Compact disc in the context of "Documentation"

Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, Arabic, or other languages – the medium of sheet music typically is paper (or, in earlier centuries, papyrus or parchment). However, access to musical notation since the 1980s has included the presentation of scores on computer screens and the development of scorewriter computer programs that can notate a song or piece electronically, and, in some cases, "play back" the notated music using a synthesizer or virtual instruments.

The use of the term sheet is intended to differentiate written or printed forms of music from sound recordings (on vinyl record, cassette, CD), radio or TV broadcasts or recorded live performances, which may capture film or video footage of the performance as well as the audio component. In everyday use, sheet music (or simply music) can refer to the print publication of commercial sheet music in conjunction with the release of a new film, TV show, record album, or other unique or popular event which involves music. The first printed sheet music made with a printing press was made in 1473.

An optical disc is a flat, usually disc-shaped object that stores information in the form of physical variations on its surface that can be read with the aid of a beam of light. Optical discs can be reflective, where the light source and detector are on the same side of the disc, or transmissive, where light shines through the disc to be detected on the other side. They may contain analog or digital information, or a mixture of the two. Their main uses are the distribution of media and data, and long-term archival storage.
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Sony Group Corporation, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including electronics (Sony Corporation), imaging and sensing (Sony Semiconductor Solutions), film (Sony Pictures Entertainment), music (Sony Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment Japan), video games (Sony Interactive Entertainment), and others.

Sony was founded in 1946 as initially Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. In 1958, the company adopted the name Sony Corporation. Initially an electronics firm, it gained early recognition for products such as the TR-55 transistor radio and the CV-2000 home video tape recorder, contributing significantly to Japan's post-war economic recovery. After Ibuka's retirement in the 1970s, Morita served as chairman until 1994, overseeing Sony's rise as a global brand recognized for innovation in consumer electronics. Landmark products included the Trinitron color television, the Walkman portable audio player, and the co-development of the compact disc.

An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.

Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the age of cassettes, compact discs, and downloadable audio, often of poetry and plays rather than books. It was not until the 1980s that the medium began to attract book retailers, and then book retailers started displaying audiobooks on bookshelves rather than in separate displays.

Disc and disk are both variants of the English word for objects of a generally thin and cylindrical geometry. The differences in spelling correspond both with regional differences and with different senses of the word. For example, in the case of flat, rotational data storage media the convention is that the spelling disk is used for magnetic storage (e.g., hard disks) while disc is used for optical storage (e.g., compact discs, better known as CDs). When there is no clear convention, the spelling disk is more popular in American English, while the spelling disc is more popular in British English.

DVD (digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind of digital data and has been widely used to store video programs (watched using DVD players), software and other computer files. DVDs offer significantly higher storage capacity than compact discs (CD) while having the same dimensions. A standard single-layer DVD can store up to 4.7 GB of data, a dual-layer DVD up to 8.5 GB. Dual-layer, double-sided DVDs can store up to a maximum of 17.08 GB.

Prerecorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD. Such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs (DVD-R and DVD+R) can be recorded once using a DVD recorder and then function as a DVD-ROM. Rewritable DVDs (DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM) can be recorded and erased many times.

Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-definition video (HDTV 720p and 1080p). The main application of Blu-ray is as a medium for video material such as feature films and for the physical distribution of video games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The name refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs, resulting in an increased capacity.

The polycarbonate disc is 12 centimetres (4+3⁄4 inches) in diameter and 1.2 millimetres (1⁄16 inch) thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Conventional (or "pre-BDXL") Blu-ray discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual-layer discs (50 GB) being the industry standard for feature-length video discs. Triple-layer discs (100 GB) and quadruple-layer discs (128 GB) are available for BDXL re-writer drives.

An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records (78s) collected in a bound book resembling a photo album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl long-playing (LP) records played at 33+1⁄3 rpm.

The album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the album era. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983, being gradually supplanted by the cassette tape throughout the 1970s and early 1980s; the popularity of the cassette reached its peak during the late 1980s before sharply declining during the 1990s. The cassette had largely disappeared by the first decade of the 2000s.