Patent 7475324 was granted and assigned to Sanyo on January, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An encoding apparatus which forms sector units of data, to each of which a header and an error detection code are added, from record data to be recorded on an optical disk, arranges a plurality of the sector units of data to form a matrix that is a block unit of data, scrambles the block unit of data exclusive of the headers and error detection codes, appends a first error correction code for each row of the block unit of data, and appends a second error correction code for each column of the block unit of data. The encoding apparatus comprises a generator of the error detection codes; a section that performs the scrambling; a generator of the first error correction codes; a generator of the second error correction codes; and an encoding controller that controls the processes in the above sections to be performed in parallel.