Abstract: In summary, when an optical record medium is to be played, the optical drive first determines which type of optical record medium is inserted based on detection of a few signals and execution of a few calibrations. These calibrations could fail sometimes, making the optical record medium completely unrecognisable or converging to bad settings, thereby decreasing the playability of the optical record medium. This problem is solved by using a new criterion to calibrate the optical drive and improve the playability of the optical record medium, which comprises analyzing the header information. This method is useful in all optical drive systems such as CD, DVD and blu-ray players.