Optical reproducing apparatus

1. An optical reproducing apparatus for reproducing information recorded on a medium having periodic concentric grooves, the apparatus comprising:

a light source for generating light flux;

a lens for focusing said light flux on said medium;

an apparatus to form five spots from the light flux on said medium, which is provided between said light source and said lens, wherein said five spots comprise a main spot and two pairs of sub spots, a first pair of said two pairs of sub spots are symmetrically located with respect to said main spot, each at substantially one-half pitch of the periodic grooves of said medium from said main spot in the radial direction of said medium, and a second pair of said sub spots are located substantially one-half pitch of the periodic grooves of said medium from each other in the radial direction of said medium;

a photodetector for detecting reflected light fluxes of said five spots from said medium; and

a circuit for generating a tracking signal by adding push-pull signals of said sub spots, and then obtaining a difference between a push-pull signal of said main spot and the added push-pull signals of said sub spots.

2. An optical reproducing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein, among said photodetectors, the photodetector for detecting a reproduced signal (RF signal) from said medium is a single-segment light receiving part that is not divided.

3. An optical reproducing apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising discriminating means for discriminating among different classifications of said plural kinds of media, and a control part for performing control so that a tracking error signal is generated by a different method corresponding to the medium that was discriminated by said discriminating means.

4. An optical reproducing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein said plural classifications of media are DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-R, and CD-RW, and

tracking error signals from said media are formed from said five spots for said respective media by said following methods:

for DVD-ROM, by the differential phase detection method;

for DVD-RAM, by the differential push-pull method;

for DVD-R and DVD-RW, by the differential push-pull method at the time of recording and by either of the differential push-pull method or the differential phase detection method at the time of reproducing;

for CD-ROM, by one of the twin beam method, the differential push-pull method, and the differential phase detection method;

for CD-R and CD-RW, by the differential push-pull method at the time of recording and by one of the twin beam method, the differential push-pull method, and the differential phase detection method at the time of reproducing.

5. An optical reproducing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein said plural classifications of media are DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-R, and CD-RW, and

a defocus signal from each medium is formed from said five spots by either of the astigmatic method or the spot-size detection method.

6. An optical reproducing apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a complex diffraction grating to form said five spots.

7. An optical reproducing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:

said first pair of sub spots are symmetrically arranged a first distance from the main spot, on opposing sides thereof in a radius direction of the medium,

said second pair of sub spots are symmetrically arranged a second distance from the main spot, on opposing sides thereof in a radius direction of the medium,

and a difference between said first distance and said second distance is half of a groove pitch of the medium.