Patent ID: 7065010

Claim:
Method for tracking in an apparatus for reading from and/or writing to an optical recording medium, the apparatus having a tracking device, a photodetector having at least two light-sensitive areas and a phase comparator, the method comprising the steps of: using the phase comparator to compare phases of first and second input signals related to a first and a second of said at least two light-sensitive areas respectively, and to produce first and second output signals, said output signals indicating amount of phase difference and sign of phase difference of said first and second input signals, and using the tracking device to control a scanning beam in a manner dependent on a tracking signal formed from both first and second output signals, and to generate a first control signal, which indicates that the scanning beam has crossed a track centre of the recording medium, and a second control signal, which states whether that region of the recording medium which is currently detected by the scanning beam is a track or region between two tracks; and which first and second control signals are used for controlling the tracking device during a track jump operation. wherein the first control signal is formed by statistically evaluating individual time difference values, which indicate the time difference between input signals of the phase comparator and associated polarities of the output signals of the phase comparator.