Rainbow Books

Rainbow Books
Optical discs
Optical media types
Standards
See also
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The Rainbow Books are a collection of standards defining the formats of Compact Discs.

Red Book
CD-DA – Digital Audio extended by CD-Text
Yellow Book
CD-ROM (Read-Only Memory)
CD-ROM XA – extension to Yellow Book
Orange Book
CD-MO (Magneto-Optical)
CD-R (Recordable) alias CD-WO (Write Once) alias CD-WORM (Write Once, Read Many)
CD-RW (ReWritable) alias CD-E (Eraseable)
The orange book standard references the fact that "Yellow" and "Red" mix to orange; which means that CD-R and CD-RW is capable of music and data; 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.
White Book
VCD (Video)
CD-Bridge – hybrid discs, e.g. CD-Ready
SVCD (Super Video)
Blue Book
E-CD (Enhanced)
CD+ (plus)
CD+G (plus Graphics) – karaoke, extended by CD+EG / CD+XG (plus Extended Graphics)
Beige Book
PCD (Photo)
Separate from Photo CD is Kodak proprietary "Portfolio CD" format that combines Red book CD audio and Beige book PCD with interactive menus and hotspots on PCD images. Some standalone Philips Photo/Audio CD players could play Portfolio CDs and windows player application was freely available. The Kodak Portfolio CD may have no Rainbow Book.
Green Book
CD-i (interactive)
Purple Book
DDCD (Double Density)
Scarlet Book
SACD (Super Audio)
non-standard

No rainbow book was applied to the popular DVD and Blu-ray formats.

External links