JP2007242086A - Information recording/reproducing device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information recording/reproducing device which can shorten a period of time capable of starting a recording such as photographing until power is turned ON by executing a format processing when a medium necessary for the format processing is loaded in a battery power OFF state. <P>SOLUTION: When a disk 46 is loaded in a device main body in the OFF state of a battery power source 52, the battery power source 52 is turned ON to determine whether the disk 46 has been formatted. If it is determined that the disk 46 has not been formatted, the format processing of the disk 46 is automatically executed. Alternatively, whether to execute format processing of the disk 46 is asked to a user by displaying a message in a monitor 30 or the like, and the format processing of the disk 46 is executed when the user instructs the format processing. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an information recording / reproducing apparatus that records or reproduces an audio signal, a video signal, or the like on an information recording medium such as an optical disc, and more particularly to processing when a medium that requires formatting is loaded.

  Conventionally, as an information recording / reproducing apparatus that records and reproduces a video signal, an audio signal, and the like and is driven by a battery, for example, there is one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-326933 (Patent Document 1). The publication has a power standby operation switching means for shifting between a standby state and an operating state, and automatically turns on the power of the entire apparatus when the medium is exchanged in the standby state. Then, the optimum values of the medium type, servo control value, and recording laser power are obtained in the operation state, the obtained results are stored in the nonvolatile memory, and the entire apparatus is again shifted to the standby state.

  After that, when the entire apparatus is turned on for the purpose of imaging, the nonvolatile memory is not executed without executing the medium discrimination process based on physical disk characteristics and the learning process of the servo control value and the optimum value of the recording laser power. Read information from.

According to the publication, there is no need to wait for the disc management information to be read after moving the pickup to the inner periphery after checking the presence of the disc in the drive device when the power is turned on. Time until it becomes possible can be shortened.
JP 2004-326933 A

  In Patent Document 1, no particular consideration is given to a disk recording medium that requires formatting. Formatting is a process required when a disc recording medium that has not yet been recorded on a disc recording medium and that has not been initialized is loaded into the apparatus to record information. This is to organize the readable / writable zoning.

  In general, UDF (Universal Disk Format) is known as this type of format. This UDF is used for various optical disk devices, and a recording format adapted to the characteristics of each device is employed. For example, in the CD-RW format, firstly, the section arrangement for performing recording setting of an area called “lead-in” on the inner circumference side of the disc is performed, and then the entire user data area or a specified area is fixed length (for example, Initialized in units of 2 KB). In this state, recording / reproduction can be performed at random on the formatted area.

  In this case, the user cannot access during formatting, and data cannot be recorded on the disc until the formatting process is completed. Also, in DVD-RW and DVD + RW, a format process for making data recordable is performed, and data cannot be recorded on the disk until the format process is completed.

  In the conventional technology, when a disk that needs to be formatted is loaded in the device, it is not notified that the formatting process is necessary and the formatting process cannot be executed until the user powers on the entire device for the purpose of imaging. . Therefore, when the power is turned on at the shooting location, there is a problem that shooting cannot be started immediately.

  An object of the present invention is to execute a format process when a medium that requires a format process is loaded when the battery power is off, thereby shortening a time required to start recording such as shooting by turning on the power. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information recording / reproducing apparatus capable of performing the above.

  In the present invention, when an information recording medium is loaded with the battery power turned off, the battery power is turned on to determine whether or not the information recording medium has been formatted. If it is determined that the information recording medium is not formatted, the information recording medium is automatically formatted. Alternatively, the user is inquired whether or not to format the information recording medium, and when the formatting process is instructed by the user, the formatting process of the information recording medium is executed.

  According to the present invention, when an information recording medium is loaded in a standby state, it is determined whether or not a format process is necessary, and if the format process is necessary, the format process is automatically performed to obtain a shooting location later. Recording such as shooting can be started immediately when the power is turned on. Further, by inquiring whether or not to perform the format process and executing the format process when the format process is instructed by the user, recording such as shooting can be started immediately when the power is turned on.

  Next, the best mode for carrying out the invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an information recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 52 denotes a battery power source, and the battery power source 52 charges the backup power source 54. The system controller 50 is always turned on by the backup power supply 54.

  An information recording medium 46 such as an optical disk is detachable from the apparatus main body. Hereinafter, the information recording medium is simply referred to as a disc. The disk sensor 64 detects that the disk 46 is set in the slot 48, and the slot sensor 66 detects that the slot 48 has shifted from the open state to the closed state.

  The disk controller 38 is a controller that records or reproduces a video signal, an audio signal, and the like captured by the imaging unit 22 on the disk 46. As will be described later, the disk controller 38 also performs a process of determining the optimum recording power and reproducing power of the laser light source in the optical pickup 40. The optical pickup 40 records or reproduces information by irradiating the disk 46 with a light beam. The spindle motor 44 drives the disk 46 to rotate.

  When the user turns on the power switch 58, the system controller 50 turns on the switch SW1, supplies the power of the battery power source 52 to the entire system including the CPU 34, and sends a status signal indicating that the power switch 58 is on to the CPU 34. Notify

  When the user switches the power switch 58 from the on state to the off state, the system controller 50 outputs a status signal indicating that the power switch 58 is in the off state to the CPU 34 and turns off the switch SW1 after a predetermined time elapses, thereby Stop power supply to

  When a status signal indicating that the power switch 58 is turned on is notified, the CPU 34 reads the disk management information from the nonvolatile memory 36, and sets the environment for recording and reproduction operations based on the read disk management information.

  That is, the disc management information includes a disc ID for identifying the disc 46, a recording date and time of recorded data, a recording start address on the disc, a data size, and the like. An empty area on the disk 46 is obtained from the recorded area of the disk management information, and a recording start address is determined. When the environment setting is completed, the CPU 34 reads the optimum laser power value from the nonvolatile memory 36 and notifies the disk controller 38 of the read optimum laser power value. The disk controller 38 sets the laser power of the optical pickup 40 based on that.

  When the laser power setting is completed by the disk controller 38, the disk controller 38 is in a recordable state. Also, when the power switch 58 is turned on during playback, the start address and data size of recorded data are read from the disk management information stored in the nonvolatile memory 36, and the head address of video data recorded on the disk 46 is read. Set. When the environment setting is completed, the disk controller 38 is in a reproducible state.

  The video signal and audio signal input from the imaging unit 22 during data recording are output to the memory control circuit 24 and written into the SDRAM 26 by the memory control circuit 24. On the other hand, the MPEG encoder 28 requests the memory control circuit 24 to read the video signal and the audio signal, and MPEG encodes the video signal and the audio signal read by the memory control circuit 24.

  The encoded video signal is transferred to the disk controller 38 and recorded on the disk 46. At the time of reproduction, the data read from the disk 46 is decoded by the MPEG decoder 32 and output to a display device such as the monitor 30.

  When a status signal indicating that the power switch 58 is turned off is notified, the CPU 34 requests the disk controller 38 for disk management information. When the disk controller 38 receives a request from the CPU 34, the current disk management information is returned to the CPU 34 after the recording / reproducing process being processed is completed. The CPU 34 stores the returned disk management information in the nonvolatile memory 36 and outputs a detection end notification to the system controller 50. The system controller 50 turns off the switch SW1 and turns off the power supply to the entire system including the CPU 34.

  Next, the operation when the disk 46 is inserted with the battery power supply 52 turned off will be described using the flowchart of FIG. First, when the disk 46 is inserted, the disk sensor 64 detects that the disk 46 is set in the slot 48, and the slot sensor 66 detects the transition of the slot 48 to the closed state. The system controller 50 detects that the disk 46 is loaded by signals from these sensors 64 and 66.

  In step S21, the system controller 50 determines whether the power switch 58 is on. If the power switch 58 is on, the process proceeds to S22 and the above-described normal processing is performed. That is, the environment setting for recording or reproducing information is performed based on the disk management information as described above, and information is recorded or reproduced on the disk 46 by the disk controller 38.

  On the other hand, when the power switch 58 is off, the system controller 50 turns on the switch SW1 and outputs a status signal indicating that the disk 46 is loaded to the CPU 34. When the status signal indicating that the disk 46 is loaded is notified, the CPU 34 reads the disk 46 in S23 to check whether management information is recorded on the disk 46, and determines whether it is a formatted disk.

  If it is determined in S23 that the disk has not been formatted, the CPU 34 displays a message indicating that the disk needs to be formatted in S24 on a display device such as the monitor 30. Next, in S25, the CPU 34 outputs a learning instruction to the disk controller 38.

  When the learning instruction is received, the disk controller 38 rotates the disk 46 by the spindle motor 44, drives the optical pickup 40, changes the laser power value to the disk 46, repeats the test write and the test read, and the optimum laser power value (optimum value). Recording power value). When the optimum laser power value is determined, the disk controller 38 notifies the CPU 34 of the end of the learning process.

  In response to the learning process end notification in S26, the CPU 34 requests the disk controller 38 for the optimum laser power value. In response to this request, the disk controller 38 returns the optimum laser power value determined by the above-described test write and test read to the CPU 34.

  Next, the process proceeds to S27, where it is determined whether or not to execute the format process according to the user's selection. That is, it is determined whether or not to execute the formatting process based on a user response to the display indicating that the formatting process is necessary in S24.

  In the case of Yes in S27, the CPU 34 outputs a format execution instruction to the disk controller 38 in order to execute the formatting process of the disk 46. When the disk controller 38 receives the format execution instruction, the disk controller 38 performs a formatting process to make the disk 46 in a recordable state in S28. When the formatting process is completed, the CPU 34 stores the optimum laser power value returned in S29 in the nonvolatile memory 36.

  On the other hand, in the case of No in S27, the CPU 34 stores the optimum laser power value in the nonvolatile memory 36 without executing the formatting process (S29). At this time, since the disk 46 is not formatted, the user is notified that formatting is necessary when the power is turned on, and the formatting process is performed by the user's selection. Finally, in S30, the system controller 50 turns off the switch SW1 and ends the process.

  If it is determined in S23 that the disk has been formatted, the CPU 34 outputs a learning instruction to the disk controller 38 in S31. When the learning instruction is received, the disk controller 38 similarly rotates the disk 46 by the spindle motor 44, drives the optical pickup 40, repeats test writing and test reading on the disk 46, and determines the optimum laser power value ( S31). When the optimum laser power value is determined, the disk controller 38 notifies the CPU 34 of the end of the learning process (S31).

  In response to the learning process completion notification in S32, the CPU 34 requests the disk controller 38 for the optimum laser power value and disk management information (such as the disk ID and the recording date and time of recorded data). In response to this request, the disk controller 38 returns the optimum laser power value specified by the above-described test write and test read and the disk management information read from the management area area on the inner periphery side of the disk 46 to the CPU 34.

  In step S29, the CPU 34 stores the above-described optimum laser power value and disk management information in the nonvolatile memory 36. Finally, in S30, the system controller 50 turns off the switch SW1 and ends the process.

  In the flowchart of FIG. 2, it is determined whether or not the formatting process is executed in S27. However, the present invention is not limited to this. But it ’s okay.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of one Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement of FIG.

Explanation of symbols

22 Imaging unit 24 Memory control circuit 26 SDRAM
28 MPEG encoder 30 Monitor 32 MPEG decoder 34 CPU
36 non-volatile memory 38 disk controller 40 optical pickup 44 spindle motor 46 disk 48 slot 50 system controller 52 battery power supply 54 backup power supply 58 power switch 64 disk sensor 66 slot sensor SW1 switch

Claims (3)

In an information recording / reproducing apparatus that is driven by a battery power source and records or reproduces information on an information recording medium, when the information recording medium is mounted with the battery power off, the battery power is turned on, An information recording / reproducing apparatus comprising: determining means for determining whether or not the information recording medium has been formatted. 2. The information recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for executing a format process of the information recording medium when the determining means determines that the information recording medium is not formatted. When the determination means determines that the information recording medium is not formatted, the information recording medium is inquired to the user as to whether or not the information recording medium is to be formatted, and when the formatting process is instructed by the user, the information recording medium The information recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a unit that executes the format process.

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