Provided are methods and systems of selectively decoding optical data read from an optical storage medium based on a checksum algorithm technique. In one embodiment, optical data is converted into a data stream and buffered, and the checksum algorithm is applied to the data stream. If the calculated checksum matches an encoded checksum of the data stream, the data stream may be output without requiring further decoding. If the calculated checksum does not match the encoded checksum, the buffered data stream may be decoded to produce a corrected data stream, and the checksum algorithm may be applied to the corrected data stream. In some embodiments, the optical data may be re-read if the corrected data stream does not pass the checksum test, and the data stream obtained from the re-reading may be combined with the buffered data stream for further decoding.