Patent ID: 7076156

Claim:
A recording apparatus for recording an audio signal and a video signal on an information recording medium, said recording apparatus comprising: video packetized elementary stream packet generating means for generating video packetized elementary stream packets by dividing a video elementary stream in which a video signal is compressed and coded according to a predetermined method by a predetermined number of video frames and by adding a header; audio packetized elementary stream packet generating means for generating audio packetized elementary stream packets by dividing an audio elementary stream in which an audio signal is compressed and coded according to a predetermined method by a predetermined number of audio frames and by adding a header; video packetized elementary stream packet unit generating means for generating a video packetized elementary stream packet unit by combining a predetermined number of the video packetized elementary stream packets; audio packetized elementary stream packet unit generating means for generating an audio packetized elementary stream packet unit by combining the audio packetized elementary stream packets corresponding to the video packetized elementary stream packet unit; sync block generating means for generating sync blocks by recording identification information indicating whether the data type of the sync block is the video packetized elementary stream packet, the audio packetized elementary stream packet, or a transport stream packet, by alternately disposing the video packetized elementary stream packet unit and the audio packetized elementary stream packet unit and by converting the video packetized elementary stream packet unit and the audio packetized elementary stream packet unit into a predetermined recording format; and recording means for recording the sync blocks on said information recording medium; wherein said sync block generating means records a flag indicating whether a data area of the sync block is totally occupied with effective data in a header of the sync block, and, when the data area of the sync block is not totally occupied with the effective data, a data length of the effective data is recorded in a head of the data area.