Patent attributes
An optical information recording/reproducing apparatus is adapted to record and/or reproduce multilevel information on/or from an optical information recording medium. The multilevel information is recorded in the form of pits in cells virtually formed at regular intervals on a track. The respective levels are represented by varying the length or the area of information pits such that a reproduced signal has a different amplitude level depending on the length or the area of information pits. A reproduced signal correction circuit corrects a reproduced signal obtained by performing sampling at the center of each cell. An error power calculation circuit calculates error power on the basis of the difference between the corrected reproduced signal and an ideal value of each level of the cell. A decoder performs decoding on the basis of the calculated error power values.