Rainbow Books

For the series of U.S. government publications on computer security standards, see Rainbow Series.

For Reading Rainbow children's television series, see Reading Rainbow.

Optical disc authoring v • d • e
Optical disc Optical disc image Optical disc drive Optical disc authoring Authoring software Recording technologies Recording modes Packet writing
Optical media types
Laserdisc (LD), Video Single Disc (VSD) Compact Disc (CD): Red Book, 5.1 Music Disc, SACD, PhotoCD, CD-R, CD-ROM, CD-RW, CD Video (CDV), Video CD (VCD), SVCD, CD+G, CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-i MiniDisc (MD) (Hi-MD) DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RW DL, DVD+RW DL, DVD-RAM, DVD-D Ultra Density Optical (UDO) Universal Media Disc (UMD) HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM, HD DVD-ROM Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R, BD-RE
Standards
Rainbow Books File systems ISO 9660 Joliet Rock Ridge El Torito Apple ISO 9660 Extensions Universal Disk Format (ISO 9660) (UDF) Mount Rainier
Further reading
History of optical storage media High definition optical disc format war

The Rainbow Books are a collection of standards defining the allowed formats of Compact Discs.

Red Book
- CD-DA – Digital Audio extended by CD-Text,
Yellow Book
- CD-ROM – Read-Only Memory and
- CD-ROM XA,
Orange Book ^[1]
- CD-MO – Magneto-Optical
- CD-R alias CD-WO or CD-WORM – Recordable, Write Once or Write Once, Read Many
- CD-RW alias CD-E – ReWritable or Erasable,
- 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.
White Book
- VCD – Video and
- CD-Bridge - Hybrid discs, e.g. CD-Ready,
Blue Book
- E-CD – Enhanced,
- CD+ – plus and
- CD+G – plus Graphics (karaoke) extended by CD+EG / CD+XG,
Beige Book
- PCD – Photo (not Picture),
Green Book ^[2]
- CD-i – interactive,
Purple Book
- DDCD – Double Density,
Scarlet Book
- SACD – Super Audio.