Patent ID: 7764590

Claim:
A method of reproducing information from an information recording medium, comprising the steps of: reading compressed data of a variable transfer rate from a data area in the information recording medium, the information recording medium including a lead-in area, a first lead-in information area located in the lead-in area, a second lead-in information area located in the lead-in area, and the data area being for storing information in prescribed error correction block units, wherein the first lead-in information area is an area which is subjected to recording in the prescribed error correction block units and on which lead-in information relating to the data area is to be recorded, wherein an error correction ability in the prescribed error correction block units corresponds to an information amount of n bytes, and wherein the second lead-in information area is an area on which lead-in information relating to the data area is recorded, and the second lead-in information area includes a pre-pit area being for reproduction only and having information whose amount is greater than at least n bytes regarding the prescribed error correction block units; decoding the read compressed data into decoded data; and temporarily storing the decoded data into a buffer to get continuously reproduced data.