Masters of Multimedia : Technology: For the handful of O.C. companies producing CD-ROM software, the future has finally arrived.

Chuck Cortright and Angela Aber were pioneers in multimedia before it became a buzzword.

“We were the idiots out there babbling about multimedia,” said Aber, co-founder with Cortright of software company the Graphix Zone in Irvine. “People said, ‘Multi-what?’ Now it’s in the paper every day.”

After a long journey, multimedia--a combination of video, animation, graphics, text and sound in a single computer program--has arrived, thanks in large part to the CD-ROM: short for compact disc, read-only memory. In a typical computer store, the snazziest software is now running on computer and video game systems that use the CD-ROM, a cousin of the music CD.

The dazzling graphics and audio of CD-ROMs are available to anyone with a fairly new home computer and components that can cost less than $500. The discs themselves are sold everywhere from software stores to Wal-Mart for an average price of $42.

For the Graphix Zone and a handful of other Orange County software companies producing CD-ROMs, that means a chance to generate not only “oohs” and “aahs” but also dollars and jobs in deals with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.

In partnership with media giant Time Warner Inc., the Graphix Zone is producing an interactive music video featuring rock artist Prince. That program, not yet titled, will let fans listen to the singer in stereo, watch animation and view music videos. To be shipped on June 7, the star’s birthday, it is the first in a series of rock music titles planned by the two companies.

The Graphix Zone and other local companies expect the new technology to give their revenue a huge boost.

“The CD-ROM is like manna from heaven for us,” said Martin Alper, president of video game publisher Virgin Interactive Entertainment Inc. in Irvine. “There is a significant market today, and we expect exponential growth to take place in this sector.”

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Mainstream acceptance of CD-ROM technology didn’t happen overnight. Graphix Zone co-founders Cortright and Aber have dabbled in everything from cinematic production to computer training since they started the company in 1989 as a desktop publishing software reseller. But now that the company has focused on the development of CD-ROMs, its access to the information superhighway, which promises interactive TV with 500 channels, seems assured.

“The next three years will be very lucrative for people creating titles for CD-ROM,” said Tim Bajarin, a computer consultant at Creative Strategies Research International in Santa Clara. “You can see it as a transitionary technology with a very long life.”

The CD-ROM, like the music CD, uses a laser to read a pattern of bumps and troughs that are permanently engrained on a five-inch metal platter. Those patterns are basic digital data that can be understood by a computer. On music CDs, only sound is stored in the patterns. But CD-ROMs add pictures, words, video images and animation--multimedia.

Personal computers equipped with information readers known as CD-ROM drives can scan the data stored on the discs, which can pack more than 600 times the amount of information on a typical floppy disk.

For enthusiasts, the difference between floppy disk video games and CD-ROMs is as great as that between silent films and modern motion pictures, said Johnny Wilson, editor of Computer Gaming World, an Anaheim Hills magazine that reviews computer games.

“It’s been a long time coming, but the year of the CD-ROM is here,” he said. “By 1995, all software games will be on CD-ROM.”

Competing technologies, as well as personal computer owners’ reluctance to abandon their floppy disks, kept CD-ROMs from taking off initially and could still forestall growth.

Though the CD-ROM was introduced in 1985, “the graphics quality . . . has been fairly primitive,” said Raymond Boggs, analyst at market researcher BIS Strategic Decisions in Norwell, Mass. “But now it’s like watching the first movie when it came out. People are excited.”

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The quality of CD-ROM animation has improved as home computers have gotten more powerful and technologists have learned how to pack more data into a small space. Falling prices have helped too: Typical double-speed drives now cost as low as $200, down from $1,000 two years ago.

The format also got a boost last year when Sega of America Inc. and a small Silicon Valley start-up firm called 3DO started shipping video game and entertainment systems that use CD-ROMs.

The biggest factor, though, is that close to half of all personal computers sold in 1994 will feature CD-ROM drives, said Julie Schwerin, president of InfoTech, a market researcher in Woodstock, Vt.

“The CD-ROM industry is doubling every year, while the computer industry is growing 10% a year,” she said. “In the 1980s, the manufacturers set these expectations that were too high. Some of the companies that dug in and waited are doing very well today.”

Floppy disks still dominate software sales. The Software Publishers Assn. estimates that CD-ROMs accounted for only 2% of U.S. software revenue last year.

But 2.6 million CD-ROM drives were sold last year, more than the total for 1986 through 1991, InfoTech estimates. And 6.6 million home computers now have CD-ROM drives--a good chunk of the estimated 40 million PCs in U.S. households.

The number of CD-ROM titles has also exploded. There are 7,183 in print now, up from 5,283 in 1992 and only 94 in 1986. Together, sales of CD-ROMs and drives are expected to be worth $7.7 billion this year--equal to the total box office receipts of all U.S. movie theaters.

Software companies are taking varied approaches to grab a piece of that action. Besides games, companies are putting reference books, encyclopedias, product catalogues, phone directories and other data on CD-ROMs.

Pinnacle Micro in Irvine sells kits that allow companies to create their own master copies of CD-ROMs. Service bureaus that also duplicate the discs have sprouted up to help entrepreneurs who want to create CD-ROMs.

Don and Toni Davis, a husband-and-wife team, created a CD-ROM company, CD Book Publishers, in their Fullerton home after Don lost his job in May, 1992. He publishes the text of federal regulations--which on paper can be as much as 10 feet thick--on compact discs and sells them for $75 to $200.

Another Fullerton company, Takin’ Care of Business, puts out a catalogue--on interactive CD-ROM, of course--of multimedia products. And Pixis Interactive in Tustin sells an adult CD-ROM title for people who want to play video strip poker with beautiful models.

Irvine-based Rainbow Technologies Inc. has developed a system that allows customers to try out programs on CD-ROM at home without setting foot in a store. Purchases can then be made by telephone with a credit card. Rainbow has licensed the system to Apple Computer Inc. and other large computer makers.

Media Resources in Brea has an interactive multimedia storybook on CD-ROM, “T.J. Finds a Friend,” that shows children how to avoid being kidnaped and how to recognize missing children. It was produced in cooperation with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

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Developing CD-ROM projects is neither simple nor cheap. Text, audio, video and animation must be coordinated seamlessly, and a sophisticated program such as an elaborate computer game can take 18 months and more than $1 million to complete.

But going to market with poor-quality programs known as “shovelware” will not generate either big revenue or pacts with high-tech giants, Graphix Zone’s Cortright said.

“We had to be a pioneer to be a player,” he said. “A big reason we got to work with Time Warner was that they saw the in-house experience and industry contacts that we had.”

His company’s 30 employees labored for six months to produce the Prince CD-ROM, which includes the star’s latest songs, glittery 3-D animation and video.

The company expects to work with other artists on the new genre, which is neither video game nor music CD. Because the programs are interactive, the user can explore them for hours, jumping back and forth from the videos to animations or just listening to the songs.

Such intense projects create positions for graphic artists, illustrators, programmers, animators, musicians and video experts. But despite openings and an abundance of resumes, Cortright said, hiring goes slowly because “it’s hard to find experienced people.”

Practical knowledge, rather than formal education, usually determines who gets the job. Sean Dunn, 25, who is integrating the parts of the Prince CD-ROM into a single multimedia presentation, has been at the Graphix Zone since he graduated two years ago from the University of Redlands. He studied multimedia computer skills in his senior year but learned how to put together projects by doing custom designs for Graphix Zone clients.

“They were only beginning to teach this in school when I graduated,” Dunn said.

Because the technology is so new, those in the business often learn it by banding together and sharing their knowledge.

Davis of CD Book Publishers leads a group for the North Orange County Computer Club. Its monthly meeting at Chapman University in Orange draws 30 to 50 people who exchange information about the finer points of “romming.”

“It’s a revolution,” Davis said, “and we’re making it happen.”