Rainbow Books

For the series of U.S. government publications on computer security standards, see Rainbow Series. For pre-Internet communications protocols, see Coloured Book protocols. For "Reading Rainbow" children's television series, see Reading Rainbow.

Optical discs
General Optical disc Optical disc drive Optical disc authoring Authoring software Recording technologies Recording modes Packet writing
Optical media types Compact Disc (CD): CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, 5.1 Music Disc, Super Audio CD (SACD), Photo CD, CD Video (CDV), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), CD+G, CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-i DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DS, DVD+R DS, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-D, DVD-A, HVD, EcoDisc Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R & BD-RE Universal Media Disc (UMD) Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) Forward Versatile Disc (FVD) Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM High definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD) VCDHD GD-ROM MiniDisc: MD, Hi-MD Laserdisc: LD, LD-ROM Video Single Disc (VSD) Ultra Density Optical (UDO) Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk (SVOD) Five dimensional disc (5D DVD) Nintendo optical disc (NOD) Archival Disc
Standards SFF ATAPI/MMC Mount Rainier (packet writing) Mount Fuji (layer jump recording) Rainbow Books File systems ISO 9660 Joliet Romeo Rock Ridge / SUSP El Torito Apple ISO 9660 Extensions Universal Disk Format (UDF) ISO 13490
See also History of optical storage media High definition optical disc format war

The Rainbow Books are a collection of Compact Disc format specifications.

Red Book (1982)

• CD-DA (Digital Audio) – standardized as IEC 60908
  • CD-Text – a 1996 extension to CD-DA
  • CD+G (plus Graphics) – karaoke
    • CD+EG / CD+XG (plus Extended Graphics) – an extension of CD+G

Green Book (1986)

• CD-i (Interactive)

Yellow Book (1988)

• CD-ROM (Read-Only Memory) – standardized as ECMA-130 and ISO/IEC 10149
  • CD-ROM XA (eXtended Architecture) – a 1991 extension of CD-ROM

Orange Book (1990)

Orange is a reference to the fact that red and yellow mix to orange. This correlates with the fact that CD-R and CD-RW are capable of audio ("Red") and data ("Yellow"); although other colors (other CD standards) that do not mix are capable of being burned onto the physical medium. Orange Book also introduced the standard for multisession writing.

• CD-MO (Magneto-Optical)
• CD-R (Recordable) alias CD-WO (Write Once) alias CD-WORM (Write Once, Read Many) – partially standardized as ECMA-394
• CD-RW (ReWritable) alias CD-E (Eraseable) – partially standardized as ECMA-395

White Book (1993)

• CD-i Bridge - a bridge format between CD-ROM XA and the Green Book CD-i, which is the base format for Video CDs, Super Video CDs and Photo CDs.
• VCD (Video)
  • SVCD (Super Video, 1998) – a 1998 extension of VCD, standardized as IEC 62107 in 2000.

Blue Book (1995)

• E-CD/CD+/CD Extra (Enhanced)

Beige Book (1992)

• PCD (Photo)

Scarlet Book (1999)

• SACD (Super Audio)

Purple Book (2000)

• DDCD (Double Density)

See also

• ISO 9660, a 1986 filesystem standard used in conjunction with CD-ROM formats.
• Orange-Book-Standard, a decision named after the Compact Disc standard, issued in 2009 by the German Federal Court of Justice on the interaction between patent law and standards

External links

• "The Great Books". The World of CDs and DVDs. ThinkQuest Library. Retrieved 7 April 2010 (Dead Links).