Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.

Nec Corporation

Toshiba Corporation

Morio Nakatani

Kenji Nagatomi

Seiichiro Takahashi

Masahiro Nakata

Yoshiyuki Matsumura

Kenji Tanase

Satoshi Sumi

Atsushi Yamaguchi

Kazuo Watabe

Akihito Ogawa

Yutaka Kashihara

Yutaka Yamanaka

Shuichi Ohkubo

Naoyuki Takagi

Noboru Mamiya

Tatsunori Ide

Masato Fuma

Katsuki Hattori

Hitoshi Noguchi

Kenichiro Mitani

Keiji Horiuchi

Hiroki Ishida

An optical disc has a read-only system lead-in area and a recordable data area. Disc boundary information representing a boundary in a radial direction of an area on which capability of recording at a predetermined recording speed is guaranteed is recorded on the system lead-in area while being related to each tuple speed. An optical disc device, upon user's instruction of tuple-speed recording, compares the boundary information related to the instructed tuple speed with a present recording position, performs recording at the instructed tuple speed if the present recording position is on the outside of the boundary, and performs recording at a tuple speed lower than the instructed tuple speed if the present recording position is on the inside of the boundary.

Optical disc for tuple-speed recording and optical disc device for tuple-speed recording

A disk has a plurality of recording layers in a laminated direction. When a defect occurs in any one of recording layers during disk manufacture, information about the defect is recorded in a read-only region in the recording layer. An optical disk apparatus determines which of the recording layers is usable based on the information about the defect read from the disk, and executes a recording/reproducing operation according to a determination result. Therefore, even when a disk with a defect in the recording layer is used, that disk may be offered to a user as an appropriately usable disk.

Optical disk containing information about usability of recording layers and optical disk apparatus for reproducing the optical disk

A recording medium includes at least one recording layer on which information is recorded by multi-photon absorption, and a servo layer disposed in a laminated direction with respect to the recording layer and having a track for guiding a beam spot of laser light having a first wavelength and a beam spot of laser light having a second wavelength along a scanning trajectory. The servo layer and the at least one recording layer constitute a set of layers, and a plurality of sets of layers is formed in the laminated direction. The servo layer is made of a material having a high reflectance with respect to laser light having a third wavelength for generating a servo signal, and low reflectances with respect to the laser light having the first wavelength and the laser light having the second wavelength.

Recording medium, optical device, and recording and reproducing apparatus

An optical pickup device includes: a first light source for emitting recording laser light; a second light source for emitting reproducing laser light having a wavelength different from a wavelength of the recording laser light; an objective lens for converging the recording laser light and the reproducing laser light. A quarter wavelength plate is disposed between the first light source and the second light source, and the objective lens. A wavelength-selective polarized beam splitter is disposed between the quarter wavelength plate, and the first light source and the second light source. The reproducing laser light alone out of the recording laser light and the reproducing laser light reflected on recording medium is guided to a photodetector.

Optical pickup device and recording/reproduction device

A recording medium includes: at least one recording layer on which information is recorded by multi-photon absorption; and a servo layer disposed in a laminated direction with respect to the recording layer and having a track for guiding a beam spot of laser light having a first wavelength and a beam spot of laser light having a second wavelength along a scanning trajectory, wherein the servo layer and the at least one recording layer constitute a set of layers, and a plurality of sets of layers is formed in the laminated direction.

Recording medium, and recording and reproducing apparatus

A disc device for recording and/or reproducing information with respect to a disc having flexibility includes a head for writing and/or reading, the head being disposed below the disc; a disc rotating section which rotates the disc; and a head retracting section which retracts the head to a retracted position where contact with the disc is avoidable, based on a judgment that power supply to the disc device is cut off.

Disc device

When a hybrid optical disc is loaded on a player, the next generation DVD layer is reproduced in preference to the DVD layer. Jump to the DVD layer is appropriately performed based on the content of the reproduction list held in the next generation DVD. The jump to the DVD layer is performed based on the command information (jump command) held in the reproduction list of the next generation DVD layer. When reproduction of the title specified by the command information is finished after the jump to the DVD layer, the process returns to the HDDVD layer, and reproduction is performed from the position following the reproducing position at the time of the jump. Thus, the content of the HDDVD layer and the content of the DVD layer are reproduced as one stream.

Optical disc device and hybrid optical disc

A servo objective lens and a recording/reproducing objective lens are commonly held on a holder. The servo objective lens and the recording/reproducing objective lens are integrally displaced, thereby pulling servo light onto a servo layer. Upon the pulling, focus positions of recording light and reproducing light follow a focus position of the servo light. As a result, the focus positions of recording light and reproducing light are set close to the servo layer. Thereafter, an optical element for displacing the focus positions of recording light and reproducing light in the optical axis direction is driven to pull the recording light and the reproducing light onto a targeted recording layer.

Optical pickup device

In an optical disk apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a management information retaining unit retains an information group which should regularly be recorded as disk management information. The disk management information is obtained from a disk loaded in the optical disk apparatus, and the obtained disk management information and the information group retained by the management information retaining unit are compared with each other to detect an error in the disk management information obtained from the disk. The detected error of the disk management information is corrected into regular information, and recording and reproducing operations are performed to the disk based on the corrected disk management information.

Optical disk apparatus

In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, after test write is performed with a predetermined test power to a first track on an optical disk, test write is performed with the same test power as the first track to a second track adjacent to the first track. Then, reproduction signals are obtained by reproducing the first track and the second track respectively, and a determination whether or not the test power is set to a recording laser power in recording main information is made based on a relationship between the obtained reproduction signals.

A laser power which is lower than an optimum reproduction laser power is set as an initial value. The reproduction laser power is increased from the initial value while trial reproduction is performed until a quality level of a reproduction signal is not lower than a reference level. At the time the quality level of the reproduction signal is not lower than the reference level, the reproduction laser power is set as the reproduction laser power with respect to an optical disk which is of a reproduction target.

In a test disc, data (test data) is recorded in such a manner as to fill an entirety of a data region and, next to this test data, border-out data is recorded which contains information indicating that recording is prohibited. By determining whether the data can be played back appropriately from a position in the vicinity of an outer periphery of the disc where playback characteristics are apt to be unstable, whether the data can be played back appropriately from all of the regions is verified. Also, by determining whether it is possible to recognize that test disc is capable of recording, it is verified whether the border-out data can be smoothly acquired from the position in the vicinity of the outer periphery of the disc where playback characteristics are apt to be unstable.

Test disc and drive verification method

When a disc loaded on a player is a hybrid next generation DVD, determination is made on whether the connected TV device is adaptable for the HD mode. Such determination is performed by whether or not the copyright protecting function of the connected TV device satisfies a condition set in advance. When adaptable for the HD mode, reproduction prioritizing the HDDVD layer is performed. When not adaptable for the HD mode, reproduction prioritizing the DVD layer is performed. Thus, the video content of HD mode recorded on the HDDVD layer is protected against leakage to the outside via the connected TV device by reproducing the DVD layer in preference in the case the copyright protecting function of the TV device is not sufficient.

Optical disc device

A stamper which has a region information according to a destination is set to the resin molding machine for HDDVD and the resin molding machine for DVD, respectively. The contents information (contents A) of the same program is held in each stamper. The region information of each stamper is different according to the destination of contents information. Two disc substrates to which the information on each stamper is transferred are formed using the resin molding machine for HDDVD and the resin molding machine for DVD, and the reflecting layer is further formed on the transfer face of each substrate by sputtering. And as the reflecting layer side faces each other, each disc substrate is laminated. Thereby, hybrid type next-generation DVD from which the destination of the contents information of a HDDVD layer and a DVD layer is different is manufactured.

Hybrid type optical disc and manufacturing method for hybrid type optical disc

When a hybrid type next-generation DVD is loaded in the optical disc device, first, a red laser is turned on and parameter value and a lead-in information with respect to a DVD layer are acquired. The acquired information is stored in a memory. Next, a blue laser is turned on, parameter value and a lead-in information to a HDDVD layer are acquired, and the acquired information is stored in a memory. Then, the HDDVD layer is reproduced while lighting of the blue laser beam is maintained. Then, when a jump instruction to the DVD layer is inputted, the parameter value for the DVD layer is read from the memory and set to a process system. And the lighting laser is changed to the red laser and reproduction of the DVD layer is performed based on the lead-in information of the DVD layer stored in the memory.

Growing community of inventors

Ichinomiya, Japan

Morio Nakatani