CD-DA (Red Book)
More info
- Creator
- Sony and Philips
- Released
- 1980
- Type
- Optical disc audio format
- Spec
- IEC 60908
The audio CD specification: uncompressed stereo at 44.1 kHz and 16 bits, set down by Sony and Philips in 1980.
The Red Book, named after the colour of its binder, was the first of the rainbow of CD specifications. It defines linear PCM at 1,411.2 kbit/s, 75 sectors per second and the CIRC error correction, which shrugs off scratches a couple of millimetres long without an audible glitch. The odd sample rate comes from the PCM adaptors that recorded digital audio onto video tape: 44.1 kHz divided evenly into both PAL and NTSC.
The first discs went on sale in Japan in October 1982. The 74-minute playing time was supposedly chosen so Beethoven's Ninth would fit, a story both companies have been happy to repeat. The format has no files, only tracks in a table of contents — a legacy that still makes ripping harder than it ought to be.