Channels and codes for magnetooptical recording

The author outlines the technology used in the optical recording channel concentrating on magnetooptical recording and describes some of the major formats, codes, and data detection methods which are being developed. A sophisticated model of the optical recording channel was used as a way to make fair comparisons of these candidates, without skewing the results because of different disk or drive quality, degrees of hardware development, test procedures, etc. The author describes strengths and weaknesses of some of the leading contenders for current and future optical recording channels