Patent ID: 7787748

Claim:
A content reproducing apparatus for reading and reproducing a digital content that requires sequential reproduction and is recorded in a disk-shaped recording medium in a hard disk drive, comprising: head position estimating means for estimating a present location of a head with respect to the recording medium for reading a single file of the digital content; data position calculating means for calculating a location with respect to the recording medium of a data block for a digital content to be read next in chronological sequence in the single file, and chronological sequential positions and locations with respect to the recording medium of other data blocks existing sequentially before and sequentially after the data block in the single file; the head position estimating means measures a time taken to execute a command for reading the data block and reflects the result of measurement on estimation of the location of the head; moving destination determining means for determining one of the respective data blocks which the time required to move the head to is the shortest, and that the one of the respective data blocks is to be read next in chronological sequence, based on the present location of the head, which has been estimated by the head position estimating means, and the chronological sequential positions and locations of the respective data blocks, which have been calculated by the data position calculating means; and wherein the moving destination determining means determines, based on a rotation latency necessary for the head to move on a track having predetermined data existing thereon and then for the recording medium to rotate to thereby cause the data to reach the location of the head, a time required to move the head to the chronological sequential position and the location of the one of the respective data blocks.