The Blue Book is a

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...

standard developed in 1995 by

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

and

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

. It defines the Enhanced Music CD format (E-CD, also known as CD-Extra, CD-Plus and CD+), which combines audio tracks and data tracks on the same disc.Enhanced CD Definition
/ref> The format was created as a way to solve the problem of

mixed mode CD A mixed mode CD is a compact disc which contains both data and audio in one session. Typically the first track is a data track while the rest are audio tracks. The most common use for mixed mode CDs is to add CD-quality audio to video games on a ...

s, which were not properly supported by many CD players. E-CDs are created through the ''stamped multisession'' technology, which creates two sessions on a disc. The first session of an E-CD contains audio tracks according to the Red Book. As a consequence, existing compact disc players can play back this first session as an audio disc. The second session contains

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

data files with content often related to the audio tracks in the first session. The second session will only be used by computer systems equipped with a CD-ROM drive, or by special “Enhanced CD players”. The second session of a E-CD contains one track in

CD-ROM XA A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

Mode 2, Form 1 format. It must contain certain specific files inside an

ISO 9660 ISO 9660 (also known as ECMA-119) is a file system for optical disc media. The file system is an international standard available from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Since the specification is publicly available, im ...

file system, though an

HFS HFS may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Croatian Film Association () * Hellenic Fire Service, Greece * Hospitality Franchise Systems, US Computing * Hierarchical file system, a system for organizing directories and files * Hierarchica ...

file system may also be included for compatibility with the

classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...

. The mandatory files and directories include an autorun.inf file compatible with the

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

AutoRun feature; a CDPLUS and a PICTURES directories; and an optional DATA directory.Gateway Support - What is CD EXTRA?
The technology was originally developed by

Albhy Galuten Albhy Galuten (born Alan Bruce Galuten; December 27, 1947) is an American technology executive and futurist, Grammy Award-winning record producer, composer, musician, orchestrator and conductor. Career Musical career Galuten attended Berkle ...

who, along with Ty Roberts brought the idea to the major

record labels "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and t ...

where it was built into commercial releases. There were other technologies that solved the same problem, but they were not compatible with many existing CD players and so this approach was brought to Sony and Philips where it was written into the Blue Book standard. The term "

enhanced CD Enhanced CD is a certification mark of the Recording Industry Association of America for various technologies that combine audio and computer data for use in both CD-Audio and CD-ROM players. Formats that fall under the ''enhanced CD'' cate ...

" is also an umbrella term and a certification mark used to refer to different CD formats that support audio and data content, including mixed mode CDs,

CD-i The Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I, later CD-i) is a digital optical disc data storage format as well as a hardware platform, co-developed and marketed by Dutch company Philips and Japanese company Sony. It was created as an extension of CDDA ...

and

CD-i Ready CD-i Ready is a compact disc format for mixing audio and data content on a CD. It was developed by Phillips in 1991, based on the CD-i format. The CD-i Ready format uses a certain technique to get audio CD players to skim over the CD-i software an ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Book Specification Rainbow Books Optical disc authoring Digital audio storage Optical computer storage media