Thread: The Compact Disc

The Compact Disc was the first pop\llar optical storage media. The result of a collaboration between Philips and Sony, its orig¬inal use was for playback of audio recordings. CDs are available in the following types based on the content they carry: CD A (Audio CD), Video CD (for video), Mixed Mode CD (Containing audio and other data types), Data CD (containing all forms of files), CD-I (CDs containing interactive content), and more.

Based on their recording capability, we have CD-ROM (Read-only; all pre-manufactured CDs are of this type); CD-R (recordable once); and CD-RW (read and write many times). The original CD drive could read data at 150 Kilobytes per second, and every sub¬sequent CD drive speed has been rated as a multiple of this speed. The laser used in a CD drive has a wavelength of 780 nanometres. The rated storage capacity is 700 MB.