Rainbow Books

Optical discs
Optical media types
Optical disc Optical disc drive Optical disc authoring Authoring software Recording technologies Recording modes Packet writing
Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R, BD-RE DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DS, DVD+R DS, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-D, DVD-A, HVD, EcoDisc Compact Disc (CD): Red Book, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, 5.1 Music Disc, SACD, Photo CD, CD Video (CDV), Video CD (VCD), SVCD, CD+G, CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-i Universal Media Disc (UMD) Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) Forward Versatile Disc (FVD) Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM High definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD) VCDHD GD-ROM MiniDisc (MD) (Hi-MD) Laserdisc (LD) (LD-ROM) Video Single Disc (VSD) Ultra Density Optical (UDO) Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk (SVOD) Five dimensional disc (5D DVD) Nintendo optical disc (NOD)
Standards
SFF ATAPI/MMC Mount Rainier (packet writing) Mount Fuji (layer jump recording) Rainbow Books File systems ISO 9660 Joliet Romeo Rock Ridge / SUSP El Torito Apple ISO 9660 Extensions Universal Disk Format (UDF) ISO 13490
See also
History of optical storage media High definition optical disc format war

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

Rainbow Books

Red Book (CD Digital Audio) · Yellow Book (CD-ROM and CD-ROM XA) · Orange Book (CD-R and CD-RW) · White Book (Video CD) · Blue Book (Enhanced CD, CD+G and CD-Plus) · Beige Book (Photo CD) · Green Book (CD-i standard)

Purple Book (DDCD) · Scarlet Book (Super Audio CD) · Black Book (Non-Standard Disc Format)