Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Optical drives can use many types of disc formats and standards. This section discusses the formats
and file systems used by optical drives, so you can make sure you can use media recorded in a
particular format with your drive.
CD Formats
After Philips and Sony created the Red Book CD-DA format discussed earlier in the chapter, they
began work on other format standards that would allow CDs to store computer files, data, and even
video and photos. These standards control how the data is formatted so that the drive can read it, and
additional file format standards can then control how the software and drivers on your PC can be
designed to understand and interpret the data properly. Note that the physical format and storage of
data on the disc as defined in the Red Book was adopted by all subsequent CD standards. This refers
to the encoding and basic levels of error correction provided by CD-DA discs. The other “books”
specify primarily how the 2,352 bytes in each sector are to be handled, what type of data can be
stored, how it should be formatted, and more.
All the official CD standard books and related documents can be purchased from Philips for $100—
$150 each. See the Philips licensing site at
www.ip.philips.com
for more information.
Table 11.18
describes the various standard CD formats, which are discussed in more detail in the
following sections.
Table 11.18. Compact Disc Formats
