Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory – Storage accessing and control – Memory configuring
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-01
2004-05-25
Kim, Matthew (Department: 2186)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory
Storage accessing and control
Memory configuring
C711S154000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06742096
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to data players and/or recorders which may read from and/or write on a plurality of types of data carriers.
A data player and/or recorder is a device which allows to read and/or write data using a data carrier. Typically the data carrier is removable from the player and/or recorder, i.e. other data carriers may be used with the same player and/or recorder device. Frequently a data carrier used is always of a same type. Examples for data carriers are vinyl records, magnetic tapes (with or without cassette), magnetic disks (Hard disks, Computer diskettes), optical disks (Compact Disks, CD-Recordable, CD-Rewritable, DVD, DVD-Recordable, DVD-Rewritable), magneto-optical media (tapes, disks, Minidisks) and others . . . . It may be that a player and/or recorder for a special type of magnetic diskettes only accepts this special type of diskette. However since the number of types of data carriers available increases in a relatively short period of time it is very an inconvenient that a type of data carrier becomes obsolete relatively fast due to an appearance of a more efficient type of data carrier. For this reason manufacturers of data players and/or recorders put effort into rendering their devices compatible with a plurality of types of data carriers. For example manufacturers of recent DVD-ROM drives have in many cases taken care that their drive may also make use of older types of CD-ROM, CD-R etc. . . . Data players and/or recorders which indifferently use different types of data carriers may be called multimode data players and/or recorders.
One problem encountered in multimode data players and/or recorders is a recognition of the type of data carrier introduced in it. Indeed a specific type of data carrier may require a specific number of adjustments of the player and/or recorder. For example these adjustments may concern a kind of data processing to use, or an intensity or a frequency of a light source used. Typically the player and/or recorder recognizes the type of data players by testing it, i.e., effecting a number of operations influenced by at least one adjustment parameters and validating the operation as being negative or positive. Each existing specific type of data carrier may be identified when a plurality of adjustment parameters which may belong to a specific set of adjustment parameters have been tested and validated as positive. The set of adjustment parameters may include a reflectivity measurement value of light reflected by the disk in case the type of data carrier is an optical disk because different types of optical disk have different reflectivity values.
It is known in multimode players and/or recorders to perform tests on the data carrier using at least one adjustment parameter and determining whether the data carrier may be associated to a specific set of adjustment parameters in order to identify the specific type of data carrier.
FIG. 1
illustrates in a column an example of 5 types T
1
to T
5
of data carriers which may be used in a multimode player and/or recorder. Each type is associated to a set of parameters represented in another column, respectively P
1
to P
5
for types T
1
to T
5
as is indicated using double arrows. The multimode player and/or recorder tests the data carrier by using at least one adjustment parameter at first, and possibly tests other adjustment parameters depending on a result of the test with the one parameter. This is done until a type may be identified which is associated to one of the sets of adjustment parameters P
1
, P
2
, . . . P
5
which comprises all positively tested adjustment parameters. This way of testing and identifying the type of a data medium may appear to be relatively time consuming especially in case where the most frequently used type of data carrier is the one for which the adjustment parameters are tested last.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to find a solution to render the testing and identifying of data carriers more efficient, e.g. less time consuming.
According to a first aspect of the present invention a solution is found in a method for identifying a type of a data carrier in a data player and/or recorder, a specific type of data carrier being associated to a specific set of adjustment parameters for the data player and/or recorder, comprising a testing of the data carrier using at least one adjustment parameter to determine whether the data carrier is associated to a specific set of adjustment parameters, identifying the data carrier as being of the specific type if the testing is positive. The method further comprises looking up use statistics of types in a hierarchical table of use statistics in order to pick a first type in the hierarchical table, selecting a parameter of the specific set of parameters associated to the first type.
In a second aspect of the present invention a solution is found in a method for identifying a type of a data carrier in a data player and/or recorder, a specific type of data carrier being associated to a specific set of adjustment parameters for the data player and/or recorder, comprising looking up use statistics of types in a hierarchical table of use statistics in order to pick a first type in the hierarchical table, selecting the specific set of parameters associated to the first type, testing of the data carrier using the specific set of parameters to determine whether the data carrier is associated to the specific set of parameters, and identifying the data carrier as being of the specific type if the testing is positive.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4989195 (1991-01-01), Suzuki
patent: 5155719 (1992-10-01), Masakawa
patent: 5506986 (1996-04-01), Healy
patent: 5778350 (1998-07-01), Adams et al.
patent: 5893139 (1999-04-01), Kamiyama
patent: 0817193 (1998-01-01), None
Anderson Matthew D.
Kim Matthew
Laks Joseph J.
Lin Reitseng
Thomson Licensing S.A.
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