Double-density compact disc

The double-density compact disc (DDCD) is an optical disc technology developed by Sony and Philips using the same 780 nm laser wavelength as a compact disc. The format was announced in July 2000 and is defined by the Purple Book standard document. Unlike the compact disc technology on which it is based, DDCD was designed exclusively for data, with no audio capabilities.

For a 12 cm disc, it doubles the original 650 MB to 1.3 GB capacity of a CD on recordable (DDCD-R) and rewritable (DDCD-RW) discs by narrowing the track pitch from 1.6 to 1.1 micrometers, and shortening the minimum pit length from 0.833 to 0.623 micrometers. The DDCD was also available in read-only format (DDCD-ROM). The specification allowed for both 12 cm and 8 cm discs, although an 8 cm DDCD disc was never released.