Divacore revives – A new record, Divacore by Aizysse Baga and Adelaide, was released on a mini-CD with revived CD+G and the rarely implemented, backwards-compatible CD+EG data. The result: synchronized-style graphics in 16 colors and a 256-color version that only shows up on cer
He didn’t just make a record—he built it into the disc itself.
Audio CDs were everywhere in the 1990s. but the format came with side doors for extra data: not just music. but graphics. lyrics-style displays. and other oddities stored in the subcodes. Now. Aizysse Baga. working with Adelaide. has brought several of those forgotten CD features back into the light with the Divacore record.
Divacore was planned for release on a mini-CD, with additional CD+G data meant to accompany the music. CD+G, short for CD+Graphics, is best known for karaoke releases that use synchronized lyrics. The graphics data sits in formerly-unused subcodes beside track start, track number, and running time information. In this setup, the slideshow-style visuals run at a resolution of 288 x 192 and use a 16-color palette.
The duo didn’t stop at the basics. They used art and smart dithering to pack high-quality 16-bit artwork into the audio CD release, helped along by a custom Python encoder. CD-TEXT metadata was added as well. Then, the more advanced option—CD+EG—became impossible to ignore.
CD+EG is a 256-color extension to the CD+G format, and it’s backwards compatible. The problem was that it was barely ever implemented on any commercial releases. and very little hardware could even display it. Divacore had to have it anyway. That meant diving into the Red Book documentation for the CD standard and figuring out how to implement even higher quality artwork for the record.
There was one last, nerve-wracking question: would the graphics survive the actual CD reproduction process?. The final discs came out perfectly. The full 256-color CD+EG artwork is visible when Divacore is played on a Sega Saturn or on the super-obscure Victor VS-G2 or VS-G3. On less capable devices—like a more typical karaoke machine or an Amiga CD32—the disc still displays the 16-color versions. because the playback system can’t handle the higher-end graphics.
Taken together. Divacore turns an audio format that most people treated as just music into something closer to a time capsule. For anyone who still owns compatible hardware. the payoff is immediate: the graphics weren’t theoretical. and they weren’t lost in manufacturing. They’re there—waiting for the right player to wake them up.
Divacore Aizysse Baga Adelaide mini-CD CD+G CD+EG CD-TEXT Red Book Sega Saturn Victor VS-G2 Victor VS-G3 audio CD graphics Python encoder dithering