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 the "Reading Rainbow" children's television series, see Reading Rainbow.

The Rainbow Books are a collection of CD format specifications generally written and published by standards bodies including the ISO, IEC, and ECMA.

Illustration depicting each format by color.

Red Book (1980)

• CD-DA (Digital Audio) – standardized as IEC 60908
  • CD-Text – a 1996 extension to CD-DA
  • CD-MIDI – part of the original Red Book standard
  • CD+G (plus Graphics) – an extension of the Red Book specifications used mainly for karaoke
    • CD+EG / CD+XG (plus Extended Graphics) – an extension of CD+G

Yellow Book (1983)

• CD-ROM (Read-Only Memory) – standardized as ISO/IEC 10149 in 1988 and ECMA-130 in 1989
  • CD-ROM XA (eXtended Architecture) – a 1991 extension of CD-ROM

Green Book (1986)

• CD-i (Interactive)

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

Beige Book (1992)

• PCD (Photo)

White Book (1993)

The White Book refers to a standard of compact disc that stores pictures and video.

• 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)

The Blue Book is a compact disc standard that defines the Enhanced Music CD format, which combines audio tracks and data tracks on the same disc.

• E-CD/CD+/CD Extra (Enhanced)

Scarlet Book (1999)

Scarlet color of this book is a reference to the Red Book, which defines original CDDA.

• 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

• Philips CD Specifications
• "The Great Books". The World of CDs and DVDs. ThinkQuest. Archived from the original on 2012-12-09. Retrieved 2010-04-07.