Patent ID: 7545719

Claim:
An optical disk apparatus capable of recording a signal on an optical disk by directing an optical beam thereon at a plurality of recording speeds which are different from each other at the same radius, said apparatus comprising: a condition measuring position storing part that stores condition measuring positions at which a condition of the signal is measured for each of the recording speeds; and a signal condition measuring part that measures the condition of the signal, which condition of the signal is used for write power compensation, by suspending a recording operation at the condition measuring positions stored in said condition measuring position storing part, wherein, in said condition measuring position storing part, the condition measuring positions for a recording speed whose level is one level lower than a level of a predetermined recording speed are set to positions shifted for a predetermined time from respective corresponding condition measuring positions for the predetermined recording speed, and said optical disk apparatus is configured to perform WPC, said WPC being carried out during recording by interrupting recording at a predetermined position, verifying the condition measured by the signal condition measuring part, correcting the recording power or reducing the recording speed in accordance with the status of the verified recording condition, and then restarting recording, wherein verifying the condition measured by the signal condition measuring part comprises: obtaining a peak value and a minimum value of the signal recorded at a time before the predetermined position of interrupting the signal; utilizing the peak value and the minimum value to determine whether the recording power of the signal recorded a predetermined time before the position of interrupting the recording operation is within a predetermined range.