Urban Myth?

[Birchy]

Is there any truth in the allegation that the 74 minute CD was formatted using Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' as the length template?

[sft42]

Urban Myth I'm afraid...Moonlight Sonata when played at the correct tempo anyway lasts approx 65 minutes....then 74 minutes was the limit of the technology at the time and was decided on that basis alone by Philips who invented the standardized CD's and players and agreed on later by Sony and Polygram.

[smorodina]

Or an alternative explanation: http://www.snopes.com/music/media/cdlength.htm