Channel coding and signal processing for optical recording systems beyond DVD

High-capacity optical recording beyond DVD is physically made possible by using blue lasers with shorter wavelengths, and improved lenses with high numerical aperture. In collaboration with Sony, a new optical disc format for a real-time Digital Video Recording system (DVR) has been developed. Signal processing plays a key role in the optimization of disc capacity together with system margins of the optical drive. For the new format, new modulation codes have been designed for the rewritable version (parity-preserving code) and the read-only version (combi-code). For bit-detection in the rewritable format, a nonrecursive algorithm with PRML-like performance is devised. Finally, a new ECC code, called the picket code, was designed in order to cope with multiple long burst errors, on top of the usual random errors of the channel.