance was also reflected in the self-image with which the compact disc was marketed. Due to the numerous licensees that the Dutch Philips Group was able to win for the Compact Disc together with its Japanese cooperation partner Sony, there was a wide range of players from different manufacturers since the introduction of the CD. The demythologisation brought about by the presentation had a sales-promoting effect on the consumer market. Here, too, the emphasis on actually extensive research and development work by individual companies was dispensed with in favour of uncomplicated access to the product for the buyer.
The aim of this article is to take a look behind the scenes of the compact disc in order to understand how, after ten years (1972-1982) of intensive research and development, a product idea was able to displace its firmly established predecessor technology as an internationally standardised and licensed system of player and sound carrier. The different phases of development were used to structure this chapter. After an "incubation period" following the decisive idea, during which pioneering work had been done with only limited resources, essential product features were defined in a phase of preliminary development. The phase of compromise and cooperation necessary for international standardisation was finally followed by a final spurt to market, which led to a multitude of competing products.
This article is rounded off by an examination of the role of the phonographic industry, considerations of the market introduction of the system and finally an attempt to draw conclusions from the entire product development of the compact disc system.
Precisely because the development of the Compact Disc can only be adequately described as a success story in the following analysis due to its straightforwardness and lack of compromise, it seems appropriate to point out at this point that the success of the CD cannot be repeated at will. On the one hand, the idea for the CD was based on a technology that proved to be an unsuccessful product, namely the "VLP" picture disc system. On the other hand, new products of the same kind launched by Philips and Sony after the CD could not match the great commercial success of the Compact Disc.
Inspiration and incubation (1972 - 1976)
If the compact disc system were to be regarded primarily as a technical product, its roots would have to be sought in the research and development work begun at Philips in 1969 to develop an optical image carrier medium.
As a result of this work, a video disc system called "VLP" ("Video Long Play") was presented in 1972 at a very early stage of development. In analogy to the long-playing record (LP), and not only in name, the VLP system was intended to open up the possibility of using the "television receivers now available in almost every living room and in many educational establishments" not only for the reception of transient television programmes but also for the playback of programmes recorded and stored on video discs.
The problem here was the accommodation of the picture and sound information, which was orders of magnitude more extensive than that of the conventional LP, on a disc, the outer appearance of which was to have similarities with that of the familiar long-playing disc for reasons of increasing market acceptance. The solution to this problem - which at the same time must be regarded as the technological pivot of the VLP and also of the compact disc system - lay in the combination of optical density storage and mechanical reproducibility of the picture and sound carrier.
Video signals of the VLP were thus embossed as microscopically small elevations on a metallised plastic plate - similar to a record where acoustic signals are present as a mechanically pressed groove - in order to be read without contact with the help of the beam of a gas laser. The double-sided, playable picture discs, each of which was intended to record 30-minute colour television programmes, offered two technical improvements compared to the LP. On the one hand, the optical reading of the video signal avoided the wear and tear caused by the scratching needle of the pick-up on records. In addition, the use of laser light as a scanning medium made it possible to miniaturise the information imprinted on the record, which would not have been possible using conventional mechanical pick-up systems due to their dimensions and mass inertia.
VLP as an extreme long-playing record
In 1972, the VLP project for the realisation of the product development was started by the "Nat.Lab." (Natuurkundig laboratorium, scientific research laboratory of the Philips group in Eindhoven) to the main industrial group Radio Grammophonef Television (RGT).
The fundamentally impressive idea of contactless optical scanning, combined with the idea of being able to press large amounts of information onto a plastic disc at low cost, prompted Lodewijk "Lou" F. Ottens - since 1972 technical director of this division, which was later renamed the main industrial group Audio - to think about further possible applications of the VLP concept.
For Ottens, who had studied mechanical engineering and had already played a major role in the development and implementation of the globally successful compact cassette at the beginning of the 1960s, an application in the pure audio sector was obvious. The transition to audio technology, however, posed the recursive problem that the long-playing record, which had itself shaped the external appearance of the VLP due to its high acceptance, could not be challenged in return by the introduction of an improved audio medium. In order to avoid a direct competition between the LP and a new type of audio medium, Ottens initially pursued the idea of redesigning the projected VLP system in such a way that it could be used not only for video reproduction but also for pure audio reproduction. The large frequency bandwidth available for video storage could have been exchanged for an extremely long playing time of a narrow-band analogue audio signal. With medium sound quality, this would have made an extreme LP with playing times of up to 48 hours possible.
The idea of redesigning the VLP system, which was being developed in the company's own area of responsibility, in such a way that it could play back picture discs or sound carriers with extremely long playing times, was a challenge of a technical nature.
However, such a concept could not hold its own under the obvious requirement of a consumer electronics company to develop a consumer product that could be sold on a mass scale. On the one hand, the potential market for a sound reproduction system with extremely long playing times was not foreseeable - at best, the niche area of music sprinkling in department stores could have been served with such a product. On the other hand, it could not be in the interest of the record producers to offer a considerable repertoire on only one extreme LP at a comparatively low price. The necessary support of the phonographic industry, whose music programmes only in exceptional cases exceeded the less than one-hour capacity of an LP (large operas, etc.), could not be expected.
Birth of the Compact Disc
The initial idea of simply transferring the VLP concept to the audio sector was doomed to failure because greater importance had been attached to outstanding technology than to the need to design a marketable product. Modern high technology alone would not have been sufficient to sell a product whose utility value was doubtful at best.
The actual breakthrough, which at the same time marks the "birth" of the CD, Ottens only achieved through another mental step, which in 1972 was less obvious than it appears in retrospect. For this, it was necessary to overcome a paradigm that had developed in the course of almost one hundred years in the recording industry: the always unchallenged position of the record as a recorded sound carrier. Its essential functional features had remained the same since Emil Berliner's gramophone of 1887, despite some improvements in detail, for reasons of compatibility. By daring to challenge the supremacy of the LP in order to participate in the large international market of the record with a self-developed, completely incompatible, high-tech product, Ottens created the basis for the development of the compact disc.
In order to survive on the established sound carrier market, it was necessary to make the entire range of musical productions released on vinyl available on the new medium as well. This required a sound carrier whose playing time, in contrast to initial considerations, did not have to exceed one hour.
Based on this premise, Ottens reached the decisive conclusion that was later to give the compact disc its name: instead of storing extremely long music programmes on a large disc, the diameter of the disc could be drastically reduced, or the sound carrier made "compact", with a short playing time.
be made "compact". After the paradigm of the inviolability of the LP had been thoughtfully Ottens was so fascinated by the idea of a compact audio offshoot of the VLP concept that he set up a research group in 1972, initially consisting of only two people, to investigate the technical feasibility of an optically scanned sound carrier system. It was not yet foreseeable that this project, which was initially only in the shadow of the VLP development, would outstrip the VLP itself in the following years. The fact that Ottens, with his preference for consumer-friendly products, only entered a phase of targeted pre-development of the CD when, in contrast to the VLP, which gave the idea, a potential market for the new sound carrier was certain, would later prove to be correct. Another six years of development were necessary for Philips to turn the ambitious VLP project into a product called "LaserVision" by 1978, which was not very successful. The main reason for the low market success of the technically impressive VLP concept was the emergence of home video recorders, which, despite poorer picture quality, offered the attractive possibility of making one's own recordings at a rather lower price.
The nucleus of the CD: ALP and quadraphony
In 1972, the year of the first public presentation of the VLP project, Ottens took advantage of the ambition that had developed in the Nat.Lab. in the field of research into the optical image disc system to also allow his audio disc to benefit from scientific research. To enable synergy effects between science and technology on the one hand and to prevent the Nat.Lab. research from drifting away from his product ideas on the other hand, he placed Toon van Alem, a co-worker of his audio department, at the side of Nat.Lab. researcher Loek Boonstra. In order not to restrict the creativity of the small research team from the outset, Ottens did not give them any concrete instructions: "Just try out a bit what might be possible. Ottens expressed the closeness to the ambitious VLP project by giving this nucleus of research and development of the CD the related name "ALP" - for "Audio Long Play". The cooperation between researchers of the Nat.Lab. and engineers of the main industrial group Audio, which began here, was to develop into the characteristic feature of the compact disc system and decisively shape its conception.
In the early days, Boonstra and van AIem confined themselves to investigating methods of storing sound signals on a converted VLP. It was obvious, although by no means mandatory, to adopt the modulation principle of the VLP. As is common in television technology, various output signals with relatively low bandwidth ("source signals") were offset from each other in the frequency spectrum without overlap by using "frequency modulation methods" to stretch sinusoidal "carrier signals". The reason for this procedure was to be able to read out several source signals as only one broadband signal with the help of a laser beam. However, as a disadvantage, a not inconsiderable increase in the amount of information to be stored had to be accepted, since the bandwidth of the resulting signal was larger than the sum of the bandwidths of the output signals- Specifically, the VLP system involved four or five signals (brightness, two colour and one or two tone signals), which were modulated onto carrier frequencies of 250 kHz (tone), 1 MHz (colour signals) and 4.75 MHz (brightness). In the frequency spectrum of the VLP system shown, the delimited frequency ranges of the different signals are recognisable.
However, although the use of frequency modulation (FM) also led to a mismatch between sound and carrier signal information in the ALP, it was once again a look at the market for sound carrier products that not only dispelled reservations about the use of FM, but even opened up completely new perspectives. For with the possibility of being able to read out several different frequency-modulated sound signals at the same time without any problems, the ALP was virtually predestined for a new type of recording and playback process that seemed to be establishing itself on the basis of the conventional record at the time: quadraphony. This four-channel sound process, with which a more pronounced spatial effect was to be achieved than with the stereo two-channel process, had only been able to be transferred to the record system a year earlier after an experimental phase with multi-track tape recorders and linked radio broadcasts. However, only with great technical effort and compromises in sound quality had it been possible, on the one hand, to store the four-channel information on the record, which was actually only suitable for two independent sound channels, and, on the other hand, to maintain compatibility with the conventional stereo record.
Since ALP, using frequency modulation, proved to be an uncompromising quadrophonic medium, Boonstra and van Alem had the opportunity to adopt not only the modulation method but also the technical components of the VLP system. Although VLP was still in the research and early development stage, the transfer of the still rudimentary VLP technology made it possible to realise a first ALP experimental player with little effort." After the two-member research team had been strengthened in the meantime by two more colleagues, Cor Vos and Jan van der Veerdonk, the construction of the practical experiments could be advanced so far that a first ALP audio record could be played at the end of 1974. For test purposes, it was initially recorded in a single-channel mono version on 15 December 1974 on a special "VLP typewriter" with a laser beam. At that time, Dr. J.B.H. Peek, head of the Nat.Lab. research group for electronic communication systems, had already suggested a fundamental change in the system and a switch to a digital modulation method, but this suggestion could not be taken up for reasons of precaution, so as not to overburden the small research and development team in terms of content and personnel.
On the basis of the calculations and measurements carried out in the following six months, by mid-1975 the boundary conditions under which the ALP seemed feasible had crystallised. The requirement that ALP Quadro records should be played back on a two-channel ALP stereo system in the same way as stereo ALPs on a four-channel ALP system proved to be problematic. Since an adaptation of the playing time to the bandwidth (number of channels) was not feasible within the framework of the intended modulation method (half-hour Quadro programmes or one-hour stereo programmes with the same disc diameter), the consequence was that the storage capacity of an ALP had to be tailored to one-hour Quadro programmes. Keeping the playing time of one hour specified by Ottens and the option of stereo or quadro playback, the necessary disc diameter was calculated to be 20 cm or 7 inches. In the case of stereo programmes, which could also only be stored in one-hour length, about half of the sound carrier capacity remained unused. The resulting large disc diameter did not fulfil Ottens' demand for compactness. In addition, the sound quality also proved to be poor. Microscopic defects on the test records caused a "crackling and popping" sound like that of conventional records.
Phase of innovation (1976 - 1978)
The small-scale ALP project, passionately pursued by technical director Lou F. Ottens, received a boost when Johann "Joop" J.G.Ch. van Tilburg took over as general commercial manager of the main audio industry group of the Philips group in January 1976. As an experienced Philips manager (he had previously managed regional Philips branches in East Africa and India), he created a favourable atmosphere towards innovation with an open mind.
After a short time, Ottens became friends with his colleague at the head of the audio department and finally, in April 1976, initiated him into the project he had been pursuing quietly until then. In the meantime, Ottens had once again pushed ahead with the work on the ALP on his own: The ALP research and development team had returned from the Nat.Lab. to its sphere of influence, the main audio industry group, at the beginning of November 1975 and had been reinforced by electronics specialist J.J. "Hans" Mons.
When van Tilburg was presented with the rudimentary preliminary version of an optical sound recording system in the "back rooms" of his own main industry group in April 1976, he was both surprised and excited. As a non-technically trained businessman, he found the scenario presented to him still very immature: "They had built a system on boards where something was spinning, a 7-inch record." Van Tilburg, however, spontaneously warmed up to the idea of the novel system and promised to lobby for the official development of such a product if some details were changed. He was primarily bothered by the poor sound quality, which was 'better than [the] old shellac records', but not enough to push a new product through. Moreover, the dimensions of the ALP brought back bad memories of vinyl singles (played at 45 rpm). A small Philips single record player called "Mignon" had never been a success ("except in Greece").
In order to avoid unattractive associations, it was therefore necessary, in van Tilburg's view, to make the ALP even smaller. According to his idea, its diameter should not be larger than the diagonal of a compact cassette.
Finally, van Tilburg expressed his displeasure about the naming of the new sound carrier system. He felt that the name "ALP", an abbreviation of the not very meaningful formula "Audio Long Play", as well as the name of the video version that gave it its name, "VLP", were not concise enough. He encouraged his staff to come up with more appropriate and memorable names.
Sound problems
The read-out errors (or noise) that frequently occurred during the playback of early ALPs were caused by mechanical errors on the optical surface and by problems with the exact tracking of the scanning laser wire under the information track to be read out. Following the so-called tracking system of the VLP, in which two additional laser beams slightly offset from the main beam ensured that any deviation from the "course" could be detected and counteracted, only one beam was used in the ALP, which was initially controlled according to the "wobble" method. This caused the laser beam to describe an oscillating zigzag course under the information track (around the ideal track). Accordingly, it was not the stored signal that was read out, but a signal altered by the tracking movements While tracking modulations could literally be overlooked in the playback of VLP image signals, they were perceptible as noise in ALP sound playback.
Even greater problems were caused by errors that occurred during the production of the test ALPs. Since a technically optimised serial pressing of VLPs and ALPs could not yet be carried out, each individual test disc had to be recorded in the Nat.Lab. with considerable effort. If impurities such as dust grains got onto the optical surface, this led to so-called "drop-outs" during playback, i.e. brief interruptions in the sound signal that could be perceived as crackling and popping.
Such problems with slightly defective unique test discs, which accompanied the entire development up to the CD, led to the establishment of a separate optical laboratory in which the nature of the occurring defects could be checked by microscopic means. With the help of this facility, not only could the quality of later error correction procedures be traced, but important knowledge could also be gained regarding the production of CDs. In addition, this laboratory also enabled the optical quality control of CD licensees' pressings after the market launch.
The step towards digital technology
With the sound problems of the ALP, it became clear that the original strategy of adopting as much of the technology of the VLP as possible could not be pursued. Due to the frequency modulation method used, the sound signals to be stored - modulated on carrier signals - were virtually in pure form on the record. As with conventional records, any error, no matter how small, in the reading of the sound information inevitably led to a distortion of the sound signal. This "analogy" between the quality of the read-out process and the quality of the sound signal later reproduced posed an insurmountable problem. Since neither errors on the storage surface of the sound carrier could be eliminated nor signal fluctuations caused by tracking movements could be avoided, it was not possible to improve the sound quality of the ALP significantly with the analogue method of frequency modulation.
Lorend Vries, a member of Peek's group "Distribution Systems and Fundamental Aspects", had already tried to develop an analogue method for the correction of large-scale errors on the plate surface of the ALP (so-called "burst" errors) and in this context had already carried out first studies on a "digital version of the ALP" in the first quarter of 1976. With the adoption of these concepts from Vries, the ALP completed the step from analogue to digital medium. This meant that the sound signals would no longer be stored on the disc in modulated, analogue pure form, but as coded information. Such coding, in which the sound oscillations to be digitised are analysed and converted into symbols, had the fundamental advantage that symbols (e.g. numbers), in contrast to continuous signals, could be transmitted and stored without errors even under unfavourable conditions (e.g. noisy lines). In addition, the use of numerical values opened up the possibility of applying mathematical procedures with which the occurrence of read-out errors could be detected.
In taking this step towards digital technology, the ALP developers were able to draw on experience gained at the Nat.Lab. in Eindhoven in the development of digital communication and data storage systems. The initially applied method of "delta modulation", which has the advantage of relatively small amounts of data, could not meet the high demands placed on a digital ALP version. As listening tests showed, delta modulation virtually eliminated all analogue interference effects such as noise and crackling, but it created new, more serious problems with loud, high-frequency sound signals. Due to the weakness of delta modulation in capturing large signal changes (the reproduction of a flute duet was perceived as "terrible"), another form of digital coding was used, which was to become an essential feature of the compact disc and spur further development: "pulse code modulation" (PCM).
Pulse code modulation" (PCM)
Compared to delta modulation, the linear PCM process represents a digitisation method with a high sound quality, but with large amounts of data. The analogue sound oscillations are meticulously measured at regular time intervals.
The results of these measurements, which are carried out more than forty thousand times per second for each sound channel, are displayed as 14- to 16-digit dual numbers, regardless of whether the sound signal has changed in the meantime or not. With this wealth of data, the original sound signal is precisely documented and can even be reconstructed from neighbouring measurements in the event of a momentary failure of PCM data.
In view of the unavoidable surface defects in the production of ALPs, the use of a digital process that offered the possibility of concealing readout errors made sense. However, the amount of information to be stored was problematic. The two demands, on the one hand to reduce the diameter of the ALP and on the other hand to enable the storage of one-hour quadraphonic programmes, could not be maintained when using PCM. Again, it was strategic market considerations that led to the option of quadraphonic recording being pushed into the background in favour of smaller dimensions. Ultimately, a compact ALP, introduced as a potential competitor to the record in a large, established market for stereo repertoire, could be given greater chances than a larger-format Quadro-ALP, with which initially only a small, exotic quadraphonic market could have been reached.
Market Considerations
In the course of 1977, it became clear that the ALP project could not continue to operate in the shadow of the VLP. The technical relationship between the ALP and the VLP had been broken at the latest by the move to digital technology. But other planned changes to the VLP also led to an increasing independence of the ALP project: in addition to more compact dimensions of the disc, these included considerations from the years before to replace the gas laser of the VLP with a smaller semiconductor laser in order to be able to construct an equally compact player in this way.
The ALP project had reached a stage where the previous research and development capacities were no longer sufficient to pursue the ambitious technical goals. In order to ensure consistent further development, it was necessary to transfer ALP, which had been financed with relatively small funds from the main audio industry group, from the phase of preliminary development to that of broad-based product development supported by the Philips group. It was questionable whether the later market opportunities of the ALP would justify such a step, which was associated with high costs. Ottens feared that the unforeseeable level of ALP development costs would negatively influence decisions in the responsible "Programme Committee" in case of doubt. He therefore tried to determine the profitability of such expenditure in a different way.
Instead of weighing probable development costs in relation to later achievable sales figures, Ottens focused his considerations on the possible costs of an ALP playback device. If ALP players were later produced in large quantities, any development costs would have only a negligible influence on the price of the device and thus on the market chances - the decisive factor would be the material costs resulting from the amount of material used. This approach was later incorporated into the first of two basic principles that Ottens established at the end of his 30-year career:
Law of consumer electronics (lightweight)
If an electronic device is produced in correspondingly large quantities, the production price converges against the material costs. Since the specific material costs are usually low when base metals, plastics and silicon are used, the absolute material costs depend mainly on the quantity of material used - light devices are therefore cheaper than heavy ones. Labour and development costs are always limited and have a decreasing influence as the number of units increases.
In concrete terms, this meant that it had to be estimated how low the material costs or the amount of material could be kept for a mass-produced ALP player. Apart from the relatively reliably estimable quantities for the mechanical part of the device (housing, operating elements, etc.), electronics and optics represented uncertain areas.
Neither was it known how large the electronic circuits would be, nor was it certain how and with what effort these circuits, initially realised with standard components for test purposes, could be converted into special integrated circuits (IC). Ottens approached the sought-after material costs of the later ICs by means of a statistical extrapolation procedure. After the CD development group had roughly estimated how many transistor functions the complete ALP electronics would comprise, Ottens continued with statistics on the production of ICs, from which clearly recognisable tendencies towards increasing integration densities and decreasing production and processing costs per unit area of the IC carrier material silicon could be read, taking into account the expected development time. In this way, he determined material costs for electronics that were far below the ideas that would have been considered realistic without the extrapolation over time of the IC costs, which were in a state of flux.
A particular problem with the optics was the lack of knowledge about the possible later manufacturing costs of a semiconductor laser, which had already been firmly planned as a replacement for the VLP's gas laser, but was also only available on the world market in the form of expensive prototypes due to a lack of market maturity. However, in keeping with his later "first law", Ottens also estimated the manufacturing costs of this exotic component: "[...] once you can make a solid-state laser, it is only such a small drop of material; thus it cannot be expensive. There is nothing about it that is really expensive."
The necessary lens optics, which had to be placed upstream of the laser to focus the beam, also caused non-negligible costs in Otten's calculations in the design initially proposed by Rodenstock as a multi-lens microscope objective. Again, it was a proposal of the research laboratory to replace the spherical glass lenses, i.e. ground as segments of a spherical surface, with a single aspherical lens with a constantly changing surface curvature. If such lenses were produced in high-precision injection moulds made of plastic, they could not only represent an almost negligible cost factor in subsequent mass production, but also enable easier focusing due to lower weight.
After Ottens had, with some optimism, compiled the costs of all the components that were absolutely necessary, it emerged that it might be possible to produce an ALP player for about 150 guilders if the appropriate quantities were manufactured. With this vision of an attractive and affordable product, which seemed appealing even to the Philips Programme Committee, Ottens succeeded in transferring his small-scale project, which had been passionately pursued for a long time, to the status of official product development. After a presentation of the research results to date to the Philips board of directors in November 1977, the starting shot was fired for the CD development.
Coordination and cooperation (1978 - 1980) - CD Lab and Marketing
With the start of official development, Joop J.G.Ch. van Tilburg, who in the meantime had been promoted to sole general manager of the main audio industry group due to a change in the organisational structure of the Philips Group, saw a rare opportunity to pursue technical product development and preparatory considerations for market launch at the same time. "Not {...} that you have the product first and then {...} start thinking about how to market it."
One of the first marketing activities was to determine a product name. Van Tilburg (as a non-technician) had always seen the compact dimensions as the most accessible advantage of the new type of sound carrier for everyone - other advantages such as optical laser scanning and the digital coding, which was completely new for consumer applications, required a more detailed explanation. Accordingly, he himself had gladly replaced the unloved designation "ALP" with "Compact Disc", in reference to the extremely successful "Compact Cassette" also developed by Philips. Although other suggestions put forward by his employees, such as "Laser Disc", "Minirack", "Mini Disc" or "Compact Rack", van Tilburg ultimately stuck to his first suggestion.
On the organisational side, the start of product development was reflected in the founding of a separate compact disc laboratory, "CD-Lab" for short, and the increase in staff. The head of this department of the main audio industry group, founded at the beginning of 1978, was Joop P. Sinjou, who had previously supervised a sub-department of the VLP project. The task of this lab was to construct a first prototype of a compact disc player, which was not only to serve as the basis for the entire technical product development, but also had to be appealing externally so that it could be shown at demonstrations as a model for later products.
Compact Disc and Pinkeltje
In order to meet the two requirements of technical expandability and visual appeal, Sinjou divided the CD playback system into two sections. The electronics, which were initially extensive because they had to be realised with discrete components, were built into a frame in the format of a table. On this "table", a small metal player was placed, which, apart from all the necessary operating elements, mainly contained the mechanical disc drive with the optical read-out device.
During demonstrations - not only for aesthetic reasons - a cloth could be draped over the table frame, often referred to as a "cubic metre of electronics", so that the impression was created that the mechanical drive alone was the fully permanent playback device. Since the advantageous division into two parts thus made it possible to make the playback unit look like the later product, all external specifications could and had to be determined from the beginning.
The most important external specification of the compact disc player was initially to determine the appearance of the sound carrier to be played. The first compact discs themselves were recorded on both sides, in a similar way to the now reproducible plastic VLPs, or were composed of two individually manufactured sides, in order to be protected against moisture-induced warping by a symmetrical construction. Due to the double-sidedness, it was theoretically possible to reduce the panel diameter to only 10 cm, given a playing time of one hour.
However, attaching a still legible content label around the axle hole on both sides of such a small disc would have meant that only a relatively narrow outer strip could have been used for sound information. By increasing the diameter of the disc only slightly to the diagonal of a compact cassette of 11.5 cm, which van Tilburg had already demanded, it was possible to increase the recordable area considerably. Instead of having to turn over a 10 cm disc after a maximum of 30 minutes, with an 11.5 cm CD it was possible, at least theoretically, to achieve a playing time of 60 minutes per side.
The decision in favour of a diameter of 11.5 cm was ultimately accompanied by the idea of being able to produce CDs later as single-sided pressed and thus more cost-effective sound carriers instead of using a sandwich construction. The option of constructing CD players for cars at a later date could still be kept open with a diameter of 11.5 cm.
A complete CD drive the size of a standardised car radio slot was still out of the question, but the CD itself fitted in. Despite the anticipated possibility of pressing CDs on one side, which was later achieved through the transition from polymethacrylate (acrylic glass) to polycarbonate as the carrier material for the sound carriers, due to PolyGram, it was not foreseeable at that time that a complete CD drive could be produced.
At that time, it was not yet foreseeable that it would also be possible to do without an axle-hole label and instead print the CD's contents on the whole side. Otherwise, the CD's axle hole diameter of 15 mm, which was designed for label application and later standardised, would have been enlarged even further in order to facilitate its handling - especially with regard to automatic CD changers.
"Johanna", "Kidogo" and "Pinkeltje"
The initial appearance of the double-sided, silvery reflecting compact disc influenced the exterior of the player. As with the VLP player, the idea had developed that a sound carrier visible from the outside during playback would illustrate the novelty of the system and, through its literal transparency, simplify access to the unknown technology. Accordingly, the mechanical test drive was designed as a "top loader". A top-opening flap with a viewing window for changing the compact discs was an essential design element of a graceful, desk-shaped housing made of aluminium. This unit, which was deliberately kept small with a view to later demonstrations, was given a nickname, just like all the analogue and digital test units before it. After "Johanna" and "Kidogo" for the previously used ALP laboratory devices, the new development and demonstration drive was internally christened "Pinkel" or "Pinkeltje" (after a dwarf figure from a Dutch fairy tale).
Audio sample
In view of the fact that in the meantime other companies had begun to develop audio versions of various picture disc systems, van Tilburg, Ottens and Sinjou agreed that it would be of decisive importance for the further development of the Compact Disc to strive for a world standard. Since the Compact Disc was not a stand-alone product that could be introduced to the market by Philips at will, but a system of player and sound carrier, the support of the phonographic industry was a necessary prerequisite for the success of the product'.
Without the willingness of music publishers and recording companies to release the repertoire under contract with them on a new type of recording medium, a CD technology, no matter how sophisticated, would have been doomed to failure in the market. Unlike video recorders, where the possibility of making one's own recordings meant that several different systems were able to hold their own on the market for a time, the introduction of several new recording systems was not to be expected in view of the complete dependence on prefabricated music software. Later, it would even prove difficult to persuade the phonographic industry to accept a second sound carrier besides the record.
In order to exploit the developmental advantage of the compact disc system over other methods, the "Pinketje" prototype was used for demonstrations shortly after it became operational in autumn 1978.
Although it would take until March 1979 for the Nat.Lab developers of the error correction and concealment system Lorend Vries and his assistant Theo Diepeveen to improve the circuits they had developed in such a way that audible clicking noises ("tictic") could be eliminated, even early listening tests led to remarkable reactions. Knowing full well that the Japanese consumer electronics company Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (MEI) was itself working on an audio version of the VHD ("Video High Density") system under the brand name JVC (Victor Company of Japan), a demonstration of the Compact Disc had been arranged on the fringes of a contract signing with Matsushita in Eindhoven, at which founder and senior boss Konosuke Matsushita himself wanted to be present.
Nico Rodenburg, who as President of the Philips Group was only aware of the development of the Compact Disc but did not know any details, had the recording system demonstrated to him before the Japanese delegation arrived and reacted with enthusiasm. Later, when Matsushita himself witnessed one of the first CD demonstrations, he initially showed no emotion. It was only when the "Pinkeltje" player was unveiled after the demonstration and the small sound carrier was presented that he suddenly emitted a soft, long hissing sound. Lou Ottens, who had known Matsushita since negotiations for the compact cassette in 1965, remembers with pride this "maximum sign of emotion" for a Japanese:
"He took the green cloth from the little machine and he took the disc out of it, and the old Matsushita said: "Tssssssssss!!!" For a Japanese this is the absolute maximum [...] sign of emotion that exists... I still see him do it. I never saw it before that a Japanese... They were absolutely flabbergasted!"
Lou F. Ottens saw these reactions as confirmation that the basic specifications for the compact disc system had been chosen correctly. As a kind of substitute for a market analysis, he had realised that the CD would also find its buyers on the market. Later Ottens formulated the reasons which, in his opinion, made the compact disc particularly attractive and generalised them into another principle of consumer electronics:
law of consumer electronics (conditions for success)
A novel product will be able to displace an established standard if at least two of the following five conditions are met:
- Miniaturisation (reduction in size of a product or an essential component)
- Substantial reduction in energy consumption (independence from the power supply network)
- Simpler operation (e.g. from cryptic computer operation to graphical user interface)
- Increase in performance (e.g. improved sound quality of the compact disc)
- Lower price (e.g. the "computer age", triggered by affordable PCs)
Presentations
In addition to the choice of suitable technical product specifications, it was necessary to overcome three hurdles of a strategic market nature in order to successfully introduce the compact disc. These were various, partly conflicting interests, without whose mutual coordination the implementation of the CD system could not be guaranteed. On the one hand, there was a strong interest on the part of competing manufacturers to establish their own audio versions of their picture disc systems on the market in order to amortise the research and development investments made. This product diversity was countered by the fundamental interest of consumers not to jeopardise the long-term value of their own record collections by changing systems or by a variety of incompatible systems. Furthermore, it had to be in the interest of the Philips group to mobilise all the forces at its disposal to make the promising Compact Disc Digital Audio System the sole world standard and to win as many competitors as possible as licensees.
Further demonstrations of the Compact Disc prototype were coordinated with these three different goals. Within the group, demonstrations were organised for the Philips board in Eindhoven, for the international Philips top management at its annual meeting in Ouchy near Lausannes and for the group subsidiary PolyGram in Baarn, the Netherlands. To prepare potential buyers for the CD, the international press was invited to a CD demonstration followed by a press conference in Eindhoven on 8 March 1979. Finally, only a few days later, the entire compact disc technology was taken on a week-long trip to Japan to promote the development to all the important Japanese consumer electronics companies.
Since all demonstrations could be of utmost importance for the future of the CD project, special precautions had been taken to exclude a failure of the system during a demonstration. Several identical versions of the "cubic metre" electronics as well as the "Pinkeltje" player and the test CDs had been made and were always ready for demonstrations. Before each demonstration, the prototypes were also recalibrated in order to avoid disturbances caused by transport or climatic changes. Due to these precautions, practically all presentations of the compact disc system could be carried out without technical malfunctions. The only functional failure, which, however, was not due to faults in the playback unit, occurred during a demonstration of the CD in Munich before the boards of Philips and Siemens as shareholders of PolyGram. The demonstration of the CD's insensitivity to fingerprints, intended by Philips president Nico Rodenburg, failed because the sound carrier handed around in the auditorium could no longer be played during the subsequent demonstration. However, Hans Mons, who was monitoring the function of the playback electronics during the presentation, was able to overcome the weakness of the not yet fully developed CD system with regard to contamination of the optical disc by manually cleaning the read-out surface.
Competition and cooperation: the trip to Japan
Philips behaved with great self-confidence in the face of the emergence of competing recording projects. It is true that the specifications of other digital audio offshoots of picture disc systems - such as AEG-Telefunken's "Mini-Disk" or JVC's "AHD" ("Audio High Density") system as well as proposals from Hitachi, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Sannoy, Sharp, Sony, TEAC and Toshiba - were carefully noted by Joop P. Sinjou, the head of the CD laboratory. But convinced that the Compact Disc could stand up to any comparison, none of the competing systems ever influenced the development of the CD in terms of its technical parameters.
Despite the promising technology of the compact disc system, the emergence of competition between different systems created the danger that a sound carrier system that was technically inferior to the CD would prevail on a later market. For example, due to the market volume generated by numerous licensees, JVC's "VHS" system had already been able to prevail over Sony's "Betamax" system, which was not only of higher quality but also available on the market earlier. The situation, which was already unpleasant for Philips due to the confusing multitude of announced competing products, was exacerbated by the interference of the Japanese MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry).
It initiated the establishment of a "Digital Audio Disk Standardisation Conference" ("DAD") in September 1978, the aim of which was to "facilitate the exchange of various opinions concerning the standardisation of digital audio disks and to work out appropriate standard specifications". In order to make this undertaking, which from the Dutch point of view was questionable, work out in favour of the compact disc, Philips decided to take a strategic step which in retrospect was to prove essential for the market success of the CD, namely to cooperate with a Japanese competitor.
In view of the fact that the Compact Disc was an almost finished concept (J.J.G.Ch. van Tilburg estimated that 80% of the total development effort had already been made at that time'), such a cooperation meant first and foremost the surrender of all research and development results. On the other hand, with an influential Japanese cooperation partner, the position of the Compact Disc could be strengthened against competing systems and - not least before the DAD conference - greater influence could be exerted on the implementation of the CD as a world standard.
Moreover, it could not be ruled out that such a compromise between giving away knowledge and securing market opportunities would also open up the possibility of profiting from the experience of the cooperation partner.
To initiate Dutch-Japanese cooperation, Philips arranged demonstration dates with various companies and institutions in Japan. This procedure, which was more time-consuming than inviting Japanese delegations to Eindhoven, was intended to send a signal of courtesy and self-assurance, a combination of virtues appreciated in Japan. For this purpose, cubic metres of sensitive, hand-wired electronics had to be shipped literally halfway around the world to enable a comfortable demonstration to potential cooperation partners in an environment of their choice.
The Japan trip of the Compact Disc and its creators, which took place from 14 to 23 March 1979, thus represents a "diplomatic" highlight of CD development. The eight-member Dutch delegation, including J.J.G.Ch. van Tilburg as director of the main audio industry group, L.F. Ottens as technical director, J.P. Sinjou as head of the CD laboratory and J.J. Mons as the specialist responsible for electronics, had to complete a packed programme with a total of nine demonstrations on six demonstration days.
Even the transport of all the equipment proved to be an unusual undertaking. In order not to lose sight of the extremely valuable prototypes, the entire technology, including two identical "cubic-metre" electronics and four Pinkeltjer drives, travelled - to the astonishment of the aircraft crew - to Tokyo in the first-class passenger cabin alongside the Philips delegation.
A grotesque situation arose when declaring the "value" of the imported equipment to Japanese customs. In order not to attract unnecessary attention despite the unusual "hand luggage", the most expensive equipment was a frequency counter from Swedish production with a value of 2,500 guilders, followed by Japanese (!) measuring instruments with 1,300 and 1,200 guilders. The prototypes were declared as individual components, whose value ranged from 200 to 1,000 guilders. Although the hand-made prototypes actually represented values in the millions, according to this information the cost of a demonstration unit, consisting of "Pinkeltje" and one cubic metre of servo, decoding and error correction electronics, amounted to 2,600 guilders, hardly more than the price of a later CD player when it was launched.
Highlights of the series of demonstrations were CD demonstrations performed in front of the desired candidates for cooperation. These were, in chronological order, NC, Sony, Pioneer, Hitachi and MEI (Matsushita). In addition, for tactical reasons, a demonstration was scheduled before the DAD conference, in addition to a press demonstration, to showcase the performance and advanced stage of development. The aim was to demonstrate the performance and advanced development of the CD compared to other systems.
As the Philips delegation had expected, the negotiations during the demonstrations were extremely tough. Although the demonstrations themselves went off without a hitch', the discussions that followed required a great deal of patience and diplomatic skill. Because all the Japanese hosts were very friendly in their dealings, but practically unimpressed by the matter, the talks proceeded in a restrained atmosphere.
The negotiations were further complicated by the fact that all statements made by the Dutch delegation in English were translated into Japanese, an extremely lengthy and often unnecessary procedure, but one that the Japanese hosts were happy to take advantage of. These "talks", which from a Western point of view seemed very hesitant anyway, came to an open-ended conclusion. Although Joop van Tilburg, as head of the negotiations, made each company an offer to develop the compact disc to market maturity together with them, in no case was such an offer reciprocated with concrete interest.
Aware that decisions of great consequence are not made spontaneously in Japan, but rather with deliberation, van Tilburg did not seriously expect to receive a response to his offer while still in Japan. But literally at the last minute before returning to Europe, van Tilburg, who was busy packing his suitcase, received the decisive phone call. Akio Morita, co-founder and president of Sony, told the surprised van Tilburg that he had decided, in consultation with his board, to work with Philips. Norio Ohga would come to Eindhoven as Sony's vice-president to clarify the contractual details.
Joop van Tilburg, who was aware of the Japanese tradition of the binding nature of oral promises in general and the trustworthiness of Akio Morita in particular, who often operated by telephone, was finally able to bring home the news of the success of the trip to Japan. Philips had found in Sony (incidentally, one of the two favoured candidates along with Matsushita) an almost ideal cooperation partner who was to contribute considerably to the later success of the compact disc.
Sony - an experienced partner
The efforts to find a Japanese cooperation partner came at a time of general disorientation with regard to the emerging digital audio technology. Philips itself had only been able to gain relevant experience in the field of communications technology and, with the compact disc, was for the first time endeavouring to create a high-quality application in terms of sound quality. Other manufacturers, mainly Japanese, had already brought the first digital studio recorders to production readiness around 1978, despite great difficulties in agreeing on a common digital standard. Sony, for example, had based digital audio recorders on the "U-matic'' and "Betamax'' video recorder systems they had developed themselves. Due to the high sales figures of the basic devices, video recorders that had been misappropriated in this way became established as inexpensive digital audio recorders and, despite correspondingly skewed digital parameters, influenced the entire digital audio technology, including the CD.
In addition to the work on digital studio recorders and parallel to the product development of the compact disc at Philips, other companies had also started to announce audio versions of their video disc player systems. Of particular importance was the work at AEG-Telefunken on a digital offshoot of the "TED" picture disc system called Mini-Disk. With a planned diameter of 13.5 cm, this relatively compact disc was to be scanned mechanically via a piezo pick-up rather than optically. JVC, a subsidiary of the Japanese Matsushita group, developed an audio carrier I called AHD ("Audio High Density") on the basis of the VHD ("Video High Density") picture disc system. This sound carrier, which was compatible with the picture disc and could be played on corresponding picture disc players, worked with another different scanning method, namely with an electro-capacitive sensor on a grooveless disc. The AHD3, which was only announced by JVC shortly after the Philips delegation's trip to Japan, was later to become the later become the most important opponent of the CD at the DAD conference.
Sony had also begun developing its own digital sound carrier system, but unlike the mini-disc and the AHD, it was not oriented towards picture record players. The "Long- Play Digital Audio Disk System", developed since the mid-1970s and presented at the 62nd convention of the Audio Engineering Society in March 1979, had been conceived as a pure audio carrier system; both the disk size and the design of the player had been adopted from the conventional record system.
Remarkably, this development, which was later abandoned in favour of the compact disc, had one essential feature in common with the CD, namely the non-contact reading of information by a laser, but in this case a gas laser.
With its previous achievements in the digital field and its fundamental interest in the development of a digital, optically sampled sound carrier system, Sony was an ideal partner for Philips. Thus the weaknesses of the Sony development, which Toshi Tada Doi, as the expert responsible for digital audio electronics, saw in the 150-minute playing time, "which could prove unnecessary from the [music] software point of view", could be avoided by the transition to the conceptually mature Compact Disc system, because it was planned as a marketable consumer product.
On the other hand, the compact disc, whose weakness lay in digital signal processing - especially error correction - could profit from Sony's extensive experience. Sony and Philips complemented each other to form a development team that was competent in all areas and ambitious with regard to the implementation of a new type of digital, optically scanned sound carrier.
Technical cooperation - changes in content
After Norio Ohga, as vice-president of Sony, had concluded a cooperation agreement with Joop van Tilburg in Eindhoven a few weeks after the CD group's trip to Japan, intensive cooperation in the technical field began in August 1979. In order to work out the specifications of the CD in detail, Philips and Sony engineers met at regular intervals, alternately in Tokyo and Eindhoven, until a common standard was adopted in June 1980.
The aim of the cooperation was not to design concrete technical components, but rather to find boundary conditions which, taking into account what was technically possible and what was qualitatively and conceptually necessary, would also allow any subsequent licensee to develop the technology of a compact disc player independently. Since the talks were primarily aimed at reaching fundamental agreements, with concrete detailed technical solutions taking a back seat, the cooperation between Sony and Philips took place in a good, unusually collegial atmosphere. During months of commuting, personal friendships developed between the Japanese and Dutch engineers involved, creating a "family" atmosphere between the Sony and Philips staff.
The meetings of Sony and Philips engineers, which were very concentrated and in retrospect proved to be extremely fruitful, began with reports from both parties on the preliminary work and experience that could be brought into the compact disc system. The basic concept of the compact disc, designed for high market acceptance, was kept unchanged. Only behind the façade of the consumer product were some considerable technical improvements made. For example, the error correction system developed by Philips for the prototype had to give way to a completely different procedure in order to be able to detect and suppress unavoidable read-out errors more reliably. The problem with the "convolutional code" procedure originally developed by Philips was that those read-out errors which could not be detected and corrected with the help of additional redundancy information stored on the CD were carried over the piece of music as unrecognised errors. In addition to immediate sound distortions, this had the consequence that further detected errors could not be corrected due to the propagating undetected errors, but had to be masked by briefly fading out the music signal and thus made inaudible. Since the frequency with which this so-called "muting" procedure was used seemed too high - especially in view of the later use of the CD as a data storage medium - Sony demanded the transition to another error detection and correction procedure. The finally agreed "CIRC" process: benefited above all from the experience Sony had already gained in professional digital audio technology.
Also influenced by the development of digital studio recording machines was Sony's demand to increase the accuracy of the digital resolution - the so-called "quantisation" - from 14 to 16 bits for the consumer sector as well. This step, which had to be paid for with more expensive "converters" between analogue and digital audio signals, reduced the "quantisation noise" that always occurs with digital recordings. The setting of the quantisation resolution to 16 bits (besides the sampling rate, the quantisation resolution is an important parameter of digital audio technology) later had a standardising effect on digital audio technology worldwide under the name "CD quality".
While a consensus between the cooperation partners had to be reached first and foremost in the fixing of digital parameters and the elaboration of mathematical error correction procedures, the still missing market maturity of the absolutely necessary semiconductor laser confronted the CD development team with fundamental problems. Although such components were only available on the market in selected small series or laboratory models, a suitable type had to be selected from various alternatives, to whose properties (especially wavelength) further CD specifications could be matched. From the point of view of a desired minimum lifetime, which could also be achieved under large-scale production conditions, such a decision proved to be extremely difficult, since it was not possible to check the lifetime of the new components in "real time". It was only years after the start of production of the CD that it became clear that the choice of the AlGaAs semiconductor laser had been the right one; other alternatives turned out to be less durable.
Overall, the CD standardization negotiations developed in such a way that Philips was primarily challenged in the optical field due to its own experience with laser scanning of the VLP and ongoing research work on laser diodes, readout optics, beam path and servomechanics. Sony, on the other hand, contributed experience with digital studio recording equipment, shaping the concept of digital electronics. For example, the error correction procedures necessary to detect, correct and conceal readout errors were shaped by work contributed by Sony.
Extending the playing time of a CD
Only at one point in the collaboration did Philips have to make a concession to Sony that was incompatible with the original concept of the CD. Norio Ohga's wish during the negotiations to extend the playing time of the compact disc collided with the demand for compactness that gave the disc its name. The maximum playing time of 60 minutes aimed for up to that point had been agreed with a view to the usual length of music programs. At 60 minutes, the CD exceeded the maximum playing time of a densely written, double-sided LP by a few minutes and was thus able to accommodate all the "long play" programs already available on vinyl, with which the German recording industry, for example, generates about 90% of its sales. Moreover, experience showed that music programs for a playing time of just under one hour could be produced by artists in exactly one year; corresponding contracts between record producers and artists are still customary in the industry. Considering the fact that every additional minute of playing time on the CD had to be bought with an increase in its diameter, there seemed to be nothing to be said against a 60-minute compact disc. Sony had also made a name for itself with compact devices, although not in the precursor development of an optical digital disc, which it had abandoned in favor of the CD. After all, Sony had achieved the real breakthrough in 1957 with a "pocket" transistor radio, for which the aspect of compactness was considered so important (at least as an advertising argument) that sales representatives were made shirts with slightly enlarged pockets into which the device could be inserted for advertising purposes.
Nevertheless, Norio Ohga urged Joop van Tilburg, who had become a friend in the meantime, to extend the playing time of the compact disc to over 74 minutes and to increase the diameter accordingly by 5 millimeters to 12 cm. The reason for Ohga's request lay in his education. Despite his early personal contacts with company founder Akio Morita, who had met Ohga as an interested physics student at Tokyo University and had wanted him to join the Sony "family," he initially trained as an opera singer in Berlin. Like his wife, a trained concert pianist, Ohga was a connoisseur and lover of classical music. This passion was the reason for his request to extend the playing time of the CD in such a way that a special classical work could be pressed for the first time in full length on only one sound carrier - this was the ninth symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Although this request did not meet with undivided approval from the compactness-minded Philips engineers, it seemed so justified in view of the fact that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony enjoys great popularity in Japan in general that it could not be refused to the vice president of Sony , especially since the necessary extension of the playing time amounted to only a few minutes. For Ohga's preferred interpretation of the work, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan needed hardly more than 66 minutes. However, in order to give other conductors the opportunity to perform Beethoven's Ninth in a less hurried manner, after PolyGram verified the longest known playing time of this work, the possible playing time of the compact disc was extended from 60 to more than 74 minutes.
At the end of the negotiations, in June 1980, a set of technical specifications was laid down in a "Red Book" named after Sinjou's favorite color. They included all the information that was absolutely necessary as a basic framework to ensure compatibility between (audio) compact discs and the corresponding playback devices. Concrete construction details of the players, however, were not standardized. In order to encourage later licensees to implement their own technical solutions and to ensure a head start in know-how in this way, there was no need for standardization of the readout optics and servomechanics, which are subject to constant technical progress anyway, or of peripheral or dispensable system components such as the "jewel box" commonly used for CD storage.
End of the DAD Standardization Conference
One goal that the cooperation partners Philips and Sony had set themselves was the introduction of final CD specifications into the negotiations of the Digital Audio Disk (DAD) Standardization Conference and its committees and working groups. This organization, initiated by the Japanese MITI and initially founded in September 1978 by 29 consumer electronics and music software companies, pursued the goal of discussing the standardization of a future digital audio disk. However, the ambitious plan to incorporate the interests of the numerous participants (by 1981 their number had grown to 50) into a single common standard was to prove impracticable. The target specifications adopted at the end of 1979 already reflected the lack of consensus even on fundamental issues. Apart from the then conspicuously environmentally conscious demand for the recyclability of the record material, it was largely unclear what process should be used to sample a digital audio record, whether the continued use of conventional record pressing machines and players should be specified, whether compatibility between the digital audio record and the analog video record should be allowed or even required, whether stereo or four-channel signals should be stored on a DAD, and what diameter the record should have.
Although Philips had already started thinking about this years earlier and a fundamental change in the specifications of the CD could not be seriously considered, Philips took part in the obligatory DAD event, not least in order to exert a trend-setting influence on the standardization process with the developmental lead of the CD. In fact, at the latest in the course of the cooperation with Sony, Philips succeeded in taking one of the top places in the Japanese competition of digital disc proposals with the Compact Disc Digital Audio System. Together with two other systems, the AHD system developed by the Japanese Matsushita Group or its subsidiary JVC and the German Mini-Disk System (MD) from AEG-Telefunken, the Compact Disc reached the final round of the DAD elimination in 1980. However, since the DAD Standardization Conference was unable to make any further selections, all that could be determined during the final meeting on April 10, 1981 was a stalemate between the three systems - after which the DAD conference ceased its activities.
Despite this seemingly open end and the sobering recommendation that each DAD participant should choose from the three proposals himself, the CD can easily be identified as the real winner among the three systems. Thus, in contrast to the audio-oriented Compact Disc and Mini-Disk systems, JVC's AHD system, which was compatible with JVC's VHD picture disc system and thus represented a technical compromise, was viewed critically by the participating audio engineers. In addition, it was unmistakable that "great interest" in the CD and AHD systems had been expressed in the context of DAD negotiating activities, but that no one had participated in the working group meetings around the MD. Another indication that the CD was unofficially traded in first place was the order in which the three proposed systems were mentioned in the meeting minutes. namely, Philips' and Sony's compact disc in first place, followed by AEG-Telefunkenffeldec's mini-disc system and JVC's AHD system in last place.
Final spurt (1980 - 1982)
Even before the pending (though ultimately never successful) nomination of an internationally recognized digital sound storage system by the DAD Standardization Conference, Philips and Sony confidently launched the final phase of compact disc development in 1980, namely the transfer of the system from laboratory scale to industrial mass production. With the definition of the specifications in June 1980, the cooperation between Philips and Sony was loosened as agreed, and both companies devoted themselves separately to the concrete technical implementation of the CD system in a consumer product. Further joint development of the technology was dispensed with, on the one hand, in order to keep the amount of technical know-how to be exchanged low; on the other hand, the later availability of various technical versions ensured a selection customary in the market.
As the responsible laboratory manager, Joop Sinjou had already drawn up a project plan for Philips in January 1980, in which all the important stages were listed that had to be gone through until the compact disc system was ready for series production and the production facilities were prepared. In agreement with Sony, Sinjou had planned a period of about three years (early 1983) until the market launch of the CD. During this time, the electronic circuits on the player side, which had a volume of about one cubic meter due to their structure with discrete components, had to be divided into several "integrated circuits" (ICs). "Integrated Circuits" ("ICs") with an area of only a few square centimeters. In addition, it was necessary to modify the precision mechanical and optical components of the player, which had previously been manufactured by hand as individual pieces, in such a way that they were suitable for mass production with the aid of tools that also had to be developed. Finally, in order to be able to supply the players with the appropriate "software" at a later date, it was necessary to have sufficiently high production capacities for CD sound carriers available in good time. Completely new pressing plants, some of them working under clean room conditions, had to be planned and built.
The problem with such coordination activities, which can be described as "program management", is the strategically targeted planning of a system consisting of various product components and production facilities in such a way that the necessary interim results (e.g. finished ICs) are available at the right time and can be introduced into the further development process without delay. Similar to Sony, for Philips the adherence to such a complex plan resulted in the start-up of a machinery of activities and investments. If the discontinuation of the CD project by mid-1980 had been financially bearable, the discontinuation of the industrial preparations that now followed would have had a sensitive economic impact. Sony and Philips thus deliberately ignored the pending decision of the DAD Standardization Conference and rather took advantage of the lack of consensus of this institution to make a later vote against the CD absurd by creating facts. The technical debate gave way to strategic economic considerations.
Partners and competitors
The mood between the cooperation partners Philips and Sony also changed noticeably in the final phase of CD development. While Joop Sinjou had felt a "familie" between the engineers involved during the development of the joint CD specifications, the partners subsequently developed more and more into competitors - until the market launch, the feeling of togetherness returned only sporadically, for example on the occasion of jointly organized press conferences.
A prime example of the split relationship between the two consumer electronics groups was the development of the ICs for the first-generation compact disc players. To ensure a simultaneous market launch of the CD players from both companies, an agreement had been reached that allowed each cooperation partner to fall back on the ICs of the other if problems arose during the labor-intensive and error-prone integration of the electronic circuits. In order to make interchangeability possible in principle, a minimum of technical details had to be disclosed in addition to the pure CD specifications, showing what purpose the ICs fulfilled in detail and how they interacted with their electronic environment. Each of the parties thus believed that they were aware of the integration activities of the other.
During the development of the ICs, the fact that the digital-to-analog converters in the Japanese CD players, which were responsible for the conversion from the digital to the analog domain, operated with a quantization resolution of 16 bits, whereas Philips had provided a resolution of only 14 bits, indicated for a long time that Sony had a head start in digital audio technology. Philips seemed to be content with simpler and cheaper to manufacture 14-bit converters, although the CD specifications also specified a quantization resolution of 16 bits in line with professional practice. When, shortly before the completion of the ICs, Sony thought itself technically superior because of the lower noise level associated with higher quantization resolution, Philips surprised them by going it alone in an unexpected way. The decision for a supposedly less high-quality digital-to-analog converter had been made consciously in connection with a further development, which had not been revealed to Sony at first. It was not until the mutual presentation of the completed integrated circuits that Philips, to the astonishment of the Sony engineers, not only came up with three special ICs for the areas of interpolation (Philips SAA 7000), demodulation (Philips SAA 7010) and error correction (Philips SAA 7020), but also presented a previously unknown fourth IC for "digital filtering" (Philips SAA 7030). Behind this was a process that not only compensated for the supposed weakness of the 14-bit digital-to-analog converter, but even surpassed the sound of 16-bit converters! and under the name of "oversampling" was to point the way for future D/A converter concepts.'
However, this secret triumph of Philips engineers was overshadowed by the fact that problems had arisen in the production of Philips' error correction IC. Since the most complex of all Philips ICs could only be produced with a large scrap, the agreement to be allowed to use the respective ICs of the partner had to be resorted to in order to ensure a sufficient number of devices at the time of the market launch. Within only two weeks, Hans Mons and Jos Timmermans, the engineers in charge of Philips' CD laboratory, redesigned the circuit diagram in such a way that Sony's error correction IC, together with a number of additional electronic components, could be installed in Philips' large CD players, the Philips CD 200 and Philips CD 300 models. In the smaller, console-shaped Philips CD 100 model, such a "SOPHI" solution, i.e. the use of Sony ICs in Philips players, could not be applied due to lack of space. Here, the error in the IC, which occurred only on certain occasions, was compensated by installing selected Philips error correction ICs and a few components.
However, despite the delay caused by the slightly faulty error correction IC, pre-production Philips CD 100 units, whose original "cubic meter" of electronics had been reduced to the size of a single circuit board, were presented in Eindhoven in April 1982. With a request for comment, Philips distributed these first compact CD players to all those employees who had played a significant role in the development of the compact disc. Lou F. Ottens, who had already left the main audio industry group in 1979 and had only followed "his" project from a distance during the final phase of development, responded with the remark:
"From now on, the conventional record player is burned."
Preparing a market
Just as important as the technical preparations that had to be made for the industrial mass production of CD players in Eindhoven (product design) and in Hasselt, Belgium (production facilities), was the preparation of the market for the compact disc system. Thus it was the task of Francois J.A.M.C. Dierckx, director responsible for the commercial side of CD development, to create a concrete demand for a product whose technology was so sophisticated that it had to remain largely incomprehensible to potential buyers. For this reason, Dierckx preferred not to surprise the market with technical details of the CD, but rather to present it with a coherent picture of the CD's system character, so that the CD would assert itself on its own merits. More important than the drastically improved sound quality of the CD compared to the LP (and thus speaking for itself) seemed to him, for example, the easily accessible advertising argument that the CD, unlike the LP, could also be used in portable devices and even in the car.
In order to introduce the CD as broadly as possible on the market and to create the impression that the CD was a matter of course through a variety of players and available titles, it was necessary to win over as many licensees as possible for the CD system.' If a competitive situation could be (artificially) created for the market launch, the CD was not only spared any hint of exoticism. Above all, such a concerted advance on the market could only be understood from the consumer's point of view as a clear sign of the stability of a new industry standard. By generating corresponding market pressure from various CD suppliers, however, it was again possible to at least partially break through the "chicken/egg dilemma" outlined by Dierckx (high prices are necessary for low unit numbers, expensive devices result in low sales figures) through high initial purchases.
In general, licensing for electronic consumer goods involves a multi-faceted risk. If it takes place before the market launch of a possibly unsuccessful product, there is a risk that useless investments will be made. However, if licenses are taken after the successful launch of a product, there is a risk that licensing will be on less favorable terms. Taking licenses early, on the other hand, offers the possibility of gaining an edge in know-how over later licensees.
Licenses for the CD were granted jointly by Philips and Sony, on the one hand for CD players and on the other hand for the pressing of CD sound carriers. Formally, the granting of the license meant the handing over of the "Red Book" in which the CD specifications were mederlegen. However, the main purpose of the license was to acquire the right to use basic patents without which no compact disc player could be built and no compact disc could be pressed. These were, on the one hand, Philips patents on the optical beam path, focusing and servomechanics, some of which originated from VLP. On the other hand, Sony brought patents on the error into the license package. On the other hand, Sony contributed patents for error correction to the license package. With a maximum term of 20 years, the original basic patents are protected until the 1990s; newer ones even extend into the 21st century. However, in view of ongoing license payments to Philips and partly to Sony, the apparently delicate subject of licensing has the rank of a corporate secret.
Eminent publicity
On the public side, it was extremely convenient for Sony and Philips to find a prominent advocate for the compact disc, whose judgment was of great importance because of his competence and his impartiality in industrial policy: the internationally known leader of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan. Although von Karajan released recordings of his concerts through Deutsche Grammophon (a label intertwined with the Philips Group through PolyGram), he had learned of the development of the compact disc through Ohga and Morita of Sony, both of whom he knew personally.'' When he then had the CD system demonstrated at Philips in Eindhoven, he was so enthusiastic about the leap in quality that could be achieved with the CD compared to other sound carriers that he decided to promote the compact disc himself on the occasion of the 1981 Salzburg Easter Festival.
On April 15, 1981, the traditionally play-free Wednesday of the music festival, von Karajan invited the international press to Salzburg for a demonstration of the compact disc system followed by a press conference. After a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, specially recorded at his request by the Berlin Philharmonic under his direction, which ended with a large, impressively dynamic gong, he made an already legendary comparison that was absent from virtually every subsequent press release. Alluding to the technological leap once represented by the introduction of electric light, von Karajan- who was virtually obsessed with the CD- referred to "everything else" as "gaslight."