This FAQ is quite out of date. I am hoping to review the information and create a new version in the coming months.—Archer Nov '03

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS

T1. What does the Merry Christmas CD Extra offer?

ALBUM Title             Published       Tracks  UPC (Master)    Length
Merry Christmas [CDX]   Columbia 1995   10      CKR 66891 (DDD) 38:53

CD Extra (formerly called CD Plus) is a standard for multisession CDs developed by a consortium including Sony and supported by Microsoft. The Merry Christmas CD Extra disc currently contain two sessions. The main session is the ten tracks that comprise Merry Christmas (US Version), and this portion is playable on any standard CD player. This session complies with the Red Book standard for audio CDs.

The interactive portion is available only on multisession drives. You should check that your drive is multisession before you decide to invest in a CD Extra. Most drives produced today are multisession devices.

Assuming that you have a compatible drive, you will also need baseline hardware from either Apple or an IBM PC compatible running Windows. The interactive program on the Merry Christmas CD requires a baseline processor (at least 66MHz or 20MIPS), and a baseline video driver (supporting 800x600 at 256 colours), a reasonable sound system (at least 8 bit, 16 bit desirable) and at least 8Mb of memory. Systems today should have no trouble meeting these requirements.

Software to access the CD Extra is supplied on a separate standard Yellow Book CD ROM, as are instructions to install it and test it. Once you have installed this software, you can run the interactive program on the CD Extra. If you have Microsoft Windows, you will need a CD Extra with a Windows compatible interactive program. If you are using an Apple Macintosh, you will need a Macintosh compatible CD Extra. On Windows 95, you will not need to use the supplied driver software, as the operating system will automatically recognise CD Extra discs.

The interactive program has many elements. Firstly, you have the option to display the karaoke-style lyrics while playing the CD audio normally. Another interactive portion allows the user to randomly access a discography of sound samples from every track of every Mariah album, plus some video clips from her full-length video releases.

A user-driven interview with Mariah shows a number of prerecorded video interview clips where she answers questions about her feelings on Christmas and the making of the album. The interview is set in a living room, and Mariah is wearing one of her Christmas costumes, playing with the newest of her dogs.

Two full-length video clips are also included, a mimed black and white performance of All I Want For Christmas Is You, and a live performance of Joy To The World. As well, an interactive photo album shows some holiday season photographs of Mariah with some animation

The CD Extra does not appear to work on Windows NT. I would therefore say it is unlikely to work on Windows 2000, which is based on the NT kernel. I have not been able to test it with Windows 98 yet. These are the sort of compatibility problems one must expect with multimedia releases that include hard-wired platform-dependent software.

T2. What is the #Mariah_Carey chat channel all about?

I like to imagine the channel as a warm cosy little room in which Mariah fan's gather together and discuss 'stuff'. Of course, we often talk about Mariah stuff, but it's hardly a rule. It is not a channel to chat with Mariah herself, however, and you should be aware that many people impersonate her, mainly in good fun.

If you have a chat client program for IRC, you will need to point it to a server computer on a chat network called Undernet. The channel called #Mariah_Carey is on this network, and can be reached from many servers, including:

[America and Australia]
ann-arbor.mi.us.undernet.org (Michigan)
davis.ca.us.undernet.org (California)
lowell.ma.us.undernet.org (Massachusetts)
vancouver.bc.ca.undernet.org (Canada- works well from Australia)
okc.ok.us.undernet.org
okc2.ok.us.undernet.org
au.undernet.org (Australia- usually disconnected from the world)

[Europe]
fr.undernet.org (France- also available from Australia as a last resort)
nl.undernet.org (Netherlands)
si.undernet.org
uk.undernet.org (United Kingdom)
eu.undernet.org

There is also a Java client for Undernet which can be used from within your web browser. To get this, and to discover more about Undernet, visit the Undernet web page at:

http://www.undernet.org/

To use IRC you choose a unique nickname (that people on IRC will refer to you by) and connect to the server. Once connected, the IRC server responds to commands. The command to connect to #Mariah_Carey is:

/join #Mariah_Carey

Simply introduce yourself by typing messages at the keyboard. Usually there will be someone willing to help you get started with a few commands. But be careful exactly what commands you type, as some people may try to trick you into disclosing private information.

The Mariah chat channel of old (1993-1998) was called #Mariah. The retrospective page is being resurrected (previously it was Sunbelt's work), so watch this space.

T3. Does Mariah have any DVDs?

[DVDs (Digital Video Discs) are a very high density CD-like medium used for storing compressed digital video of a very high quality. They will soon replace VHS as the media of choice for video collectors. DVDs can be region coded, which means they may not play in players outside their region.]

Yes, Mariah has three DVDs out. Her first, released only in Japan (region 2), is called Daydream: From New York To Tokyo. The others were released worldwide during 1999- Around The World and Number Ones- and come in NTSC (all regions) and PAL (region 2) formats.

Details for DVDs are listed in the album videography (question M2f). The VH1 Divas Live concert is also available on DVD (this too is listed in M2f).

One would expect future video album releases also to be available as DVDs, as well as a retrospecive publishing of previous video albums as DVDs.

Mariah had a small part in the movie The Bachelor, which is also available on DVD.