This page provides an overview of CD technology and links to information sites. The Yellow Book standard used to rest with ISO and has since passed to ECMA, International as ECMA-130. The rest of the standards are in the hands of Sony and Philips, jointly or exclusively. There are a number of books that get their names from the color of the covers and most have become unused since the advent of the DVD. The first three were the most used, and still used to some extent. The definition calls for each sector to have 2048 bytes of usable data and allows other information to exist in the rest of the sector.
- Red Book:
- The Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) Standard as introduced by Philips and Sony in 1980. It is the foundation upon which subsequent standards are based. It also included error detection, error correction and an early way to add graphics. Sectors are defined as 2352 bytes read at 1/75 second rate. The standards build one upon the previous ones. Many other forms are subsets of one or another standard.
- Yellow Book:
- The Compact Disc Read Only Memory Standard introduced by Philips and Sony in 1984. It further defines the Red Book into two new types of tracks adding synchronization and header information; and additional error detection and correction on the separate sectors for Mode 1. First discs to introduce mixed mode combining audio and data; care must be taken when playing on audio equipment.
- Orange Book:
- The Compact Disc Write Once(Recordable - RO) and Magneto Optical(Rewritable - MO), which has nothing to do with the removable magneto optical drive available today. CD-WO can be written in one session or written in multiple sessions. CD-MO can have a premastered area readable by a CD-Player and a writable area readble only by a MO drive or can be 100% rewritable.
- Green Book:
- The Compact Disc Interactive Standard introduced by Philips in 1987 further extends the Yellow Book CD-ROM/XA and has three audio compression schemes. This interleaves data and audio in the same track but does not list the data in the disc's table of contents to prevent audio players form trying to play it. This required a new operating system and is generally found on game machines.
- White Book:
- The CD-V Standard that first put video on a disc in a compressed format using the MPEG 1 standard, as well as, audio. Image quality is lower than that of laser discs or DVD, however.
Abbreviations
- ECC:
- Error Correction Code allows reconstruction of data.
- EDC:
- Error Detection Code validates the data or not to allow correction.
- ADPCM:
- Adaptive Pulse Code Modulation - the compression scheme on CD-ROM/XA and CD-I to compress and interleave the audio and data.
- TOC:
- Table of Contents with information on the locations of the contents of the disc and standard to which the disc is formatted.
- Lead In:
- Lead In contains the TOC.
- Lead Out:
- Lead Out resets the player should it go past the final sector.
- Disc Capacities:
- Generally described in minutes of time if used for audio, the two sizes are 63 minutes and 74 minutes.
Red Book
| User Data 2352 |
Red Book CD 2352 bytes 1/75 second
| CD-DA Disc Format | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Play Time | Sample Size |
Sample Rate |
MegaBytes /Minute |
| CD-DA | 1.25 hours | 16 bits | 44,100/sec | 10.09 Mbs |
This comprises the Red Book CD Digital Audio Standard, though it bears saying that there are also 98 bytes of control information on each sector of the disc. These blocks get designated alphabetically from P to W. The P Channel signals the beginning of audio; the Q Channel contains information used to display playing time. The R through W channels can be used for the almost nonexistent CD+G graphics format that is part of the standard.
Yellow Book
| Sync 12 |
Header 4 |
User Data 2048 | EDC 4 |
Blanks 8 |
ECC 276 |
Yellow Book CD-ROM Mode 1 2352 bytes 1/75 second
Generally used for computer data, and the error detection and correction code at the end of sector is used to increase the reliability of the data for use on a computer.
| Sync 12 |
Header 4 |
User Data 2336 |
Yellow Book CD-ROM Mode 2 2352 bytes 1/75 second
Generally used for compressed computer, audio, video or picture data. Discs with more than one type of data are referred to as Mixed Mode. Caution needs to be exercised with some audio CD players since computer data can damage the speakers of a stereo system if the player does not recognize the difference. Computer data cannot be accessed at the same time that audio is being played. CD-ROM/XA came about to address this failing.
| Sync 12 |
Header 4 |
Sub-header 8 |
User Data 2048 | EDC 4 |
ECC 276 |
Yellow Book CD-ROM Mode 2, /XA 2352 bytes 1/75 second
CR-ROM/XA (Extended Architecture) adds Adaptive Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM) to the format which interleaves data with audio on the same track. Audio compession is required to allow room for the Sych, Header, Subheader and Data sections. The audio will not have quality comparable to true CD-DA and goes by Level B and Level C.
| Audio Compression Levels for CD- ROM/XA | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Play Time | Sample Size |
Sample Rate |
MegaBytes /Minute |
| CD-DA | 1.25 hours | 16 bits | 44,100/sec | 10.09 Mbs |
| Level B | 5 hours stereo 10 hours mono |
4 bits | 37,800/sec | 2.16 Mb |
| Level C | 10 hours stereo 20 hours mono |
4 bits | 18,900/sec | 1.08 Mb |
Orange Book
| Lead In |
Program Area Uninterrupted Writing Session |
Lead Out |
Orange Book CD-WO Single Session
Actually described as Part 2 of the Orange Book, this format begins with the TOC in the Lead In to supply the information necessary to read the disc and the Lead Out to reset the player.
| Lead In |
Writing Action One |
Writing Action Two |
Writing Action Three |
Lead Out |
Orange Book CD-WO Incremental Writing Session
This has two possible formats; one will not allow it to be read until the disc is full because the Lead In and Lead Out are not fully written (Yellow Book Recorder), and the other uses the multi-session format (Orange Book Recorder) to write the TOC incrementally.
| Lead In |
Pre-Recorded or Recordable Area |
Lead Out |
Lead In |
Recordable Area |
Lead Out |
Orange Book CD-WO Multi-Session
This format is capable of writing multiple TOCs in multiple Lead Ins to the various sessions.
| Pre-Recorded or Rewriteable Area |
Lead In |
Rewriteable Area |
Lead Out |
Orange Book CD-MO with Pre-Recorded Session
CD-MO is Part 1 of the Orange Book normally reads the change of polarization direction in the reflected laser light. A disc can have a pre-recorded section that is read in the same way as regular CD-ROM and a rewriteable section. The pre-recorded section is readable by a regular player; the rewriteable section will have a TOC in the Lead In and a Lead Out.
| Lead In |
100% Rewriteable Area |
Lead Out |
Orange Book CD-MO
This disc contains all parts as writeable, including the TOC in the Lead In and the Lead out; and because of that and the manner in which the data is read, it cannot be read by a regular player.
Green Book
| Sync 12 |
Header 4 |
Sub- header 8 |
User Data 2048 | EDC 4 |
ECC 276 |
Green Book CD-ROM Mode 2/XA Form 1 2352 bytes 1/75 second
| Sync 12 |
Header 4 |
Sub- header 8 |
User Data 2324 | EDC 4 |
Green Book CD-ROM Mode 2/XA Form 2 2352 bytes 1/75 second
| Audio Compression Levels for CD-I | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Play Time | Sample Size |
Sample Rate |
MegaBytes /Minute |
| CD-DA | 1.25 hours | 16 bits | 44,100/sec | 10.09 Mbs |
| Level A | 2.5 hours stereo 5 hours mono |
8 bits | 37,800/sec | 4.33 Mb |
| Level B | 5 hours stereo 10 hours mono |
4 bits | 37,800/sec | 2.16 Mb |
| Level C | 10 hours stereo 20 hours mono |
4 bits | 18,900/sec | 1.08 Mb |
CR-I adds CD-I MPEG 1 Disc for systems able to transfer up to 1.5 Mbits/sec, CD-I MPEG 2 Disc for systems able to transfer 4 to 10 Mbits /sec.
Another is CD-I Ready Disc with a hidden pause between the index points on the disc that can contain data. This allows for pure audio playback, preloading data in RAM before playing audio or playing audio and reading data at what appears to be the same time.
CD-Bridge Disc permits information to be played on different types of players with more than one type of information on them. The software for the various format playback types must be present. This feature exists because the volume descriptors get written to different locations so more than one can be present.
Photo CD discs are hybrid discs developed by Eastman Kodak and Philips. It is both a Bridge disc in that it can be played on more than one type of player and a multi-session capable disc as decribed by the Orange Book specification. It has five formats available:
| Photo CD Content Formats | |
|---|---|
| Master | Can hold about 100 images that can have prints made from them at a photofinisher. |
| Portfolio | Can hold about 800 images at video resolution, or audio, or a mix. |
| Catalog | Can hold up to 6000 images and provide programmed branching from screen menus. |
| Pro | Accommodates professional image formats; 35mm, 120, 4x5-inch and 8x10-inch. |
| Medical | Allows X-Rays and data from CT or MR scanners to be stored. |
And the Master format has information stored on the disc in an Image Pac file, a collection of five independent digital files containing both compressed and uncompressed picture data.
| Master Format Photo CD Image Pac Formats and Dimensions in Pixels | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Height | Width | Description | File Size | |
| Truecolor | Uncompressed | ||||
| Base/16 | 128 | 192 | Thumbnail | 48KB | 78KB |
| Base/4 | 256 | 384 | Low Res, TV | 171KB | 294KB |
| Base | 512 | 768 | High Res. or Zoomed TV or VGA Monitor |
732KB | 1,158KB |
| Base*4 | 768 | 1024 | HD-TV | 3,078KB | 4,614KB |
| Base*16 | 2,048 | 3,072 | High Res. HD-TV or 35mm Quality |
13,533KB | 18,438KB |
Lastly is the KARAOKE CD. Another hydrid CD with Full-Motion video in the MPEG 1 (Motion Picture Expert Group 1) and audio interleaved in such a way that proper data flow rates are achieved for for both. It complies with Video CD (White Book) Standards, but the first track contains a special KARAOKE data track that contains a CD-I program in an ISO 9660 format.
White Book
| MPEG 1 and Audio |
White Book
With the advent of DVD, this standard has become little used except for things like the KARAOKE CD.
