Rainbow Books



The Rainbow Books are a collection of CD format specifications generally written and published by standards bodies including the ISO, IEC, and ECMA.

Red Book (1980)

 * CD-DA (Digital Audio) – standardized as IEC 60908
 * CD-Text—a 1996 extension to CD-DA
 * CD-MIDI—part of the original red-book standard
 * CD+G (plus Graphics) – karaoke
 * CD+EG / CD+XG (plus Extended Graphics) – an extension of CD+G

Yellow Book (1983)

 * CD-ROM (Read-Only Memory) – standardized as ISO/IEC 10149 in 1988 and ECMA-130 in 1989
 * CD-ROM XA (eXtended Architecture) – a 1991 extension of CD-ROM

Green Book (1986)

 * CD-i (Interactive)

Orange Book (1990)
Orange is a reference to the fact that red and yellow mix to orange. This correlates with the fact that CD-R and CD-RW are capable of audio ("Red") and data ("Yellow"); 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.
 * CD-MO (Magneto-Optical)
 * CD-R (Recordable) alias CD-WO (Write Once) alias CD-WORM (Write Once, Read Many) – partially standardized as ECMA-394
 * CD-RW (ReWritable) alias CD-E (Eraseable) – partially standardized as ECMA-395

Beige Book (1992)

 * PCD (Photo)

White Book (1993)

 * CD-i Bridge - a bridge format between CD-ROM XA and the Green Book CD-i, which is the base format for Video CDs, Super Video CDs and Photo CDs.
 * VCD (Video)
 * SVCD (Super Video, 1998) – a 1998 extension of VCD, standardized as IEC 62107 in 2000.

Blue Book (1995)

 * E-CD/CD+/CD Extra (Enhanced)

Scarlet Book (1999)
Scarlet color of this book is a reference to the Red Book, which defines original CDDA.


 * SACD (Super Audio)

Purple Book (2000)

 * DDCD (Double Density)