An audio recording apparatus provides a method of managing the video and audio navigation data for a rewritable recording medium, such as DVDs. The recording medium contains video and audio files in either originally recorded or user defined sequence. During recording, the apparatus prepares and updates start addresses for each navigation table containing such data as video and audio files. When reproducing information from the recording medium, the information tables which contain management data required for reproduction of the requested data are located directly by the start addresses. The data are read from the rewritable recording medium and reproduced in reference to the management data.