Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Koninkljike Philips N.v.

Stephanus Josephus Maria Van Beckhoven

Robert Albertus Brondijk

Tony Petrus Van Endert

Pope Ijtsma

Joze Geelen

Hiroki Ohira

A device for recording information on a storage medium is arranged for formatting the storage medium. The device has a medium interface for interfacing with the storage medium for recording data on the medium and retrieving data from the medium, and a host interface for receiving commands according to a protocol (ATA/ATAPI) from a host. The commands include a format command. The device has a formatter for formatting the storage medium according to a format process indicated by the format command. The formatting includes interrupting the format process until a point in time defined by a further command from the host so that no formatting in the background is performed, and therefore real-time performance of the device is not deteriorated by the formatting.

Interruptible formatting

When writing on a recordable medium the recorder can encounter write errors. When a write error occurrs the record carrier is discarded. By ignoring write errors in sections of the record carrier comprising unused information, for instance sections of the lead-in or lead-out the record carrier no longer needs to be discarded.

Method and recorder for reducing rejection of record carriers due to write errors

The continuous update of the Recorded Area Indicator on a DVD+R disc leads to a loss in performance of the recorder. If the update is not continuous, the Recorded Area Indicator on the disc may not accurately reflect the status. In order to ensure that the Recorded Area Indicator accurately reflects the status but avoids loss of performance, the update of the Recorded Area Indicator is performed when a close track session command is issued to the drive signaling the end of the recording, regardless of whether the track or session on the disc remains open. During the recording the Recorded Area Indicator is kept and updated in the memory of the recorder.

Recorder and method for recording information on a write once recording medium

A disc recording device has a mode control unit for switching the device either to a read mode or to a write mode. Reading and writing can be alternated for simultaneous recording and reproducing of video. A rotation speed control unit sets the rotation speed of the record carrier, and has a speed selector for selecting one of at least two speed settings for the read mode in dependence on an actual rotation speed of the record carrier during the write mode when switching from write mode to read mode. By setting the read speed to one of a limited number of settings the difference in rotation speed between said actual rotation speed and the speed in the read mode is limited. Due to the limited differences power dissipation is limited, while the performance of access time and playability of real-life discs is at a high level.

Rotation speed control for recording information

A modified read-ahead (i.e., jump) command, contains a sequential access parameter SAP, JUMPm(X,Y:SAP), for instructing a disc drive to jump to block Y after having read block X. If the SAP parameter has a value indicating that a host, such as a PC, designed to recognize the SAP parameter, deliberately signals a disc drive to jump to a lower address (e.g., Y&#x3c;X), a disc drive designed in accordance with the present invention will comply. A disc drive not designed to recognize the modified read-ahead command may ignore the SAP parameter. A host not designed to recognize the modified read-ahead command is not capable of setting the SAP parameter.

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Eindhoven, Netherlands

Stephanus Josephus Maria Van Beckhoven