The Enhanced CD was introduced in 1993. There were very few productions as they tended to cost almost $20,000 and very few buyers as they were sold for as much as $49.99. The Enhanced CD was originally coined as “CD-Plus†by Sony Philips but soon changed to CD Extra after losing a court case for trade marking the name because a Canadian Manufacturer had already done so. With the advancements of technology over the following decade, productions could be made at one tenth of the price they used to cost and could now be sold for the same price as any average CD.The average CD has about 45 minutes of music… an audio disc has 74 to 80 minutes of space. That’s almost 50% of unused space. Multimedia Developers who had recognized this waste of space formulated numerous audio/data standards to fill that remaining space with interactive media such as websites, image galleries, videos, etc.
The added feature of an audio/data disc (Enhanced CD) significantly increased the products marketing power for it could now be sold in software stores as well as music stores. More importantly, its value had increased by 20% to 50% depending on the degree to which the disc is developed, and buyers could be pulled into the artist’s online website and always be up to date. Now an Enhanced EP with 5 songs and an exclusive website with video and photos could be sold for as much as $15. This has been the typical marketing practice of Enhanced CDs… having content that was not available elsewhere.