CDTV CR Specifications:

CPU: Motorola 68000 @ 7.14Mhz (Surface Mounted).
Memory: 1 Meg Chip Memory.
Chipset: Enhanced Chip Set. (ECS)
OS: Kickstart 2.04 + CDTV module V3.2.
Debute: Never (Not launched)
Launch Price: None (To be cheaper than original CDTV)
Differences: Total redesign, based on A600 but with new chipset (Beauty & Grace)
How Many were made: 6. See bottom for more info.

The CDTV CR was the next step, The CDTV 2 if you like, but this time there was one main goal, To reduce cost. The original CDTV was a very expensive system to make and in the begining it retailed for Ł499

which was out of the budget of the first time buyers the CDTV was designed for so the CDTV CR was developed, It was to make heavy use of surface mounted chips which do not require sockets, are cheaper and take up much less space. The CR stands for Cost reduced.
The CDTV was not the first to get this treatment, Lots of A2000CR`s were produced, Even the Amiga`s flagship A4000 got the CR treatment.

But did the cost cutting make the CDTV CR worse than the original CDTV?

Oh no, The new CDTV CR was based on the Amiga 600 design launched just after the CDTV (1992) and included a full PCMCIA (Laptop) slot which replaced the original personal memory card slot, This slot can take expansions like an SCSI interface, fast serial ports, Ethernet cards, memory expansions and even miniture harddrives.

The CDTV`s case was redesigned to use the tray loading CD-Rom mecanism which was quickly becoming the standard although the CD-Rom`s interface was still a custom design, although not the same interface as on the CDTV. Provision for a built in floppy drive was added, Normally hidden behind a black face plate but when a floppy drive is fitted the plate is removed to reveal a floppy face plate (mouled to the case, A faceless floppy drive is used).
Also added to the front panel is the keyboard port, again hidden behind a drop down cover.
The keyboard port was totally redesigned and although the CDTV CR was never launched this port was, It became the AUX port on the CD32.

The LCD display of the original CDTV went under a total redesign, A graphics equalizer display was added as well as a CD recognition display to show you which type of CD is in the drive (CDDA, CDTV, Video CD or Kodak Picture CD), There is also the normal volume display, Drive status (When the drive is accessed an image of a moving CD is displayed on the top left of the display), Time display and one final addition, a [m] indicator which is also showed in the CR`s preferences screen, At present I do not know what it is for, It could indicate when the time or date is backed up or a non-violate memory for storage of game scores like found on the CD32.

The CDTV CR also alters the rear expansion ports, The video card was totally redesigned and now all video relaited ports are on the single card (Unlike on the original CDTV which had the RGB port on the main motherboard) with SVHF, Composite, RF (TV) and the standard Amiga RGB outputs.
The other ports were re-arranged with keyboard and mouse connectors being removed (in favour of an IR mouse and a keyboard using the AUX port found on the front) and finally the standard serial port connector was altered to the Macintosh style mini-din standard. (As used on Commodore's A2232 Zorro serial card. A cable would probably have been included to convert it to the standard serial port.)
The floppy, parallel and midi ports are all available on the new design as with the original CDTV although most probably the floppy disk assign "DF0:" would be reserved for the internal disk drive. (Or have a jumper on the motherboard to select wether DF0 should be internal or external as on the Amiga 4000)

The motherboard has to be where the real time was spent, It was totally designed from scratch.
There are three main differences between this board and the original CDTV:

The CDTV CR was based on the Amiga 600.

It uses a totally new (ECS based) chipset.

And used a different CD-Rom interface.

The Amiga 600 was an updated A500+ (Which was an updated A500), It saved money by "surface mounting" all important chips including the CPU, A first for Commodore, It also updated the design, adding a 2.5" (Laptop) IDE interface, The CDTV CR also used this "SMD" technology which cut costs (Before for every leg of a chip a hole had to be drilled) unfortunatly that is where the cost cutting ended, To this date only three custom chipsets (Graphics, sound & memory controller chips) were designed, the original chipset (OCS), Enhanced chipset (ECS, used in the CDTV) and the brand new Advanced Graphics Arcutecture (AGA), Each version cost a lot to design and debug but the CDTV CR was to have a brand new chipset, just for itself, it was based on the ECS chipset but used two new chips called Beauty and Grace, (All Amiga made chips have human names like Lisa, Paula, Angus, Fat Angus, Obesse Angus (They must not have liked Angus)) What was gained in designing these chips is unknown as they appear to work like the ECS chipset found in the original CDTV, (But they may have been faster versions designed to make the most of the double speed CD-Rom drive and CDXL movies) Redesigning this chipset probably contributed to the CDTV CR (Remember CR=Cost reduced) costing more than the original CDTV to make and led to the CR never seeing the light of day.
The IDE interface let you add one 2.5" 44pin laptop harddrive to the CR and a clever removable floppy/harddrive bay being developed where the harddrive was fitted upside down to the bottom of the bay and the floppy drive fitting on top. The actual IDE interface is on a removable card which to the normal user looks like old 72pin memory sims and may have been sold as an upgrade latter. The card (Called a CDTV Flash/IDE card) also contains two flash chips, I have yet to find out what is on them.

A new CD-Rom drive was used on the CR, it connects to the motherboard using a small ribbon tape (As found on the CD32's CD-Rom and Amiga 600/1200 keyboards), the drive now has a slide out tray and is double the original CDTV's CD-Rom speed. (The minimum needed for playing videoCD's and CDI movies) Again audio playback as well as tray ejection buttons are found on the front display as well as on the IR remote control (Although wether a new IR remote was to be made with a tray eject button is unknown.)

On the video card you may note a small black connector, This is for an optional FMV card which would allow videocd, CDI and Mpeg video playback with little CPU usage. (a 7.14Mhz CPU like the 68000 could never decode a mpeg stream in real time) This card was designed, built and tested and would have been sold as an upgrade as with the CD32, I think this more than anything else shows how close the CDTV CR was to being launched as the CD32's FMV card came out over a year after the CD32.

Interview Snippits Interview of Guy Wright.
For full interview please click here.

Question:How many CDTV CR's were made?
Answer:Somehow the number 6 sticks in my mind - There were probably a dozen board-only prototypes in the labs used for testing but only a few complete versions - mostly used for demos. I think there were also a second handful of units made for Europe demos. If there were enough cases in existence they could probably have assembled maybe a dozen actual working units after things fell apart. The first set of cases actually were slightly wrong - the drive doors weren't quite big enough so the drawer wouldn't eject unless you pulled the door lip on the case up. I know there were a few of those sent out for demos. I believe there is also one (very rare) albino out there somewhere (a beige case).

Question:Apart from the CDTV CR itself what other relaited to the CDTV CR exist?
Answer:Oh yea, I found a rough draft of the original CDTV-CR user manual that was supposed to have been printed up (mostly just an expanded re-write of the original CDTV printed manual). And the original story-boards for the CDTV-CR Welcome Disc. In fact, I produced a second Welcome Disc for the DCTV-2 or CR after the special projects group was disbanded, but it was never released.