Patent ID: 7697823

Claim:
A recording control apparatus for controlling data recording on a recording medium, comprising: a reference value determining unit determines a reference value of data to be recorded on the recording medium, the reference value being determined by a data rate and a presentation period of the data so that a reading time of the data is longer than a seeking time of non-consecutive data; area-reserving means for reserving, as reserved areas, predetermined-sized consecutive empty areas having a predetermined size for guaranteeing a real-time playback from among recording areas on the recording medium; recording control means for controlling recording of data in units of packets in the reserved areas; area-freeing means for freeing, as empty areas, a remaining part of the reserved areas in which the data in units of packets is not recorded; additional reserving means for additionally reserving, as the reserved areas, consecutive empty areas which follow the predetermined-sized consecutive empty areas reserved by said area-reserving means; and size-determining means for determining whether or not the consecutive empty areas which follow the predetermined-sized consecutive empty areas reserved by said area-reserving means have a size less than the predetermined size, wherein recording of data into the reserved area is terminated when the remaining part of the reserved area is less than the size of a packet to be recorded in the reserved area, and greater than zero, wherein the size of the packet is determined by the reference value and an alignment of the packet with a boundary of an adjacent ECC block of the recording medium, wherein when the reference value is not an integer number of an ECC block, the alignment is implemented by a moving of a front boundary of the packet and a rear boundary of the packet to agree with ECC block boundaries; and wherein, when the consecutive empty areas which follow the predetermined-sized consecutive empty areas reserved by said area-reserving means have a size less than the predetermined size, said additional reserving means additionally reserves, as the reserved areas, the consecutive empty areas which have the size less than the predetermined size.