Method and apparatus for CD format decision

1. A method for determining the format of an optical recording medium comprising a table of contents (TOC) and one or more data or audio tracks or both types of tracks, the method comprising:

reading the table of contents (TOC);

storing information from the table of contents;

checking whether all tracks are indicated as audio tracks or as data tracks or whether both audio tracks and data tracks are present;

if one or more data tracks are present, checking whether the first indicated data track contains any audio information; and

determining a first format if all tracks are indicated as audio tracks or if some or all tracks are indicated as data tracks and the first indicated data track contains audio information; and

determining a second format if all tracks are indicated as data tracks and the first indicated data track does not contain audio information.

2. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

determining a third format if the first track is indicated as data track and does not contain audio information and the remaining tracks are indicated as audio tracks; and

determining a fourth format in any other case.

3. A method according to claim 2 , wherein the first format is CDDA, the second format is CDROM/CDROM-XA, the third format is mix-mode and the fourth format is a format different from the first, second and third format.

4. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the decision whether an indicated data track contains audio information is based on a statistical sub-code analysis along the indicated data track.

5. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the decision whether an indicated data track contains audio information is based on an audio signal recognition along the track.

6. A method according to claim 4 , wherein the decision process is conducted only on selected portions of the track.

7. A method according to claim 5 , wherein the decision process is conducted only on selected portions of the track.

8. A decision engine for determining the format of an optical recording medium comprising a table of contents (TOC) and one or more data or audio tracks or both types of tracks, the decision engine comprising

an input for receiving information read from the recording medium,

a first analyzer for storing and analyzing the information stored in the table of contents (TOC) of the recording medium,

a second analyzer for analyzing the information stored in the tracks of the recording medium,

a decision logic for determining, based on the output of the first analyzer and the second analyzer, a first format if all tracks are indicated as audio tracks or if some or all tracks are indicated as data tracks, and the first indicated data track contains audio information, and for determining a second format if all tracks are indicated as data tracks and the first indicated data track does not contain audio information,

a first output for emitting a signal requesting further information to be read from the recoding medium, and

a second output for emitting a signal indicating the format.

9. A decision engine according to claim 8 , wherein the second analyzer performs a statistical sub-code analysis along the tracks.

10. A decision engine according to claim 8 , wherein the second analyzer performs an audio signal recognition along the tracks.

11. A decision engine according to claim 8 , wherein the decision engine can be switched to a manual mode allowing to select various formats by external means bypassing the automatic determination of the format.

12. An apparatus for reading from or writing to optical recording media, comprises a decision engine according to claim 8 for determining the format of an inserted recording medium.

13. An apparatus for reading from or writing to optical recording media according to claim 12 , further comprises

a plurality of processing blocks for processing the information read from the recording medium in with the format, and

a format switch for routing the information read from the recording medium to the corresponding processing block, the format switch being controlled by the output signal of the second output of the decision engine.