The world of CD-ROM technology is not as confusing as your instruction manual. The same format is used for audio Compact Discs. Because of its high storage capacity, reliability, and low cost, CD-ROM has become an increasingly popular storage media. Current drives operate at up to 40 times speed, although the maximum rate is only achievable over certain portions of the disc surface. They also typically support playing audio CDs via an external headphone jack or line level output.
Some CDs also allow reading the frames of data from audio CDs in digital form.
With appropriate software, you can view the images on a computer, manipulate them, or send them to a printer. Data can only be written once, although using multi-session new data can be appended to a disc. These drives are now becoming increasingly affordable. DVD-ROM expands the storage of a CD to as much as 17 gigabytes. They are commonly used as a medium for distributing full length motion pictures encoded using the MPEG-2 format.