Dynamic information storage or retrieval – Condition indicating – monitoring – or testing – Including radiation storage or retrieval
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-01
2004-09-07
Hindi, Nabil (Department: 2655)
Dynamic information storage or retrieval
Condition indicating, monitoring, or testing
Including radiation storage or retrieval
Reexamination Certificate
active
06788631
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rewritable optical recording medium system, and more particularly, to an optical recording medium having an indication of a recording capacity, and a method for indicating a recording capacity of an optical recording medium.
2. Background of the Invention
In general, the optical recording media are sorted as a ROM type for read only, a WORM type for writing once, and a rewritable type for repetitive writing. In disks which are rewritable freely and repetitively, there are CD-RW(Rewritable Compact Disc), and rewritable digital versatile disc(DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+RW).
FIG. 1
illustrates an architecture of the rewritable optical disk, provided with, starting from inside, a lead-in area, a data area, and a lead-out area. The data area is divided into zone units for random access, each zone provided with a user area and a spare area for use when a defect is occurred in the user area.
Referring to
FIG. 2
, the lead-in area is provided with an embossed data zone, a mirror zone, and a rewritable data zone. The embossed data zone, an area preformatted in the disk fabrication process, has a recorded data change of which is impossible. The embossed data zone in turn is provided with a blank zone, a reference signal zone, a blank zone, a control data zone, and a blank zone. The control data zone contains an embossed data field, and the data field contains embossed control data. The control data has 192 ECC (error correction code) blocks, and each ECC block has 16 sectors. A first sector in each block contains physical format information, a second sector contains disk manufacturing information, and the rest of the sectors are left unused. And, the rewritable data zone, an area provided for rewriting control information varied with data rewriting, has a protection track zone, a disk test zone, a drive test zone, a protection track zone, a disk ID (identification) zone, and defect management areas (DMA
1
& DAM
2
) for managing defects in the disk. The optical disk has a variety of recording capacities, such as 2.6 G (giga byte), 4.58 G, 4.7 G, and etc., determined according to track pitches which are distances between pit lines.
However, the recording capacity of a disk may differ even if the track pitch and a size of the disk (for example, 8 cm or 12 cm) are identical. For example, if a spare area in a data area is employed as a user area according to a disk manufacturing process or reformatting, or according to a size of a spare area allocated, the recording capacity of the disk may differ even if the track pitch or the disk size is identical. The spare area may be fixed or varied by enlargement as necessary. Herein, one example of the disk in which the spare area is fixed is called a mode-
1
, and one example of the disk in which the spare area is varied by enlargement or extension is called a mode-
2
. In the case of mode-
1
, for setting an initial data recording capacity (a user area) to be 4.58 GB, the spare area is allocated to be 145 MB (=mega byte) every time. In the mode-
1
, the 145 MB of the spare area may be allocated on top of the user area entirely as shown in
FIG. 4A
, or divided to top and bottom of the user area as shown in
FIG. 4B
, when 25 MB may be allocated to the top and the rest is allocated to the bottom by taking interchangeability with the mode-
2
into consideration. The spare area allocated to the top is called as a primary spare area (first SA), and the spare area allocated to the bottom is called as a supplementary spare area (second SA). In the case of mode-
2
, in order to set an initial data recording capacity (i.e., a user area) to be 4.7 GB, 26 MB is allocated as the spare area. In this instance, as shown in
FIG. 4C
, the 26 MB is assigned to the first spare area in formatting, a second spare area may be allocated to the bottom additionally as necessary, or may be enlarged. In every one of the foregoing operations, the recording capacity of the disk is varied. In those instances, the disk recording capacity can not be known only from a size of track pitch or disk, which impedes recording or reproduction of an accurate amount of data.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to an optical recording medium having an indication of a recording capacity, and a method for indicating a recording capacity of an optical recording medium that substantially obviates one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of the present invention is to provide an optical recording medium having an indication of a recording capacity at a particular area thereof.
Other object of the present invention is to provide a method for indicating a recording capacity of an optical recording medium, which can indicate an initial recording medium of the recording medium at a particular area of the optical recording medium and can indicate a changed recording capacity if the recording capacity is changed.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for indicating a recording capacity of an optical recording medium, in which identification information for indicating a recording capacity of the optical recording medium is provided at a particular area of the optical recording medium for indicating an initial recording capacity of the optical recording medium.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.
To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, the optical recording medium has a recording capacity indicated on a particular area of a rewritable optical recording medium.
The recording capacity is indicated on an unused area of a lead-in area.
The recording capacity includes an initial recording capacity and a varied recording capacity of the optical recording medium.
The initial recording capacity of the optical recording medium is indicated by identification information.
In other aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for indicating a recording capacity of a rewritable optical recording medium, including the steps of indicating an initial recording capacity on a particular area of the optical recording medium, and indicating a varied recording capacity, if the recording capacity is varied.
The varied recording capacity is overwritten on the initial recording capacity.
The varied recording capacity and the initial recording capacity are indicated at positions different from each other, and a fact of variation of the recording capacity is indicated.
The initial recording capacity of the optical recording medium is indicated with identification information added thereto.
In another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for indicating a recording capacity of an optical recording medium which indicates the recording capacity of the optical recording medium as identification information, the recording capacity being varied with a variability of spare area.
The identification information is changed whenever the spare area is varied.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
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patent: 5111444 (1992-05-01), Fukushima et al.
patent: 5303219 (1994-04-01), Kulakowski et al.
patent: 5319627 (1994-06-01), Shinno et al.
patent: 5617383 (1997-04-01), Matsumoto et al.
patent: 5648954 (1997-07-01), Satoh
patent: 5745444 (1998-04-01), Ichikawa et al.
patent: 5745459 (1998-04-01), Inokuchi et al.
Jeong Kyu Hwa
Park Yong Cheol
Hindi Nabil
LC Electronics Inc.
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