Patent ID: 6990055

Claim:
An optical disc drive for detecting address information from an optical disc including a plurality of data layers, and then starting reproduction, the optical disc drive comprising: a laser driver operable to drive a semiconductor laser; a converging unit operable to selectively converge a light beam on each of the plurality of data layers of the optical disc, the light beam being light output from the semiconductor laser driven by said laser driver; a focus controller operable to control a focal position of a convergence point of the light beam converged by said converging unit on the optical disc; a tracking controller operable to position the convergence point of the light beam converged by said converging unit on a track of the optical disc; a photodetector operable to detect reflection of the light beam from the optical disc; and a convergence detection unit operable to detect convergence of the light beam emitted to one of the plurality of data layers of the optical disc before the optical disc drive detects the address information, wherein the optical disc drive controls said laser driver based on an output from said convergence detection unit, and sets light beam emission power when reading from the optical disc separately for each of the plurality of data layers of the optical disc before the address information is detected.