Optical disc reading apparatus and method therefore

Abstract

An optical disc reading apparatus, such as a Near Filed optical disc reading apparatus, comprises a disc reader (401) which generates a first signal by reading an optical disc (403). A bit detector (407) detects data values in response to the first signal. The detected data is fed to an error correction processor (407) which performs error correction on the stream of detected data. In addition, the reading apparatus comprises an error signal processor (411) which generates a reading head position error signal. The error signal may for example be indicative of an air gap error or a tracking error for the reading lens. The error signal is fed to a reliability processor (413) which sets reliability values of at least some of the detected data in response to the head position error signal. The error correction performed by the error correcting processor (407) then performs the error correction taking the reliability values into account. The invention may allow improved error correction performance.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.