Philips CD-i 1984 and it was first publicly announced in 1986. The first Philips CD-i player, released in 1991 and initially priced around US$1,000, was capable of playing interactive CD-i discs, Audio CDs, CD+G (CD+Graphics), Karaoke CDs, Photo CDs and Video CDs (VCDs), though the latter required an optional "Digital Video Card" to provide MPEG-1 decoding. Philips also licensed the CD-i format to other manufacturers for use, and there were also CD-i players by Sony under the "Intelligent Discman" brand. Philips marketed the CD-i as a "home entertainment system" in Europe, but more as a games and educational machine in the U.S.
Philips CD-i partnered in 1992 with Amsterdam-based CDMATICS to develop TeleCD-i (also TeleCD). In this concept, the CD-i player is connected to a network such as PSTN or Internet, enabling data-communication and rich media presentation. Dutch grocery chain Albert Heijn and mail-order company were early adopters and introduced award-winning TeleCD-i applications for their home-shopping and home-delivery services. CDMATICS also developed the special Philips TeleCD-i Assistant and a set of software tools to help the worldwide multimedia industry to develop and implement TeleCD-i. TeleCD-i is the world's first networked multimedia application at the time of its introduction. In 1996, Philips acquired source code