Optical disk having a particular format to store user-selected data, such as video data or computer files, including a dedicated TOC region

Abstract

A method of reproducing data from an optical disk having a diameter less than 140mm, a thickness of 1,2mm and a recording area divided into a lead-in area, and a program area, and wherein said data is recorded as pits representing modulated, error-correction encoded user information in sectors in user tracks in said program area and representing modulated, error-correcting encoded control information in sectors in one of said lead-in area or said program area, with said control information including addresses of respective user tracks, the tracks having a track pitch in the range of 0.646µm to 1.05µm, said method comprising the steps of rotating said disk to obtain a constant linear velocity; projecting a pickup light beam through a lens for optically reading the rotating disk, said pickup light beam having a spatial frequency I=» / 2NA, where the spatial frequency I is less than the track pitch, » is the wavelength of the pickup light beam and NA is the numerical aperture of the lens; demodulating the data read from said disk; error correcting the demodulated data; separating the error corrected data into control information and user information; and using said control information to access and read selected user tracks in response to access instructions from a user.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe invention relates to a novel optical disk and, more particularly, to that disk, to a method of recording and reading information on the disk and to apparatus for carrying out that method.Optical disks have been used as mass storage devices for computer applications, and such optical disks are known as CD-ROMs. The disk which is used as the CD-ROM is modeled after the standard compact disk (CD) that has been developed for audio applications and is basically an audio CD with various improvements and refinements particularly adapted for computer applications. Using such a CD as a standard, the CD-ROM has a data storage capacity of about 600 Mbytes. By using audio CD technology as its basis, the CD-ROM and its disk drive have become relatively inexpensive and are quite popular.However, since conventional audio CDs with their inherent format and storage capacity have been adapted for CD-ROMs, it has heretofore been difficult to improve the data storage capa...

Examples

Embodiment Construction

The present invention records different types of data on an optical disk, preferably for use as a CD-ROM but also adapted for use as a digital video disk (DVD). Such data may be file data or application data to be used by a computer, or it may comprise video data which sometimes is referred to herein as motion picture data which includes image information and audio information and which preferably is compressed in accordance with the various conventional video data compression standards, such as those known MPEG-1, MPEG-2, or when still video pictures are recorded, JPEG. It will be appreciated, therefore, that the information on the disk admits of "multimedia" applications.

Before describing the technique used to record data on the optical disk, a brief description is provided of the disk itself. The physical parameters of the optical disk used with the present invention are quite similar to the conventional audio CD; and for this reason, a drawing figure of the disk is not provided....

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe invention relates to a novel optical disk and, more particularly, to that disk, to a method of recording and reading information on the disk and to apparatus for carrying out that method.Optical disks have been used as mass storage devices for computer applications, and such optical disks are known as CD-ROMs. The disk which is used as the CD-ROM is modeled after the standard compact disk (CD) that has been developed for audio applications and is basically an audio CD with various improvements and refinements particularly adapted for computer applications. Using such a CD as a standard, the CD-ROM has a data storage capacity of about 600 Mbytes. By using audio CD technology as its basis, the CD-ROM and its disk drive have become relatively inexpensive and are quite popular.However, since conventional audio CDs with their inherent format and storage capacity have been adapted for CD-ROMs, it has heretofore been difficult to improve the data storage capa...

Examples

Embodiment Construction

The present invention records different types of data on an optical disk, preferably for use as a CD-ROM but also adapted for use as a digital video disk (DVD). Such data may be file data or application data to be used by a computer, or it may comprise video data which sometimes is referred to herein as motion picture data which includes image information and audio information and which preferably is compressed in accordance with the various conventional video data compression standards, such as those known MPEG-1, MPEG-2, or when still video pictures are recorded, JPEG. It will be appreciated, therefore, that the information on the disk admits of "multimedia" applications.

Before describing the technique used to record data on the optical disk, a brief description is provided of the disk itself. The physical parameters of the optical disk used with the present invention are quite similar to the conventional audio CD; and for this reason, a drawing figure of the disk is not provided....

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