Optical disk player capable of playing back a plurality of different type optical disks
AssigneeSony Corporation
InventorAkira Shinada
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A disk playback apparatus provided by the present invention is capable of reproducing information from any one of a plurality of disk types including a truly single sided disk, a single sided disk, a double sided disk with TOCs (Tables of Contents) and a double sided disk with no TOC and capable of determining which surface of a disk mounted on the apparatus is the front surface of the disk so as to allow control of a playback operation to be carried out to always start the operation from the front surface of the disk without the need for the user to be aware of a disk surface orientation in which the disk is mounted thereon and to be aware of whether the mounted disk is single sided or double sided.
Claims10
A disk playback apparatus comprising:
- an optical head for radiating a light beam to a disk mounted on said disk playback apparatus;
- a transport mechanism for transporting said optical head so as to expose said optical head to a front surface or a back surface of said disk;
- control information reading and judging means for determining whether or not control information recorded in a predetermined area of said disk is reproducible by said optical head and for reading out said control information from said predetermined area if said control information is found reproducible;
- control information substance judging means responsive to said control information read out by said control information reading and judging means for determining whether said control information has been read out from said predetermined area on said front surface or said back surface of said disk when said control information reading and judging means determines that said control information is reproducible by said optical head;
- and
- transport control means for controlling said transport mechanism to transport said optical head to a position from one of said surfaces to the other of said surfaces of said disk when said control information reading and judging means determines that said control information recorded on said predetermined area is not reproducible by said optical head, and for controlling said transport mechanism to transport said optical head to a position on said front surface of said disk when said control information substance judging means determines that said control information has been read out from said predetermined area on the back surface of said disk.
A disk playback method for use in a disk playback apparatus having
- an optical head for radiating a light beam to a disk mounted on said disk playback apparatus;
- and
- a transport mechanism for transporting said optical head so as to expose said optical head to a front surface or a back surface of said disk,
- said disk playback method comprising the steps of:
- determining whether or not control information recorded on a predetermined area of said disk is reproducible by said optical head and reading out said control information from said predetermined area if said control information is determined to be reproducible;
- using said read out control information to determine whether said control information has been read out from said predetermined area on said front surface or said back surface of said disk when it is determined that said control information is reproducible by said optical head;
- controlling said transport mechanism to transport said optical head to a position from one of said surfaces to the other of said surfaces of said disk when it is determined that said control information recorded on said predetermined area is not reproducible by said optical head;
- and
- controlling said transport mechanism to transport said optical head to a position on said front surface of said disk when it is determined that said control information has been read out from said predetermined area on said back surface of said disk.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.