Editing Compact Disc Digital Audio (section)

== Storage capacity and playing time ==
The creators of the CD originally aimed at a playing time of 60 minutes with a disc diameter of 100&nbsp;mm (Sony) or 115&nbsp;mm (Philips).<ref name=Immink2 /> Sony vice-president [[Norio Ohga]] suggested extending the capacity to 74 minutes and 33 seconds<ref name=Immink2 /> to accommodate the recording of [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]] conducting [[Ludwig van Beethoven]]'s [[Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)|Ninth Symphony]] at the 1951 [[Bayreuth Festival]].<ref name="PhilBeet" /><ref name="Auto45-6" /> The additional 14-minute playing time required increasing disc diameter. [[Kees Schouhamer Immink]], Philips' chief engineer, however, denies this,<ref name="Imminknature">{{Cite journal 
|journal=Nature Electronics
|volume=1
|date=2018
|title=How we made the compact disc
|author=K. A. Schouhamer Immink
|author-link=Kees Schouhamer Immink
|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324571504
|access-date=2024-09-07
|quote=An international collaboration between Philips and the Sony Corporation lead to the creation of the compact disc. The author explains how it came about
}}</ref> claiming that the increase was motivated by technical considerations and that even after the increase in size, the Furtwängler recording would not have fit onto one of the earliest CDs.<ref name=Immink /><ref name=Immink2 />

According to a ''[[Sunday Tribune]]'' interview,<ref name="ferguscassidy" /> the story is slightly more involved. In 1979, Philips owned [[PolyGram]], one of the world's largest music distributors. PolyGram had set up a large experimental CD plant in [[Hannover]], Germany, which could produce huge numbers of CDs having a diameter of 115&nbsp;mm. Sony did not yet have such a facility. If Sony had agreed on the 115-mm disc, Philips would have had a significant competitive edge in the market. The long playing time of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony imposed by [[Norio Ohga|Ohga]] was used to push Philips to accept 120&nbsp;mm, so that Philips' PolyGram lost its edge on disc fabrication.<ref name="ferguscassidy" />

The 74:33 playing time of a CD, which is longer than the 22 minutes per side<ref name="Auto45-7" /><ref name="Auto45-8" /> typical of [[long-playing]] (LP) [[vinyl album]]s, was often used to the CD's advantage during the early years when CDs and LPs vied for commercial sales. CDs would often be released with one or more [[bonus track]]s, enticing consumers to buy the CD for the extra material. However, attempts to combine double LPs onto one CD occasionally resulted in the opposite situation in which the CD would instead offer less audio than the LP. One such example was with [[DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince]]'s double album ''[[He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper]]'', in which initial CD releases of the album had multiple tracks edited down for length to fit on a single disc; recent CD reissues package the album across two discs as a result. Furthermore, early CD releases were restricted by the 72-minute limit of 3/4&nbsp;inch [[U-matic]] tapes used by early PCM adaptors; by 1988, higher-capacity alternatives would arrive on the market, allowing for releases to make use of the full 74:33.<ref name=Immink2 /> This and the emergence of 80-minute CDs allowed for some double albums that were previously edited for length, e.g. ''[[1999 (Prince album)|1999]]'' by [[Prince (musician)|Prince]], or packaged as double CDs, e.g. ''[[Tommy (The Who album)|Tommy]]'' by [[the Who]], to be re-released on a single disc.

Playing times beyond 74:33 are achieved by decreasing track pitch (the distance separating the track as it spirals the disc). However, most players can still accommodate the more closely spaced data if it is still within ''Red Book'' tolerances.<ref name="Auto45-9" /> Manufacturing processes used in the final years of CD technology allowed an audio CD to contain up to 82 minutes (variable from one replication plant to another) without requiring the content creator to sign a waiver releasing the plant owner from responsibility if the CD produced is marginally or entirely unreadable by some playback equipment. In this final practice, maximum CD playing time crept higher by reducing minimum engineering tolerances.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Progression in the maximum duration of released audio CDs
|-
! Released !! Time
! Title !! Artist !! Label 
|-
|1980
|50:47<ref>{{Cite web |title=Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie - Berlin P... |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/release/richard-strauss-eine-alpensinfonie-mr0002658135 |access-date=2024-09-25 |website=AllMusic |language=en}}</ref>
|Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie
|Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Herbert von Karajan
|None. This was the first test pressing of a CD. Later sold commercially by [[Deutsche Grammophon]].
|-
| 1988 || 80:08<ref name="Auto45-11" />
| ''Mission of Burma'' (compilation) || [[Mission of Burma]] || [[Rykodisc]]
|-
| 1990
| 80:51<ref name="ambisonic.info">{{Cite web|url=https://ambisonic.info/mirabilis.html|title=Ambisonic Info {{pipe}} Mirabilis Recordings|access-date=3 October 2021|archive-date=27 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230827104607/https://ambisonic.info/mirabilis.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
| ''Late Romantic Masterworks''
| Andrew Fletcher
| Mirabilis Records
|-
| 1990
| 82:04<ref name="ambisonic.info" />
| ''JS Bach, Das Orgelbüchlein''
| [[Richard Marlow]]
| Mirabilis Records
|-
| 2004 || 82:34<ref name="Auto45-10" />
| [[Bruckner]]'s [[Symphony No. 5 (Bruckner)|Fifth]] (live) || [[Munich Philharmonic]] cond. [[Christian Thielemann]] || [[Deutsche Grammophon]]/Universal Classics 477 5377 
|-
| 2005
| 82:34<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.discogs.com/release/6096529-Taneyev-Vadim-Repin-Ilya-Gringolts-Nobuko-Imai-Lynn-Harrell-Mikhail-Pletnev-Chamber-Music-Piano-Quin|title=Taneyev – Vadim Repin, Ilya Gringolts, Nobuko Imai, Lynn Harrell, Mikhail Pletnev – Chamber Music: Piano Quintet = Klavierquintett • Piano Trio = Klaviertrio|date=1 July 2005|access-date=2 June 2023|website=Discogs.com|archive-date=27 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230827104710/https://www.discogs.com/release/6096529-Taneyev-Vadim-Repin-Ilya-Gringolts-Nobuko-Imai-Lynn-Harrell-Mikhail-Pletnev-Chamber-Music-Piano-Quin|url-status=live}}</ref>
| Sergey Tanyiev works for piano and ensemble
| Vadim Repin, Ilya Gringolts, Nobuko Imai, Lynn Harrell, and Mikhail Pletnev
| Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics 477 5419
|-
|2006
|88:41 on disc 1, 89:07 on disc 2<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.discogs.com/Die-%C3%84rzte-B%C3%A4st-Of/release/806980|title=Die Ärzte – Bäst Of|website=Discogs |date=10 June 2006 |access-date=31 January 2021|language=en-US|archive-date=21 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210221082151/https://www.discogs.com/Die-%C3%84rzte-B%C3%A4st-Of/release/806980|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rs|reason=Let's find a source that discusses this extraordinary length|date=May 2024}}
|''[[Bäst of]]''
|[[Die Ärzte]]
|Hot Action/Universal 930 003
|-
|2014
|85:16<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.amazon.com/%C3%89tudes-Valentina-Lisitsa/dp/B00NVY8VJE|title=Valentina Lisitsa – Études – Amazon.com Music|website=Amazon.com|access-date=1 January 2017|archive-date=1 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101231453/https://www.amazon.com/%C3%89tudes-Valentina-Lisitsa/dp/B00NVY8VJE|url-status=live}}</ref>
|Chopin & Schumann Etudes
|[[Valentina Lisitsa]]
|[[Decca Records|Decca]]/Universal Classics 478 7697
|-
|2014
|85:10 and 85:57<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.discogs.com/Alphaville-Curated-By-Blank-Jones-So80s-Soeighties-Presents-Alphaville/master/780651|title=Alphaville Curated By Blank & Jones – So80s (Soeighties) Presents Alphaville|website=[[Discogs]]|access-date=21 October 2019|archive-date=29 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191029044548/https://www.discogs.com/Alphaville-Curated-By-Blank-Jones-So80s-Soeighties-Presents-Alphaville/master/780651|url-status=live}}</ref>
|So80s Presents Alphaville
|[[Alphaville (band)|Alphaville]] (curated by [[Blank & Jones]])
|Soulfood
|-
|2016
|86:30<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.kirkville.com/cds-longer-than-80-minutes-are-becoming-more-common/|title=CDs Longer than 80 Minutes Are Becoming More Common|last=McElhearn|first=Kirk|date=12 May 2017|work=Kirkville|access-date=12 May 2017|language=en-US|archive-date=17 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517003528/https://www.kirkville.com/cds-longer-than-80-minutes-are-becoming-more-common/|url-status=live}}</ref>
|Mozart Violin Concertos (Mozart 225 Boxed Set, CD75)
|Various Artists
|[[Deutsche Grammophon]]/Universal Classics 478 9864
|-
|}