Storage medium and apparatus and method of recording and reproducing encoded data thereto and therefrom

A recording and reproducing apparatus comprising:

• a reader to read a data table from a storage medium including a first storage area divided into a plurality of sectors having the same data capacity, a second storage area involved in the first storage area, storing a plurality of moving picture packs of moving picture data encoded by variable bit rate compression encoding and a plurality of audio packs of audio data encoded by constant bit rate compression encoding, the moving picture packs and the audio packs being multiplexed per pack and stored sequentially from a specific sector among the sectors, each pack corresponding to a unit of data transfer and containing data an amount of which is equal to the data capacity of each sector, and a third storage area involved in the first storage area but located different from the second storage area, the third storage area storing a table listing at least first information indicating whether after-recording to the audio data is allowable, second information indicating an encoding method by which the audio data has been encoded, and third information indicating the number of audio channels of the audio data;
• a reader to read out the table stored in the third storage area of the storage medium for after-recording of audio signals;
• a detector to detect the first information from the table to determine whether after-recording to the audio data stored in the second storage area of the storage medium is allowable;
• an encoder, if after-recording to the audio data is judged as allowable, to encode the audio signals to be after-recorded by an encoding method the same as the method for the audio data at a bit rate the same as a bit rate for the audio data based on the second and third information on the table;
• and
• a writer to pack audio data of the encoded audio signals for producing audio packs to be after-recorded and overwrite the audio packs to be after-recorded on the sectors on which the audio data has been stored in the second storage area of the storage medium.

A method of recording to a storage medium having a first storage area divided into a plurality of sectors having the same data capacity, the method comprising the steps of:

• packing moving picture data encoded by variable bit rate compression encoding and audio data encoded by constant bit rate compression encoding into a plurality of moving picture packs and a plurality of audio packs, each pack corresponding to a unit of data transfer and containing data an amount of which is equal to the data capacity of each sector;
• multiplexing the moving picture packs and the audio packs per pack and recording the multiplexed packs in a second storage area involving in the first storage area of the storage medium, sequentially from a specific sector among the sectors;
• and
• recording a table listing at least first information indicating whether after-recording to the audio data is allowable, second information indicating an encoding method by which the audio data has been encoded, and third information indicating the number of audio channels of the audio data, in a third storage area involved in the first storage area but located different from the second storage area of the storage medium.