Dynamic information storage or retrieval – Condition indicating – monitoring – or testing – Including radiation storage or retrieval
Reexamination Certificate
2002-03-17
2004-09-07
Tran, Thang V. (Department: 2653)
Dynamic information storage or retrieval
Condition indicating, monitoring, or testing
Including radiation storage or retrieval
C369S059230
Reexamination Certificate
active
06788632
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for changing a region code of a digital versatile disc (DVD) drive.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In modern society, there has been a spread in the use of optical storage medium, such as compact discs, as optical storage media for recording a huge amount of high-density digital information. The optical storage medium has advantages of lightweight, low-price, and large capacity for data storage. As the result of recent research and development, digital versatile disc (DVD) is developed. The development of DVD has brought a dramatic increase in storage capacity, especially suitable for video and audio data. Such DVD has a storage capacity of 4.7 GB (gigabytes), so that video with superior image quality to video compact discs (VCD) can be stored, and the maximum reproduction time can be increased to allow the recording of long titles. For these reasons, DVD allows the storage of movies with long reproduction time and high picture quality, making DVD more suitable for AV (audio-video) application and data storage.
In order to protect the copyrights of video data on DVD, DVD is stipulated to include a particular region code. Meanwhile, digital versatile disc drives used for reading data on DVD also include a particular region code. Before a DVD drive can read video data on a DVD, the DVD drive first has to check whether region code of the DVD and the DVD drive are identical. If the region code of the DVD is not the same as the region code of the DVD drive, the DVD drive cannot read the data on the DVD. Conversely, when the two region codes are identical, the DVD drive can read data accurately.
The establishment of the above-mentioned region code system was made to protect the copyrights of video data on DVD. Nevertheless, the reasonable right of users to read video data on DVD needs to be taken into consideration. Therefore, a DVD drive is designed to be capable of changing its region code within fixed times, such as six times typically. For providing the above-mentioned function, a DVD drive stores a value in a counter for recording the number of times the region code of the DVD drive has been changed. When a region code of a DVD is not the same as the region code of the DVD drive, the DVD drive then checks the value stored in the counter to determine whether the value of the counter is smaller than the default value. If the value in the counter is smaller than the fixed value, the DVD drive is allowed to change its region code so as to read video data on DVD. The DVD drive then sends a message to ask a user whether or not to change the region code of the DVD drive. If the user does not want to change the region code of the DVD drive, the DVD drive cannot read video data on DVD. On the other hand, when the user requests that the DVD drive to change the region code, the DVD drive changes the region code stored in the DVD drive the same as the region code of DVD. Meanwhile, the value in the counter is incremented by one to represent the number of times that the region code of the DVD drive has been changed. That is, each time the user changes the region code of the DVD drive, the value in the counter is required to be incremented by one. However, when the value in the counter exceeds the fixed value; and the two region codes of the DVD and the DVD drive are not identical, the DVD drive sends a warning message to inform the user that video data on DVD cannot be read. Thereafter, the region code of the DVD drive is not allowed to change any more.
Furthermore, in order to complete the above-mentioned procedure, the prior DVD drive has an electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM) for storing both the value in the counter and the region code. Please refer to FIG.
1
.
FIG. 1
is a functional block diagram of a prior DVD drive
10
. The DVD drive
10
comprises a controller
12
electrically connected to a volatile memory module
18
, a non-volatile memory
14
that stores a source code
14
A, and an EEPROM
16
. The controller
12
is used to control operations of the DVD drive
10
according to the source code
14
A stored in the non-volatile memory
14
. The volatile memory module
18
is used to store data temporarily required by the controller
12
. The EEPROM
16
is used to store a region code
16
A and a value in a counter
16
B of the DVD drive
10
.
When the prior DVD drive
10
receives a command for changing the region code
16
A of the DVD drive
10
and the value in the counter
16
B does not exceed a default value, the DVD drive
10
changes the region code
16
A according to a default change procedure. Please refer to FIG.
2
.
FIG. 2
is a flow chart illustrating a method for the prior DVD drive
10
to change the region code
16
A. The prior method comprises the following steps:
Step 102
The procedure is started for changing the region code
16
A of the DVD drive
10
.
Step 104
The controller
12
reads the source code
14
A stored in the non-volatile memory
14
and executes the subsequent procedure of changing the region code
16
A of the DVD drive
10
according to the source code
14
A.
Step 106
The controller
12
erases the region code
16
A and the value in the counter
16
B that were originally stored in the EEPROM
16
.
Step 108
The controller
12
changes the region code
16
A according to the indication from a user and increments the value in the counter
16
B, and then the controller
12
writes the changed region code
16
A and the new value in the counter
16
B into the EEPROM
16
.
Step 110
The procedure of changing the region code
16
A of the DVD drive
10
is completed.
Since the non-volatile memory
14
such as a flash memory is incapable of reading and writing data simultaneously and the controller
12
of the prior DVD drive
10
always has to read the source code
14
A through the non-volatile memory
14
, the prior DVD drive
10
has to use the EEPROM
16
to store the region code
16
A and the value in the counter
16
B. Therefore, the cost of the prior DVD drive
10
is substantially increased. Moreover, an additional circuit suitable for the EEPROM
16
is required in the prior DVD drive
10
for, and the design and the fabrication of the prior DVD drive
10
is more complicated.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a primary objective of the claimed invention to provide a method and apparatus for changing a region code of a digital versatile disc drive to solve the above-mentioned problem.
According to the claimed invention, a method for changing a region code of a digital versatile disc drive is disclosed. The digital versatile disc drive has a first memory for storing the region code and a source code, and a second memory for storing data temporarily. The method comprises storing the source code in the second memory, and changing the region code in the first memory according to the source code stored in the second memory.
It is an advantage of the claimed invention that the method and apparatus is capable of changing the region code of the digital versatile disc drive so as to overcome shortcomings in the prior art.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5249166 (1993-09-01), Hamilton et al.
patent: 5691972 (1997-11-01), Tsuga et al.
patent: 5930504 (1999-07-01), Gabel
patent: 6141483 (2000-10-01), Yamada et al.
patent: 6614732 (2003-09-01), Nonaka et al.
Huang Yi-Chih
Lin Kun-Long
Hsu Winston
Tran Thang V.
VIA Technologies Inc.
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