Importance

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Abstract

A data recording and reproducing apparatus uses a rewriteable optical disk with pre-recorded absolute address information, and comprises a data compression circuit for dividing and compressing continuous digital data into compressed plural data blocks, an expansion circuit to restore the compressed data to the original expanded form, and a buffer memory. Data is compressed in discrete data blocks and is recorded sequentially block by block to the optical disk. The compressed data is likewise read block by block from the disk during data reproduction. Using the data expansion circuit to expand the compressed data one block at a time, the data recording and reproducing apparatus can reproduce the original continuous digital data stream. Plural continuous digital data selections can thus be reproduced by alternately fetching data for the plural selections from the disk in compressed data block units and temporarily storing the data to a buffer memory for expansion.

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First Claim