The Rainbow Books are a collection of CD format

specification A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificati ...

s, generally written and published by the companies involved in their development, including

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 ...

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 ...

, Matsushita and JVC, among others.
A number of these specifications have been officially adopted by established standards bodies, including the

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

, IEC, and ECMA.

''Red Book'' (1980)

CD-DA Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standardization, standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the ''Rainbow Books, Red Book'' technical s ...

(''Digital Audio'') – originally published by Philips and Sony in 1981, it was later standardized as IEC 60908:1987 and later IEC 60908:1999. ** CD-Text – a 1996 extension to CD-DA **CD-MIDI – part of the original Red Book standard ** CD+G (''plus Graphics'') – an extension of the Red Book specifications used mainly for karaoke ***

CD+EG The compact disc (CD) is a 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 holding of uncom ...

(''plus Extended Graphics'') – an extension of CD+G

''Yellow Book'' (1983)

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 ...

(''Read-Only Memory'') – originally developed by Philips and Sony, it was standardized as ISO/IEC 10149 in 1988 and ECMA-130 in 1989 **

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 ...

(''eXtended Architecture'') – a 1991 extension of CD-ROM, developed by Philips and Sony

''Green Book'' (1986)

* CD-i (''Interactive'') – standard developed and published by Phillips.

''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 CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can only be Write once read many, written once and read arbitrarily many times. CD-R discs (CD-Rs) ...

(''Recordable'') alias CD-WO (''Write Once'') alias CD-WORM (''Write Once, Read Many'') – originally developed by Sony and Philips, it was partially standardized as ECMA-394. *

CD-RW RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format introduced by Ricoh in 1997. A CD-RW compact disc (CD-RWs) can be written, read, erased, and re-written. CD-RWs, as opposed to CDs, r ...

(''ReWritable'') alias CD-E (''Eraseable'') – originally developed by Philips, Sony and

Ricoh is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the ''Riken Concern'', on 6 February 1936 as . Ricoh's hea ...

, it was partially standardized as ECMA-395.

''Beige Book'' (1992)

* Photo CD (''Photo'') — proprietary standard jointly developed by Philips and

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

; never released to the public

''White Book'' (1993)

The '' White Book'' refers to a standard of compact disc that stores pictures and video. * CD-i Bridge - a bridge format between

and the Green Book CD-i, which is the base format for

Video CD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical discs. The f ...

Super Video CD Super Video CD (Super Video Compact Disc or SVCD) is a Digital data, digital format for storing video on standard compact discs. SVCD was intended as a successor to Video CD and an alternative to DVD-Video, and falls somewhere between both in ter ...

s and Photo CDs. *

VCD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of LaserDisc, Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical di ...

(''Video'') – a standard jointly developed and published by JVC, Matsushita, Philips and Sony. ** SVCD (''Super Video'', 1998) – a 1998 extension of VCD, standardized as IEC 62107 in 2000.

''Blue Book'' (1995)

The '' Blue Book'' is a compact disc standard that defines the Enhanced Music CD format, which combines audio tracks and data tracks on the same disc. * E-CD/CD+/CD Extra (''Enhanced'') – a standard jointly developed and published by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, Philips and Sony

''Scarlet Book'' (1999)

Scarlet color of this book is a reference to the Red Book, which defines original CDDA. * SACD (''Super Audio'') – a standard jointly developed and published by Philips and Sony

''Purple Book'' (2000)

A standard developed by Philips and Sony in the late 1990s, with over 1 GB in capacity and recordable/re-recordable capabilities. * DDCD (''Double Density'') – divided in three separate specifications: **DD-ROM (''Double Density Read-Only'') **DD-R (''Double Density Recordable'') **DD-RW (''Double Density ReWritable'')

References

External links

Philips CD Specifications
* {{Rainbow Books Japanese inventions