Overview
ISO/IEC 14517:1996 is an international standard for 130 mm optical disk cartridges (ODCs) with a nominal capacity of 2.6 Gbytes (2,6 Gbytes) per cartridge (1.3 Gbytes per side). Published by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 23, the standard defines a family of cartridge Types (R/W, DOW, P-ROM, P-DOW, O-ROM, WO, WO‑DOW), the Reference Drive and the conditions for conformance testing required to ensure mechanical and logical interchange between systems.
Key topics and requirements
- Cartridge and disk definition: mechanical, dimensional and material requirements for the 130 mm cartridge case and internal disk to ensure physical interchangeability.
- Types of media: descriptions of rewritable (R/W), direct overwrite (DOW), pre-recorded (P-ROM/O-ROM), write-once (WO) and hybrid Types (P-DOW, WO‑DOW).
- Reference Drive & testing: specification of the Reference Drive optics, read/write channels, tracking and rotational behaviour used for conformance and test methods.
- Format of information: detailed logical and physical track/sector formats, sector sizes (512- and 1024-byte variants), control tracks, lead-in/lead-out, manufacturer and user zones.
- Magneto-optical and embossed characteristics: magneto‑optical write/read behaviour, Kerr rotation, embossed marks, and test methods for measuring signal quality.
- Defect management and reliability: initialization, certification, Primary/Secondary Defect Lists (PDL/SDL), slipping and replacement algorithms for defective sectors.
- User data quality: minimum sector quality, error detection/correction (CRC, ECC like Reed–Solomon), timing jitter and modulation constraints for reliable interchange.
- Environmental & safety: operating, storage and transportation environments, temperature shock, drop tests and reference to IEC 950 for equipment safety.
Practical applications and users
ISO/IEC 14517:1996 is primarily used by:
- Optical disk manufacturers and media suppliers for designing compliant 130 mm cartridges and recording layers.
- Drive and system designers to implement compatible mechanical interfaces, Reference Drive optics and read/write channels.
- Test laboratories and QA teams for conformance verification, signal and media testing, and defect-management validation.
- Archivists and data interchange solution providers who require documented interchangeability and minimum data quality guarantees for long-term storage or cross-platform transfer.
Benefits include assured mechanical interchange, predictable read/write behaviour, and standardized defect-management enabling reliable data exchange using 130 mm ODCs.
Related standards
- IEC 950 (safety of information technology equipment) is cited normative.
- The standard is intended to be used together with a volume/file-structure standard for full data interchange between systems.