Sony Corporation

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

Satoshi Mimura

Takashi Enokihara

Takahiko Saito

Kiyoshi Omori

Toshimasa Aoki

Shinichi Nakao

Masayasu Ito

Toshikazu Kobayashi

Satoshi Muto

Kiyoshi Tsuboi

Aki Yoguchi

Masaki Nagatsuka

Toshisada Takada

Kouji Shinohara

Akio Ishiwata

Takeshi Murata

Disclosed herein is an optical disc apparatus capable of reading out information stored in an optical disc medium, the optical disc apparatus including: a light emitting device radiating light; an object lens converging light radiated by the light emitting device on the optical disc medium; and a control section carrying out control to shift the center position of the object lens with respect to the optical-axis position of light radiated by the light emitting device in an operation to read out information from the optical disc medium.

Optical disk apparatus, control method, control program and information storage medium

Disclosed herein is an optical disc apparatus including: an optical pickup radiating light having a first wavelength provided for an optical disc medium of a first type and light having a second wavelength which is smaller than the first wavelength and provided for another optical disc medium of a second type; a signal outputting section outputting a signal according to light reflected by the optical disc medium to reflect light radiated by the optical pickup; and a type determination section requesting the optical pickup to radiate light having the first wavelength to an object optical disc medium to acquire the signal output by the signal outputting section and determining the type of the object optical disc medium in accordance with the number of peaks appearing in the acquired output signal output by the signal outputting section while moving the optical pickup in a direction to the object optical disc medium.

An optical disc apparatus includes an optical pickup for outputting an output signal according to reflected light from an optical disc medium, measures a level of a reflected signal corresponding to reflected light from a medium surface prior to reading of information recorded on the medium, predicts, based on the measured level of the reflected signal, whether or not the reflected signal from the medium surface will satisfy a predetermined detection condition when a focus state is to be detected, and uses a result of the predicting to detect a state where the output signal satisfies the predetermined detection condition as a state where a focus of an objective lens included in the optical pickup is on a signal surface of the medium while relatively moving the objective lens with respect to the medium surface when the information recorded on the medium is to be read therefrom.

Optical disc apparatus, method of controlling the same, and information storage medium

An optical disc apparatus includes an optical pickup for outputting an output signal according to reflected light from an optical disc medium and a comparison signal output unit for outputting a comparison signal indicating whether a level of the output signal is higher than a threshold value, relatively moves an objective lens with respect to a surface of the medium within a predetermined range to measure a maximum level of the output signal, sets a value determined according to the maximum level as a threshold value used by the comparison signal output unit, and measures a level of a reflected signal corresponding to reflected light from each of a plurality of signal surfaces based on the output signal in a time period in which the comparison signal indicates that the level of the output signal is higher than the set threshold value, while moving the objective lens.

There is provided a disk drive including a base chassis, a first optical pickup mechanism including a disk rotation drive disposed on the base chassis, first optical pickup unit to write and/or read data to and/or from a first optical disk and a first pickup moving mechanism to move the first optical pickup unit radially of the first optical disk, a second optical pickup mechanism disposed opposite to the first optical pickup mechanism and including a second optical pickup unit to write and/or read data to and/or from a second optical disk and a second pickup moving mechanism to move the second optical pickup unit radially of the second optical disk, and a controlling means for detecting the movement of one of the optical pickup units and moving the other optical pickup unit to make weight balancing of the base chassis. Thus, the base chassis weight is balanced while one of the two optical pickup units is being moved.

Disk drive

A switching circuit for the power supply of electronic apparatus, such as a radio, which includes a pair of flip-flop circuits, a clock set time switch for turning the apparatus on once every 24 hours for a short period of time, a sleep time switch which may keep the apparatus on for a short period of time without interfering with the functioning of the clock set time switch, a change of mode switch which may change the apparatus at any time from an on-state to an off-state or vice versa, and a disabling switch for the clock switch circuit.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Satoshi Mimura