You should be familiar with Compact Disc standards so you know where to search on the web when you need specific technical information on CD recording.

There are quite a few CD formats that have been developed over the years; here is a brief description of them. If you need more information, search for the term on the web – there is a wealth of information there.

Red Book – This was the original standard created by Sony and Phillips in the 1980’s. This is still the universal standard for CD Audio and is the standard on which all the others are built.

Yellow Book – This was the original data Format standard developed by Phillips and Sony in 1983. This was a very general spec that evolved into ISO-9660, the HFS format for Macintosh , and hybrid HFS-ISO.

ISO 9660 –  This is a standard CDROM file system that allows CD compatibility independent of platform. This standard was written by an industry group named High Sierra, and was issued in 1988.

There are several levels to ISO-9660. In level 1 the filenames are in the 8.3 format. (No more than 8 characters in the name followed by a three character suffix). All characters must be capitalized; directories can have a maximum of 8 characters and no more than 8 nested directory levels. Use this level for compatibility with MSDOS and old versions of Windows.

The specifications for levels 2 and 3 allow file names up to 32 characters long.

CDROM-XA – This format based on the Yellow Book (XA being short for Extended Architecture) allows for new types of sectors to display data, graphics, audio and video at the same time. CD, Photo CD, Video CD and CD Extra are outgrowths of this standard.

Joliet – This is an extension to ISO 9660, developed by Microsoft, which allows the use of Unicode characters in the file names. These are need for international use. File names up to 64 characters in length are permitted.

White Book – This standard was created to allow the playback of interactive disks on players that support the green Book and CDROM-XA standards. This standard is commonly used for the creation of Video CD disks.

Green Book – The Green Book standard was developed in 1991 for CD -I (CD Interactive)

Orange Book – This is the most recent standard that defines the specifications for CD recorders and media.