EP1329104A2

EP1329104A2 - Method for setting up a connection and associated device for receiving interactive services

Info

Publication number: EP1329104A2
Application number: EP01978572A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Laurent Lesenne; Fabien Battini; Bruno Dezenaire; Guillaume Audeon
Original assignee: Thomson Licensing SAS
Current assignee: THOMSON LICENSING
Priority date: 2000-10-23
Filing date: 2001-10-19
Publication date: 2003-07-23
Also published as: CN1471788A; KR20030046493A; AU2002210672A1; US20040055015A1; WO2002035835A3; JP2004527807A; WO2002035835A2; MXPA03003504A

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for setting up a connection between a receiver device and an interactive service server. The invention is characterised in that it comprises steps which consist in: at the receiver device level, in determining a domain identifier; searching for the domain identifier in a correspondence file comprising a plurality of domain identifiers and for each domain identifier connection parameters; updating a connection configuration file of an application using the connection parameters corresponding to the received domain identifier, initialising the connection on the basis of the configuration file. The invention also concerns a receiver for implementing the method. The invention is applicable in all interactive service broadcasting television systems.

Description

Connection establishment method and associated interactive service receiving device

The invention relates to a method of establishing a connection between an interactive device, in particular an interactive television receiver, and a server through a connection, as well as such a receiver.

This request is part of interactive television, allowing a user to interact with interactive services. The terminals are connected to one or more communication networks (see Figure 1), for example:

- a bidirectional network (modem return path, cable, etc.) of point-to-point type, such as the telephone network; - a one-way distribution network (terrestrial TV broadcasting network, cable, satellite) analog or digital.

The term "interactive consumer terminal" covers television receivers with interactive modules, DVB decoders, Internet decoders, etc.

An interactive terminal generally consists of resident software with which the manufacturer of the terminal combines download functions allowing the latter to retrieve interactive services, whether by the broadcast channel or the return channel. This resident software can be an interpreter executing applications or a browser interpreting HTML pages or scripts.

In some interactive television systems, the terminal can connect to online servers through the telephone network at different price levels. Thus, the electronic mail will for example be billed for local communication for the user of the terminal while a response sent during a TV game may cost, for example, 3.71 Frs. This principle is based on the use of different telephone numbers, each corresponding to a different rate level. The triggering of a connection at the browser level is transparent and is based on the principle of using a URL ('Uniform Resource Locator'). Indeed, it suffices to a service to contain an instruction such as: "window. location: = http://www.thmulti.com "for a connection to be established. The telephone number called, as well as other connection parameters, are specified in a configuration file (configuration. xml) which can be modified at will but through a particular interface. It should be added that each telephone number corresponds to an authentication process which must allow the terminal to connect by specifying certain connection parameters, such as a DNS (name of domain), a login word, password, etc.

Figure 2 illustrates this principle: An HTML page of an interactive service contains information for updating the configuration file 'Configuration. xml 'of a connection. This update is done. The HTML page also includes a URL link to this connection. If this link is activated, the HTML page indicates to the browser that the connection must be established. The browser then initializes the connection based on the content of the configuration file.

Giving free access to this configuration file is relatively dangerous and the very principle of having to specify the telephone number and authentication parameters in the service seems tedious and above all subject to errors.

The subject of the invention is a method of establishing a connection between a receiving device and an interactive services server, characterized in that it comprises the steps, at the receiving device level:

- determination of a domain identifier;

- Search for the domain identifier in a correspondence file comprising a plurality of domain identifiers and for each domain identifier connection parameters;

- update of an application connection configuration file using the connection parameters corresponding to the domain identifier received;

- initialization of the connection on the basis of the configuration file.

The update of the configuration file, on which the establishment of the connection to be made will be based, is triggered by the determination of a set of connection parameters, among a plurality of sets. The configuration file is for example that of browser software, which will not have to be modified per se for the implementation of the invention. According to the exemplary embodiment, the domain identifier, from which the correct set of connection parameters is determined, is a URL. The identifier can also directly index one of the parameter sets.

Other characteristics and advantages of the invention will appear through the description of a particular nonlimiting example explained with the aid of the attached figures, among which:

- Figure 1, already described, is a block diagram of a system for transmitting interactive services known per se, - Figure 2 is a prior art block diagram illustrating the extraction of connection parameters without connection interface,

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating the operation of the connection interface for extracting the connection parameters,

FIG. 4 illustrates the operations to be carried out involving a resident service when an 'on-line' service is to be launched,

FIG. 5 illustrates the operations to be carried out involving a broadcast service when an on-line service is to be launched,

- Figure 6 illustrates the operation to be performed to change the interactive service 'on-line' when one is already connected to another service of this type, - Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating the operations performed to extract, from from a received URL, connection parameters, such as telephone number, connection word, password, server name ... through the connection interface.

To secure the connection process, it is proposed in the context of the example embodiment not to directly manipulate any telephone number and authentication parameter or other connection parameter, but to build an interface allowing developers to manipulate only URLs, which indicate through the domain name used, the telephone number and the authentication parameters to be used.

By passing the domain name by a call to the function of an interface, we analyze this domain name, we deduce the configuration use, then update the browser configuration file, as illustrated in Figure 3

The process implemented thus proceeds

The service considered includes a call to the connection interface function (function designated HERE under the reference 'OpenURL') The connection interface then analyzes the parameter of the function (here a URL) and deduces a domain name A correspondence file contains for all the appropriate domain names, and for each domain name, the connection parameters (for example telephone number, authentication parameters in particular,) These parameters are used to update the browser configuration file 'Configuration xml' The initialization of the connection is then controlled by the connection interface at the browser level, by generating an HTML instruction of the same type as that present in the HTML page of Figure 2 According to the present exemplary embodiment, the correspondence file is stored in the receiver during the manufacturing phase. According to an alternative embodiment, it is trans secured to the receiver by the transmitter

The connection interface is, according to the present example, a 'JavaScript' structure inspired by the object-oriented model in which the developer manipulates an object, attributes and methods.

FIG. 4 illustrates the operations to be carried out involving a resident service when an online service must be launched. The resident service, initially active in FIG. 4, opens an instance of the connection interface, then calls the OpenURL function already mentioned in relation to FIG. 3 The configuration file is then updated as already explained, then a command to initialize the connection is sent to the corresponding service (the browser in the context of this example) Once the connection established, the online service is started and the resident service is stopped The interactive module ensures that one and only one service is executed at a given time

FIG. 5 illustrates the operations to be performed involving a radio broadcast service when an on-line service is to be launched. The procedure is similar to that of FIG. 4

FIG. 6 illustrates the operation to be performed to change the interactive on-line service when one is already connected to another service of this type. In this case, it must be checked whether the connection parameters of the new service are identical to those of the current service. In particular, we check if the new service has the same price level as the previous one (ie the cost of the connection per unit of time). If so, the same connection is used (case illustrated by the Figure 6: the online service does not need to use the connection interface), if not, there is disconnection, then reconnection. As this figure shows, only the last part of the script present in the OpenURL function is called: window.location = aURL. FIG. 7 is a diagram of the operations carried out for extracting, from a received URL, the connection parameters, such as telephone number, connection word, password, server name, etc., through the interface. of connection.

Once activated, the connection interface compares the domain names in its correspondence file with the domain name deduced from the URL. If a match is found, everything goes as previously described in relation to Figure 2. If the connection interface reaches the end of the list in the match file (domain '*') default values are used to establish the connection. According to a variant of the invention), there is no default entry in the table which avoids the misuse of a default price level. Indeed, from the moment when the service operator provides the means to access a resource whose domain name is not present in the correspondence file, it leaves the door open to competition which could benefit from it. to offer competing services at more attractive rates. By blocking the connection in the event of failure to identify the tariff level, the service operator protects itself against this problem.

Claims

claims

1. Method for establishing a connection between an interactive device and an interactive services server, characterized in that it comprises the steps, at the receiving device level:

- determination of a domain identifier;

- update of an application connection configuration file using the connection parameters corresponding to the domain identifier received; - initialization of the connection on the basis of the configuration file.

2. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that the steps for establishing the connection are launched following a call to a function of the receiver by an interactive service, said function call comprising as parameter the identifier of the domain to look for in the correspondence file.

3. Method according to claim 2, characterized in that the function call is contained in an HTML page processed by browser software of the receiver.

4. Method according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the determined domain identifier is a URL.

5. Method according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that if no correspondence is found in the correspondence file, then default connection parameters are used for updating the configuration file.

6. Receiver in an interactive service transmission system, characterized in that it comprises means for storing a correspondence file comprising a list of domain identifiers and for each domain identifier, a list of connection parameters corresponding to the domain considered.

7. Receiver according to claim 6, characterized in that it further comprises a configuration file of an application for establishing a connection by this application, the configuration file being updated by connection parameters extracts from the correspondence file before the initialization of the connection to be established.