Rainbow Books

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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.

See also

• 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. http://library.thinkquest.org/C0112823/greatbooks_cd.htm. Retrieved 7 April 2010. 

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