JP2000209519A - Display method and its device for program information - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily recognize the category of a program by displaying the program name by means of a font typeface according to the program category. SOLUTION: A program title display object displays the name of a program and shows the program name in a font typeface in response to the category of the program in a program name display area that is sectioned by a program start time and a program end time. That is, a CPU 30 executes the display of an EPG screen by an instruction of a viewer, starts a display processing procedure, reads out the program information data D1 and acquires the category of the program to be displayed. Then the CPU 30 decides a font typeface corresponding to the program category out of the font typefaces which are stored in a ROM 28 based on a category/font correspondence table stored in a RAM 29. The ROM 28 stores five font typefaces, i.e., a special thic Gothic type, a Gothic type, a Ming type, a POP type and a round Gothic type, and the program category corresponds to one of these five types.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for displaying program information, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for displaying program information for displaying, as program information, a broadcast schedule of a digital satellite broadcast program distributed via a communication satellite. It is preferable.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is a digital satellite broadcasting system for digitizing a video signal and broadcasting it via a satellite. In such a digital satellite broadcasting system, a video signal of a plurality of channels is separately transmitted on the transmitting side by an MPEG (Moving P
(icture Experts Group) 2 and then multiplexed after compression and distributed via a broadcast satellite. On the receiving side, broadcast waves distributed via broadcast satellites are transmitted to IRD (In
The receiving is performed by using a receiving and decoding device called an integrated Receiver Decorder.

In a digital satellite broadcasting system,
Many programs of about 100 to 200 channels are distributed. Therefore, on the transmitting side of the digital satellite broadcast, the broadcast schedule and program information of each program are stored in the EPG (El
(Electronic Program Guide: electronic program guide), which is multiplexed with broadcast waves and distributed as program guide information, and displayed as a list on the receiving side. As a result, on the receiving side, information of a large number of programs can be simultaneously displayed to the viewer in a list display.

On the EPG screen, for example, channel display areas are arranged on the vertical axis and the time axis is set on the horizontal axis, and a program name display area corresponding to the broadcast time is provided in each channel display area. The program name is displayed in the name display area.

[0005]

In the digital satellite broadcasting system, programs are classified into categories called categories. The viewer can easily select a program of his / her favorite genre by selecting a program based on the category.

That is, in the conventional EPG screen,
By displaying an icon indicating the category in the program name display frame, associating the category with the color, and setting the corresponding color as the background color in the program name display frame or the program name character color, Has been made to be displayed.

However, the method of displaying the icon indicating the category in the program name display frame has a problem that the display width of the program name in the program name display frame is reduced by displaying the icon.

Further, since the method of associating categories with colors is not sufficient for associating viewers with specific categories by colors themselves, it is necessary to display a correspondence table between categories and colors on a screen. However, there is a problem when the area for displaying the program guide is reduced. When the correspondence table between the category and the color is displayed, there is a problem that the viewer has to check the correspondence table at any time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to propose a program information display method and an apparatus for easily recognizing a program category.

[0010]

According to the present invention, there is provided a program information display apparatus for displaying information of a plurality of programs, wherein a display font corresponding to a category set for each program is stored. Means and display means for displaying program information using corresponding display fonts stored in the storage means.

[0011] By displaying the program name using a display font corresponding to the category of the program, the viewer can easily recognize the category of the program and additionally display an icon or the like indicating the category. There is no need to use the broadcast schedule screen effectively.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

(1) Overall Configuration of Digital Satellite Broadcasting System In FIG. 1, reference numeral 2 denotes a digital satellite broadcasting system as a whole, and a transmitting apparatus 10 converts a plurality of channels of video signals supplied from the outside into MPEG (Moving Pictu).
re Experts Group), multiplexes and modulates them, and transmits them to the broadcasting satellite 12 via the transmitting antenna 11 as a broadcast wave S10. Broadcasting satellite 12 transmits broadcast wave S
12 is received by a transponder (not shown) and then amplified, and distributed to the ground as a broadcast wave S12.

On the terrestrial receiving side, the IRD 20 receives the broadcast wave S12 via the receiving antenna 13. When the viewer selects a desired channel by operating an operation unit (not shown) of the remote commander 15, the remote commander 15 superimposes a selection signal input by the viewer on the infrared light S15. IRD (In
Integrated Receiver Decorder (reception decoding device) 20. As a result, the IRD 20 selects a plurality of channels of video and audio signals multiplexed on the broadcast wave S12 and decodes them. The IRD 20 sends the video signal S24 and the audio signal S25 generated by selecting and decoding in this manner to the display unit 85 and the speaker (not shown) of the monitor 80, and reproduces and outputs the video and audio.

(2) Configuration of IRD In FIG. 2, the IRD 20 inputs the broadcast wave S12 received via the antenna 13 (FIG. 1) to the front end unit 21. The front end unit 21 demodulates and corrects the error of the broadcast wave S12 to form a bit stream S21.
Which is sent to the demultiplexer 22.

The demultiplexer 22 separates the packet of the channel selected by the viewer from the bit stream S21. In other words, the IRD 20 demodulates the viewer's selection command sent from the remote commander 15 in the light receiving unit 33, so that the operation signal S33
Get. Then, the light receiving section 33 sends the operation signal S33 to a sub microcomputer 31 (hereinafter referred to as a sub microcomputer).

The IRD 20 is a remote commander 15
In addition to the above, the front panel 32 has an input operation unit that can be directly operated by the viewer, and an operation input that is input when the viewer operates an operation input unit (not shown) of the front panel 32 receives an operation signal. It is sent to the sub microcomputer 31 as S33.

The sub-microcomputer 31 decodes the operation signal S33, and uses the decoding result as a command signal S31 by the CPU (Cent).
ral Processing Unit) 30.

The CPU 30 responds to the command signal S31 by
Various processes are executed based on a control program stored in an OM (Read Only Memoly) 28. For example, when the viewer operates the remote commander 15 to select a reception channel, the CPU 30 supplies a channel selection signal S30 to the demultiplexer 22 via the bus 39 in response to the selection.

Thus, the demultiplexer 22 separates the packet of the channel selected by the viewer from the bit stream S21 according to the channel selection signal S30, and uses this as a bit stream S22.
l) Supply to the decoder 23. The AV decoder 23 decodes the bit stream S22 according to the MPEG2 method to generate video data S23V and audio data S23A,
Each of them is NTSC (National Television System Com
mittee) Encoder 24 and D / A (Digital / Analog)
Output to the converter 25. The demultiplexer 22
The program information data D1 multiplexed in the bit stream S21 is separated, and is separated via the bus 39 into the RAM 29.
To supply.

At this time, the demultiplexer 22 and the AV decoder 23 are each provided with a RAM (Randam Access Memory).
y) Perform processing using buffers 26 and 27 as buffers.

The NTSC encoder 24 converts the video data S
23V is converted into an analog video signal of the NTSC system, and this is output to the monitor 80 as a video signal S24. The D / A converter 25 converts the audio data S23A from digital to analog, and converts the audio data S23A into an audio signal S25.
(FIG. 1).

When the viewer operates the remote commander 15 to input an instruction to display an EPG screen, the CPU 30 as a display means responds to the instruction to generate an EPG generation instruction signal S.
35 is supplied to an AV decoder 23 as a display means via a bus 39.

The AV decoder 23 outputs an EPG generation instruction signal S
In accordance with 35, EPG display processing to be described later is executed, and RA
An EPG screen is generated based on the program information data D1 stored in M29, and this is output as video data S23V to the monitor 80 (FIG. 1) via the NTSC encoder 24.

FIG. 3 shows a display state of the EPG screen displayed on the display screen 85 of the monitor 80.
Current date and time display area Fdat displaying current date and time
e, a date display area Fday for displaying the current date, that is, a date seven days ahead from today, a time display area Ftime for displaying the time two hours ahead from the current time, and a program display area Ftitle for displaying a broadcast program. And a program content display area Finfo for displaying a detailed description of the program selected by the viewer operating the remote commander.

The program display area Ftitle is vertically divided into five sections, each of which corresponds to a satellite broadcast channel. A logo display area Flogo for displaying a channel logo mark and a channel number are displayed in order from the left. A channel number display area Fch and a program name display area Fprog separated by a broadcast start time and a broadcast end time of the program are provided. In the program name display area Fprog, the program name of the corresponding program is displayed in a font type corresponding to the category of the program.

(3) EPG display processing The CPU 30 executes the object shown in FIG.
Display the screen. That is, the program information database object Database stores the program information data D1 in the RAM.
The program information is read out and stored, and the program information is provided to another object. FIG. 5 shows the structure of the program information data D1. Under a channel data D10 having a channel number D11 and channel logo data D12, a program name D21, a broadcast date D22, a program start time D23, a program end time D24, and a category D25 are provided. Has a hierarchical structure in which the program data D20 having the above data are arranged in the order of the program start time.

Program information database object Dat
The base notifies the current date and time information to the current date and time display object Date, and the current date and time display object Date displays the current date and time in the current date and time display area Fdate (FIG. 3). The program information database object Database notifies the program title display object Title of the contents of the program data D20.

Program title display object Title
Notifies the channel number D11 to the channel number display object Channel, and the channel number display object Channel displays the channel number in the channel number display area Fch (FIG. 3). In addition, the program title display object Title displays the channel logo D12 as the channel logo display object Log.
o and the corresponding channel logo object Logo
Displays the channel logo in the channel logo display area
(FIG. 3).

Program title display object Title
Notifies the current date information to the date display object Day, and the date display object Day displays a date display of eight days starting from the current date in the date display area Fday (FIG. 3). The program title display object T
“title” indicates the current time information by the time display object T.
, and the time display object Time displays a two-hour time display starting from the current time in the time display area Ftime (FIG. 3).

The program title display object Ti
tel executes the program name display processing shown in FIG. 6, and the program name display area Fpr is divided by the program start time and the program end time.
The program name is displayed in og in a font typeface corresponding to the category of the program.

That is, when the CPU 30 (FIG. 2) starts executing the display processing of the EPG screen according to the command of the viewer, the CPU 30 (FIG. 2)
The display processing procedure is entered from the start step of T1, and the process proceeds to step SP1. In step SP1, the CPU 30
The program information data D1 is read, and the category D25 of the program to be displayed is obtained.

At step SP2, the CPU 30
Based on the category / font correspondence table stored in the AM 29, the font type corresponding to the category D25 is determined from the font type stored in the ROM 28. As shown in FIG. 6, the ROM 28 stores five types of font types, that is, extra-thin Gothic type, Gothic type, Mincho type, POP type, and round Gothic type. It corresponds to either. The correspondence between the category and the font typeface is determined based on the viewer's standard impression of the font typeface. For example, a POP type that gives a soft impression to a category having a soft content such as animation is used. By using a Mincho font that gives a firm impression to a category having a solid content, the category can be easily recognized by the font typeface of the program name.

At step SP3, the CPU 30 obtains one character code from the program name D21 of the program to be displayed. In the first processing of step SP3, the character code of the first character of the program name D21 is obtained, and thereafter, every time step SP3 is executed, the character code to be obtained is shifted one character at a time.

At step SP4, the CPU 30 determines whether or not the obtained character code is an end code indicating the end of the program name D21. If a positive result is obtained in step SP4, this means that the acquired character code is the end code, and that the program names to be displayed are all displayed, and the CPU 30 proceeds to step SP14 and performs the processing. finish. On the other hand, if a negative result is obtained in step SP4, this means that the acquired character code is not the end code, and the CPU 30 proceeds to step SP5 and changes the character font indicated by the acquired character code to the step SP5. It is obtained from the font typeface determined in SP2, and in step SP6, the width of the character font is calculated.

In step SP7, when the character font obtained in step SP5 is displayed in the program name display area Fprog (FIG. 3), the CPU 30 has a margin for displaying "..." indicating that a character string follows. Whether or not R
The determination is made based on the width of the entire program name character (described later) stored in the AM 29, the width of the character font, and the width of "...". In the first process, since there is no character font acquired before this, the width of the entire program name character is “0”.

If an affirmative result is obtained in step SP7, this means that there is a margin for displaying "..." following the character font obtained in step SP5, and the CPU 30 proceeds to step SP8. After storing the start position of drawing "..." in the program name display area Fprog at that time and the position of the character obtained in step SP3 in the program name D21 as the "..." drawing start position and character code acquisition position in the RAM 29, respectively. The process proceeds to step SP9. On the other hand, if a negative result is obtained in step SP7, this means that there is no margin for displaying "..." following the character font obtained in step SP5, and the CPU 30 starts drawing "..." Step SP9 without storing the position and the character code acquisition position
Proceed to.

In step SP9, the CPU 30 determines whether the character font acquired in step SP5 fits in the program name display area Fplog by determining the width of the character font and the RA.
The determination is made based on the width of the entire program name character stored in M29. If a positive result is obtained in step SP9, this means that the character font acquired in step SP5 fits in the program name display area Fplog, and the CPU 30 proceeds to step SP10.

In step SP10, the CPU 30 adds the width of the character font to the width of the entire program name character,
This is stored in the RAM 29 as the width of the entire new program name character, and in step SP11, the character font acquired in step SP5 is displayed, and the process returns to step SP3.

On the other hand, if a negative result is obtained in step SP9, this means that the character font obtained in step SP5 does not fit in the program name display area Fplog, and the CPU 30 proceeds to step SP12. The drawing start position and the character code acquisition position stored in the RAM 29 are read, and the character indicated by the character code acquisition position and "..." are displayed.
To end the process.

Thus, the CPU 30 displays the program name in the program name display area Fplog on the EPG screen using a font typeface corresponding to the category of the program. For example, 100 shown in FIG.
In the program of the channel, the program name is displayed in extra-thick gothic type according to the category of the program. Similarly 101
Channel shows show the title in gothic,
In the program of the 102 channel, the program name is displayed in Mincho. Furthermore, the program name is P
The program name is displayed in a round gothic type.

On the EPG screen shown in FIG. 3, programs on the same channel are displayed in the same font typeface, because these programs belong to the same category. Is displayed in a different font typeface.

In the above configuration, the transmitting side of the digital satellite broadcast assigns an attribute (category) to each program to be broadcast as program guide information and transmits the program. On the receiving side,
By categorizing or searching for the program of the program guide information for each category, it is possible to collectively provide programs to the viewer as program guide information, for example, programs of a specific category that match the viewer's preference.

Further, the IRD 20 can provide program information based on broadcast time by simultaneously displaying programs broadcast within a predetermined period as program guide information in a plurality of categories. In this case, for example, FIG.
As shown in (1), the IRD 20 simultaneously displays programs broadcast at a predetermined broadcast time set by the viewer over a plurality of categories on one EPG screen.

On the EPG screen, each program name is displayed in a state where a plurality of types of categories are mixed by performing display based on the broadcast time. At this time,
The CPU 30 changes the font of the display name of the program name displayed on the EPG screen for each category, and assigns the same font to the same category. From the same category.

Therefore, the viewer can associate those categories with a plurality of program names that can be identified as the same category, thereby simultaneously displaying the program information based on the broadcast time and classifying the same category. be able to.

Then, the RA is associated with each category.
By assigning a typeface having an impression corresponding to the image of each category as the typeface stored in M29, only by looking at the program name on the viewer wave EPG screen,
The category of the program can be roughly grasped.

According to the above arrangement, the program name is displayed on the EPG screen using the font type corresponding to the category of the program, so that the viewer can easily recognize the category of the program. It is not necessary to separately display an icon or the like indicating a category, so that the EPG screen can be used effectively.

In the above-described embodiment, the program name is displayed using five types of font typefaces. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the program name is displayed using other number of font typefaces. Display may be performed.

In the above-described embodiment, the program name is displayed using the font type corresponding to the category. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the program name using the font type corresponding to the category is displayed. In addition to the display, another category display method such as color display according to the category may be used together. In this case, two types of program categories can be expressed simultaneously. For example, in the case of a movie program based on baseball, two categories of “movie” and “sports” corresponding to the program can be displayed by combining font typeface and color display, and the viewer can enjoy more. The category of the program can be easily recognized.

In the above-described embodiment, the correspondence between the category and the font typeface is determined based on the viewer's standard impression of the font typeface. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The correspondence between the category and the font typeface may be customized.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the case where the present invention is applied to an IRD for receiving digital satellite broadcasting has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and various digital broadcasting such as digital terrestrial broadcasting and digital CATV are used. The present invention may be applied to an IRD for receiving a television broadcast and a digital television receiver for receiving the same.

[0053]

As described above, according to the present invention, the program name is displayed using the font typeface corresponding to the category of the program, so that the viewer can easily recognize the category of the program. Thus, it is possible to obtain a program information display method and an apparatus thereof that can effectively use the screen of the broadcast schedule.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a digital satellite broadcasting system.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an IRD according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a display state of an EPG screen.

FIG. 4 is an object correlation diagram showing objects in an EPG display process.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a configuration of program information data.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating a program name display process.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating a font configuration in a ROM.

[Explanation of symbols]

2 ... Digital satellite broadcasting system, 10 ... Transmission device, 11 ... Transmission antenna, 12 ... Broadcast satellite, 13 ...
... Reception antenna, 15 ... Remote commander, 20 ...
IRD, 21 front end section, 22 demultiplexer, 23 AV decoder, 24 NTSC encoder, 25 D / A conversion section, 26, 27, 29
... RAM, 28 ... ROM, 30 ... CPU, 31 ...
Sub microcomputer 32 Front panel 33 Light receiving section 39 Bus 80 Monitor 85 Display section

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A program information display method for displaying information on one or more programs, wherein the information on the programs is displayed using a display font corresponding to a category set for each program. Program information display method. 2. The program information display method according to claim 1, wherein the information on the plurality of programs is simultaneously displayed on one screen by using a corresponding display font. . 3. The program information display method according to claim 1, wherein the program information is information on a program of digital television broadcasting. 4. A program information display device for displaying information of one or more programs, a storage means for storing a display font corresponding to a category set for each program, and information of the program stored in the storage means. Display means for displaying using the stored corresponding display typeface. 5. The program information display device according to claim 4, wherein said display means simultaneously displays information of a plurality of said programs on one screen using corresponding display fonts. 6. The program information display device according to claim 4, wherein said program information is information of a digital television broadcast program.