Blue Book (CD standard) Blue Book (CD standard) The Blue Book is a compact disc standard developed in 1995 by Philips and Sony. 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. The format was created as a way to solve the problem of mixed mode CDs, which were not properly supported by many CD players. The standard is not freely available and must be licensed from Philips. E-CDs are created through the "stamped multisession" technology, which creates two sessions on a disc. The first session of
CD Video that can play CD-V discs is the Pioneer CLD-1010 from 1987. Though it is a CD-based format, CD Video was never given a rainbow book designation; the idea of encoding analogue video, which is incompatible between different regions, was poorly received by CD stakeholders other than Philips, who had not consulted them prior to demonstrating the format to the music industry. CD Video discs have a distinctive gold color, to differentiate them from regular silver-colored audio CDs. This is a characteristic that would later be replicated in HVD, a more advanced disc format. A similar version of CD Video called