The supplier for your authoring system typically can provide a complete solution, including hardware and software. Basically, your authoring system will either run on a CD-i 605 (development) player or on a personal computer. You will need to prepare your audio and video assets on a high end personal computer and convert them there to CD-i format. First you will need personal computer programs and hardware for the capture or creation of images and programs for the editing of audio and images. Some examples of these off-the shelf programs for the Macintosh are Adobe Photoshop, Studio 32, Macromind Director, and DigiDesign Sound Tools II. You will also need tools to convert your assets to CD-i format; these are called audio and image conversion utilities.

In addition you'll need cables and networking software to let you connect your player to the personal computer and you will need an emulator so that you can test your work in progress.