Patent ID: 6553183
Filing Date: 2003-04-22
Classification: G11B,H04N

Abstract:
A video and/or audio recording apparatus for recording input video and/or audio data, said apparatus comprising:a hierarchical coding means for hierarchically coding input video and/or audio data so that data in a bottom layer is independently decoded, and data in a layer other than the bottom layer is decoded by referring to lower layers; a block generating means for generating a plurality of blocks of a uniform size from data in each hierarchically coded layer obtained by said hierarchical coding means; a recording means for recording a block generated by said block generating means to a recording medium, the recording medium being rewritable, randomly accessible, accompanied by a mechanical operation in recording, and contained in said recording means; and a recording control means for controlling said recording means; wherein said recording control means: until the recording medium becomes full, controls said recording means to record a plurality of blocks generated by said block generating means to the recording medium so that blocks are arranged in a linear and consecutive sequence; and after the recording medium becomes full: selects a plurality of lower layer blocks as blocks to be recorded from blocks generated by said block generating means; selects a plurality of higher layer blocks from a block sequence on the recording medium as blocks to be overwritten; and controls said recording means to record a lower layer block to be recorded by overwriting to a higher layer block to be overwritten in sequence from a block near a beginning of the block sequence; controls said recording means to record a plurality of blocks in a sequence of &bgr; block cycles in a first recording stage until the recording medium becomes full, where &bgr; is the least common multiple of {&agr;, &agr;âˆ’1, &agr;âˆ’2, . . . , 2} and &agr; is a desirable constant integer value of two or greater; and in a &ggr;th recording stage (where &ggr;=2, 3, . . . , &agr;) after the recording medium becomes full: selects a block from layer 1 to layer (&bgr;/&ggr;) when selecting a lower layer block as a block to be recorded from blocks generated by said block generating means; selects a block from layer (&bgr;/&ggr;+1) to layer (&bgr;/(&ggr;âˆ’1)) when selecting a higher layer block from a block sequence on the recording medium as a block to be overwritten; and when recording the lower layer block to be recorded by overwriting to the higher layer block to be overwritten in sequence from a block near a beginning of the block sequence, controls said recording means to record the layer 1 to layer (&bgr;/&ggr;) blocks by overwriting to the layer (&bgr;/&ggr;+1) to layer (&bgr;/(&ggr;âˆ’1)) blocks in a sequence of (&bgr;/&ggr;) block cycles.