ECMA International Technical Report ECMA TR/112 Universal Disk Format Spec

During its 126th General Assembly held in Cupertino, CA, on December 5 2023, ECMA International approved the technical report ECMA TR/112 1^st edition – Universal Disk Format (UDF) specification (Part 1 to 8).

Ecma 1702723950

This report describes Universal Disk Format, a widely used file system for mass-storage media such as optical disks.

From ECMA: “UDF is a simple and universal vendor-independent file system designed for data interchange among general OSs including Windows, Mac OS and Linux. UDF is designed to work with all types of mass-storage media such as read-only, write-once and rewritable. UDF has been adapted to work as the official file system for CDs, DVDs and BDs on optical disks. This allows entertainment and IT contents to reside on the same medium and be accessed by AV players and recorders in the home as well as on various computer systems.”

Introduction from ECMA document:

In 1992, Ecma standardized ECMA-167, which specifies volumes and file structures for interchange of files, considering that future volume and file structure standards would conform to this framework, rather than building another incompatible format.

Ecma proposed ECMA-167 to ISO/IEC JTC 1 for international standardization with the fast-track procedure.

During this international standardization, ECMA-167 was revised as a 2nd edition in 1994, and ISO/IEC 13346, equivalent to the 2nd edition, was published in 1995.

From 1992 to 2006, the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) developed the Universal Disk Format (UDF) spec, which is a practical subset of ECMA-167, to maximize data interchange and minimize the cost and complexity of implementing ECMA-167. In 1997, a 3rd edition of ECMA-167 was published in conjunction with the revision of the UDF spec.

In 2022, OSTA transferred the copyright ownership to ECMA for the UDF specification to be permanently usable with ECMA-167.

This Technical Report consists of following 8 parts: