CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book standard for audio CDs. It allows for storage of additional information (e.g. album name, song name, and artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored in the lead-in area of the CD (there is roughly five kilobytes space there), or in the Subchannels R to W on the disc, which are not used on Red-Book compliant CDs. About 31 megabytes of information can be stored there. The text is stored in a format usable by the Interactive Text Transmission System (ITTS). ITTS is also used by Digital Audio Broadcasting or the MiniDisc. The CDDA trademark Red Book is the standard for audio CDs (Compact Disc Digital Audio system, or CDDA). ... CD re-directs here; see Cd for other meanings of CD. Image of a compact disc (pencil included for scale) A compact disc (or CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio. ... Digital audio broadcasting or DAB is a technology for broadcasting audio programming in digital form that was designed in the late 1980s. ... The Sony MZ1 MiniDisc player, the first to hit the market in 1992. ...
A user-recordable CD for data storage, CD-R, was introduced in the early 1990s, and it became the de facto standard for exchange and archiving of computer data and music.
The information on a standard CD is encoded as a spiral track of pits moulded into the top of the polycarbonate layer (The areas between pits are known as lands).
The difference in height between pits and lands is a sixth of the wavelength of the laser light, leading to a third-wavelength phase difference between the light reflected from a pit and from its surrounding land.