METHOD OF AND SYSTEM FOR READING BLOCKS FROM A STORAGE MEDIUM

摘要

A system (100) has a storage medium (110) that contains a number of storage units (108). A multimedia title is stored in the storage medium (110) as a number of blocks, whereby some of the blocks are stored multiple times such that different storage units (108) contain a copy of that block. Retrieving blocks from the storage medium (110) for supply to a user is executed in cycles and the system has for some of the blocks the freedom to choose from which of the storage units (108) the block is retrieved in order to balance the load on the storage units (108). Furthermore, the system (100) is arranged to look ahead a number of cycles to determine what blocks in the near future are necessary and to retrieve these future blocks earlier if the storage units are not yet fully occupied. The additional freedom to schedule retrieval of a block at earlier moments in time provides a further mechanism to balance the load on the storage units.