Recording control and space area management apparatus and method for recording additional data on a rewritable optical medium

A recording control method for recording additional data later on a rewritable optical medium comprising the steps of:

• recognizing a space area including space blocks in which physically continuous valid data is not written;
• determining a target space block in which target data is to be written later, out of the space blocks;
• initiating a recording of the target data in the target space block;
• ending the recording operation if the target space block is full during the recording of the target data;
• repeating the steps of determining, initiating, and ending in order to determine a new target space block to continue the recording operation, if the target space block is full in order to end the recording operation,
• wherein the recording operation is terminated when the recording of the target data is completed, an ending command is received, or there is no space block;
• and
• wherein the step of determining comprises the step of determining the target space block to be the space block having the largest size as the target block if the size of the target data to be recorded cannot be determined or if none of the space blocks are larger than the size of the target data, and the step of determining the target space block to be the smallest space block having a larger size than the size of the target data as the target block if the size of the target data to be recorded can be determined.

A recording control method for recording an additional title later on a rewritable optical medium comprising the steps of:

• reading space area information including positional information on a space block from the optical medium;
• determining a target space block in which an additional title is to be written by referring to the space area information if a recording command is input;
• initiating the recording of data input in the target space block;
• ending the recording operation, if all of the data input are recorded or the target space block is full;
• and
• registering the recorded data as a valid title;
• wherein the step of determining comprises the steps of selecting the target space block to be the block having the smallest size larger than the size of the data if the size of the additional data recorded is able to be determined, and selecting the target space block to be the block having the largest size if the size of the additional data recorded is not able to be determined or if none of the space blocks are larger than the size of the target data.

A recording control method for recording additional data later on a rewritable optical medium comprising the steps of:

• outputting space area information according to a user's demand signal;
• receiving a selection signal on space blocks in which additional target data is to be written;
• and
• recording the target data in the selected space block;
• wherein the space blocks are selected by determining the smallest space block from the space blocks having a larger size than the size of the target data if the size of the target data to be recorded can be determined, and determining the space block having the largest size if the size of the target data to be recorded cannot be determined or if none of the space blocks are larger than the size of the target data.

An apparatus for recording additional data on a rewritable optical medium, comprising:

• a pickup part adapted to detect sections of the rewritable optical medium;
• a memory adapted to store space area information;
• and
• a controller adapted to recognize a space area including space blocks in which physically continuous valid data is not written, determine a target space block in which target data is to be written later from the space blocks and, initiate a recording of the target data in the target space block, wherein if the target space block is full during the recording of the target data, the recording operation is terminated,
• wherein the controller is further adapted to determine the target space block to be the smallest space block from the space blocks having a larger size than the size of the target data as the target space block if the size of the target data to be recorded can be determined, and to determine the target space block to be the space block having the largest size as the target space block if the size of the target data to be recorded cannot be determined or if none of the space blocks are larger than the size of the target data.