Patent ID: 6961879

Claim:
An error rate counting system for providing information on the periodicity of errors occurring in an optical compact disk system used for reading data from an optical disk media, comprising: a demultiplexer to receive a stream of multiplexed error signals and output a stream of demultiplexed error signals; an error detector to identify the occurrence of at least one error type in the stream of demultiplexed error signals; at least one error rate counter corresponding to the at least one error type, the at least one error rate counter incremented responsive to the occurrence of at least one error type and upon the presence of a first clocking signal; at least one error rate count register coupled to the at least one error rate counter, the at least one error rate count register generating an average error rate upon the occurrence of a second clocking signal, the average error rate being proportional to a timing characteristic of the second clocking signal; at least one threshold rate register storing a predetermined threshold rate value; and at least one comparator coupled to the at least one error rate count register and the at least one threshold rate register, the at least one comparator performing a comparison and initiating a first remedial action when the average error rate is greater than zero but does not exceed the predetermined threshold rate value, and initiating a second remedial action when the average error rate exceeds the predetermined threshold rate value; wherein the first remedial action and second remedial action both attempt to reduce future data reading errors.