Sony Corporation

Takashi Tajiri

Takeshi Suzuki

Yoshinori Shimizu

Nobuyuki Aoki

Shigeho Ogawa

Hiromasa Watanabe

Shinji Nagasaka

Provided are: a turn table for storing a disk shaped recording medium Dn to be vertically placed; a disk drive unit disposed at the center part of the table, the disk drive unit mounting a recording medium Dn to record and/or reproduce an information signal SIN; disk carrying means for carrying the recording medium Dn between the disk drive unit and the turn table; and a control device, wherein the control device controls the turn table and disk carrying medium so as to detect whether or not the recording medium Dn is stored in the disk storage unit, judge an information recording face of the recording medium Dn removed from the disk storage unit, and based on the judgment result, mount the recording medium Dn intact on the disk drive unit or invert the recording medium Dn, thereby remounting the medium on the disk drive. In this manner, even in the case a recording medium is mounted to be oriented in opposite, a user can automatically mount the recording medium with its information recording face toward a disk drive unit without removing the recording medium from the unit.

Disk recording and/or reproducing apparatus and control method thereof

A type of disk in a reproducing device is accurately determined prior to data reproduction. To determine whether the disk type is Compact Disk (CD) or Digital Video Disk (DVD), a track pitch on the disk is examined, while the difference between the DVD Single Layer and DVD Dual layer is based on disk reflectance values. When thus determined disk type turns out to be incorrect, an operation is carried out for estimating the correct disk type based on the highest likelihood of the disk type following the initial (incorrect) decision. The process is carried out until the correct disk type is identified, or the disk is determined to be unusable.

Apparatus and method for determining a disk type prior to reproducing

In accordance with the invention, an apparatus and method are provided in which it is possible to determine a type of disc which has been loaded before servoing is locked. A disc is rotated by a spindle motor, and a pickup is gradually moved toward the disc from a position spaced apart from the disc. A peak value of an obtained reflection is detected by a peak hold circuit is stored into a CPU. If the disc is a DVD (by way of example), a single layer DVD has a reflectivity higher than that of a double layer DVD. Accordingly, a single layer DVD and a double layer DVD can be discriminated from each other from the value of the peak reflection value obtained by the peak hold circuit.

Disc recording and/or reproduction apparatus and method thereof

A disc reproducing apparatus comprising a means for reproducing data recorded in a disc, a means for making a decision as to whether the reproduced data are proper or not, a means for detecting a face-down state of the disc in response to the result of the decision, and a means for controlling the driving of the disc in response to the result of the detection. When a disc (DVD) loaded in a normal state is rotated clockwise, the point of reproduction is gradually shifted toward the outermost of the disc. However, when a disc loaded in a face-down state is rotated, the point of reproduction is shifted toward the innermost of the disc, so that the required continuity of addresses fails to be ensured. Thus, the face-down state of the loaded disc can be detected from the result of the decision indicating non-continuity of the addresses.

Disc reproducing apparatus and method

A sector address is obtained even when a playback signal is missed by incrementing the number of interpolations n when determined that error correction of read-out data is not possible, and incrementing and storing in a buffer 'address' the contents of a work area B when the number of interpolations n is less than a preset value 'Max'. When the interpolation address calculation process has been repeated the prescribed number of times 'Max' an emergency process is carried out.

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Saitama, Japan

Takashi Tajiri