Top High-Tech Firms Team Up on ‘Multimedia’ : Ventures: The 12 companies hope to bring interactive services such as movie libraries to U.S. homes by 1995.

Twelve of the nation’s leading technology companies said Tuesday that they have joined forces to help bring “multimedia” services, such as picture phones and computerized movie libraries, to American households by 1995.

The venture, dubbed First Cities, includes such prominent companies as Apple Computer, Eastman Kodak Co., North American Philips, Corning Inc., Southwestern Bell Corp. and US West Inc.

Many observers consider these “interactive multimedia services,” which could also include video games, home shopping and educational programs, as the next important breakthrough in consumer-oriented information technology. But numerous technical, commercial and legal barriers must be overcome before they can be implemented.

Although companies including GTE Corp. and a number of cable television firms are also working to build multimedia networks, the First Cities venture is the first that involves a broad cross-section of electronics companies and telecommunications firms. Additional partners from the entertainment and publishing industries are expected to join the group, which is being organized by the Microelectronics & Computer Technology Corp. in Austin, Tex.

“This is the most comprehensive project of its type,” said Michael Liebhold, manager of media architecture research at Apple. He said a cooperative approach was needed because the financial and technical complexities involved in multimedia are probably too difficult for any single company to tackle by itself.

Initially, the group will study the market and evaluate various technologies for a possible nationwide network of multimedia services. Next year, the group hopes to begin demonstrating various services in a few cities to determine consumer interest. If the trials are successful, the group hopes to begin marketing the services in 1995.

The companies said they did not yet know how much it would cost to set up the multimedia network.

The group also includes Bell Communications Research, the research arm of the seven “Baby Bell” telephone companies; Kaleida Labs, a joint venture of Apple and IBM; Tandem Computers; Sutter Bay Associates, a small cable company, and Bieber--Taki Associates, an investment firm.

Bruce Sidran, the project’s executive director, said First Cities eventually hopes to form an independent company providing software and technical expertise to local and national companies that would actually own and operate the multimedia networks.

In addition to supplying entertainment-oriented consumer services, the First Cities network would also provide the infrastructure for professional applications in medicine, education and other fields. Liebhold said it would fit well with government efforts to develop a national education network.

Denise Caruso, editor of the newsletter Digital Media, called First Cities “a brave and fascinating undertaking” that could help solve some of the problems involved in developing a national multimedia system. The cooperative effort would also help compensate for the lack of government support for such a network, she added.

But the depth of commitment on the part of the various partners remains unclear.

Sidran acknowledged that most of them have a variety of related research projects underway and that First Cities would be competing with those projects for investment dollars.