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What are all the color books about?
New readers may be wondering what are these colored books all about. The first colored book was the Red Book, circa 1980. It was so named because the cover of the actual specification happened to be "red". So, rather than introduce a new number series, Sony and Philips decided to reference their technical standard describing the use of digital audio on a CD (CD-DA) as the "Red Book". Despite what ever the actual color of new specification covers may be, the naming trend has continued with new Sony/Philips standards over the last 16 years.
There now exist several "colored" book formats which define the different physical (not logical) formats of optical disc writing. The following is a synopsis of the Sony/Philips colored books and related terminology:
Red Book: The original "Book" standard. The Red Book defines audio CD format specifications. Audio files are placed in one or more tracks on a CD; up to 99 tracks are allowed. The Red Book specifies an error-detection code and an error-correction code to compensate for missing gaps of audio information due to physical imperfections in the disc.
Yellow Book: This format constitutes the physical format layout for CD-ROM content. It defines basically how much the disc can hold and how the disc is divided up into physical sectors. Mode 1 has rigorous error correction standards to ensure data integrity necessary for computer information. Mode 2 is the CD-ROM XA.
CD-ROM XA: "XA" stands for eXtended Architecture. It is an extension to the Yellow Book format and is generally consistent with the ISO 9660 logical format. This new breed of CDs was announced as Kodak/Philip's physical choice for the Photo CD format. The eXtended Arcitecture format adpoted some of the multi media improvements from the CD-I including compressed ADPCM audio (and often compressed video).
ISO 9660: The ISO 9660 format is a globally accepted standard logical file format used for the CD-ROM. It translates the disc sector information into an easily understood tree of directories and files. Though it is read by both PC's and Mac's, Mac's need to meet certain system requirements in order to access ISO 9660 disks.
HFS: The HFS is the Macintosh-specific logical file format. The Hierarchical File System (HFS) discs cannot be read on a PC.
Blue Book: The Blue Book specifies what exactly is required of a disc to be constituted as a CD-Extra disc. This specification defines that a disc be written in 2 "sessions", on a "multi-session" disc, requiring a standard data directory. Per the standard, the disc uses the first "session" as "Red Book" (digital audio) while its second session is that of "Yellow Book" (computer data). Multi-session writing is possible by adhering to the Multi session Compact Disc Standard as with CD-R via the Orange Book Part II.
Orange Book: The Orange Book defines formats for CD-R, magneto-optical discs and other writeable CD's. The specification include the multi session standard. Many book formats incorporate Orange Book specifications.
Green Book: The Green Book is the CD-I standard created by Philips. The specifications herein are designed to synchronize separate audio and data tracks on the same disc.
The White Book: Originally known as the Karaoke CD, the White Book standard uses MPEG specifications to compress audio and video files. The White Book addresses audio and video in the CD ROM XA format. The new Sony, Philips, Time Warner, Toshiba (did I get every one?) DVD format is released in the White Book.