# White Book

> CD standard for storing still pictures and motion video

**Wikidata**: [Q4019519](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4019519)  
**Wikipedia**: [English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Book_(CD_standard))  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/white-book

## Summary
White Book is the official CD standard that lets an ordinary compact disc store still pictures and full-motion video. Adopted in 1993 as an extension of the CD-ROM format, it underpins Video CD and Photo CD, turning the music-oriented CD into a consumer video and photo platform.

## Key Facts
- Instance of: optical disc (Wikidata Q328 reference)
- Foldoc ID: White+Book
- Freebase ID: /m/021fqq
- Wikipedia sitelinks: 2 (English and Italian articles)
- Primary use-case: storing still pictures and motion video on CD
- Compatible with: standard CD drives and early-generation DVD players
- Format family: part of the Rainbow Books series of CD specifications

## FAQs
### Q: What does the White Book actually specify?
A: It defines how to encode still images (Photo CD) and MPEG-1 video (Video CD) onto a 650 MB CD so any compliant drive can read it.

### Q: Is White Book the same as Video CD?
A: Video CD is the best-known application; White Book is the umbrella specification that also covers Photo CD for still images.

### Q: Can I play a White-Book disc on a modern computer?
A: Yes—modern operating systems still recognise the ISO-9660 bridge format and can decode MPEG-1 with free software such as VLC.

## Why It Matters
Before White Book, CDs were audio-only or data-only; video required expensive LaserDisc or VHS. By piggy-backing on the ubiquitous CD, White Book gave the world the first cheap, mass-replicable digital video carrier. Hollywood studios released thousands of titles on Video CD across Asia and Europe, while Photo CD let professional photographers deliver digital portfolios long before RAW files or cloud galleries. The standard proved that optical discs could handle bandwidth-hungry multimedia, paving the way for DVD and Blu-ray. Even today, White Book discs remain the lowest-cost way to distribute standard-definition video without internet access, and millions of legacy karaoke and educational discs still rely on the format.

## Notable For
- First CD specification to combine still and moving pictures on one disc
- Enabled the 1990s boom of Video CD movies in Asia
- Maintained backward compatibility with existing CD-ROM drives
- Part of the official Rainbow Books, giving it the same pedigree as Red Book (CD-Audio) and Yellow Book (CD-ROM)

## Body
### Origins and Rainbow Book lineage
The Rainbow Books are a set of colour-named specifications that define every consumer CD format. White Book, finalised in 1993, sits alongside Red Book (audio), Yellow Book (data), and Orange Book (recordable). It re-uses the ISO-9660 bridge structure so that a single disc can contain both Photo CD sessions and Video CD tracks.

### Technical footprint
A White-Book disc is a standard 120 mm, 1.2 mm-thick polycarbonate disc with 650 MB capacity. Video is encoded at 1.15 Mbit/s MPEG-1, yielding ~74 minutes of VHS-quality playback. Still images are stored in Kodak’s proprietary Photo CD YCC colour space at up to 4096×6144 pixels.

### Adoption and legacy
Consumer electronics firms rapidly produced White-Book-compatible players; by 1995 more than 50 manufacturers sold Video CD decks. Although superseded by DVD in 1997, the format survives in karaoke systems, airline in-flight entertainment, and archival markets where royalty-free MPEG-1 is attractive.