Patent ID: 7298680

Claim:
An optical disc apparatus provided with a laser diode to irradiate an optical disc with laser light, a drive circuit which drives said laser diode in accordance with recording data with a first power having a recording level and drives said laser diode with a second power having a lower level than said recording level during a period between one recording data and another recording data, a front monitor which monitors an emitted light amount of said laser light, and an automatic power control circuit which controls power of the laser light by obtaining a difference between said second power detected by said front monitor and a target value of the second power, comprising: an optical detector which detects a reflected light amount of the irradiated laser light from the optical disc; a unit for taking in a reflected light amount output from the optical detector; a unit for obtaining a reference value from a reflected light amount output from the optical detector which has been taken in immediately before a start of a rccording operation after receiving a recording command until opening of a recording gate; a comparison unit for comparing a reflected light amount output of the laser light with said second power from the optical detector after the start of the recording operation with the reference value; and a unit for correcting the target value of said second power in accordance with the result of comparison by the comparison unit.