JP2001145072A - Moving picture transmission system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a moving picture transmission system 10, which can wirelessly transmit a moving picture in two-way via mobile phone 11, that can easily extend or reduce functions kept in the entire system in accordance with a required purpose of use while maintaining the portability or the operability of a moving picture transmitter 12. SOLUTION: Each of 1st and 2nd moving picture transmitters 12 has a moving picture transmission unit 15, and various function means used for transmission of a moving picture can be extended by each of the moving picture transmission units in accordance with functions required for the entire system.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a moving image transmission system that enables moving images to be transmitted and received in a wireless state.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a moving image transmission system of this type is a dedicated system such as a video telephone or a video conference system in which a purpose of use and a device to be used are specified in advance, and various devices or software necessary for driving the system are required. It was generally provided as a package.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned moving picture transmission system, the purpose and method of use are specified, as well as the configuration of the whole apparatus. there were.

[0004] The present invention has been made in view of such inconveniences, and by making it possible to add various means used for moving image transmission to a basic moving image transmission unit as necessary, the purpose of use is improved. It is an object of the present invention to provide a moving image transmission system having a scalable function without specifying a method.

[0005]

A moving image transmission system 10 according to the present invention has a first moving image transmitting device 12a and a second moving image transmitting device 1 as schematically shown in FIG.
2b with each other via at least one mobile phone 11.

The moving image transmitting apparatus 12 includes a moving image transmitting unit 15 having predetermined data processing means. At least one of the display means 18 and the image pickup means 16 is connected to the moving image transmitting unit 15. In addition to the above, a means for enabling data transmission with the mobile phone 11 is provided.

As shown in FIG. 1 (a), both the first and second moving picture transmission devices 12a and 12b display a display means 18, an imaging means 16, The means 17 and the mobile phone 11 can be configured to be connected.

In this case, after the image signal output from the image pickup means 16 in one moving image transmission device 12a is converted into a data format that can be transmitted by the portable telephone 11 by the data processing means, the other moving image transmission device 12a transmits the image signal. It is sent out to the device 12b. In the other moving image transmitting apparatus 12b, the received data is converted into a data format that can be displayed on the display unit 18 by the data processing unit, and then displayed as a moving image on the display unit 18.

The above-mentioned first moving image transmitting apparatus 12a
Is provided with a portable video transmission unit 15a driven by a secondary battery 20 as shown in FIG. 1 (b), and one or a plurality of imaging means 16 is provided for the video transmission unit 15a.
In addition, by connecting the mobile phone 11, it can be configured to be installable even in places where the commercial AC power supply 21 and the public telephone line 22 are not provided.

On the other hand, the second moving image transmission device 12b
Has a moving image transmission unit 15b driven by a commercial AC power supply 21, a display unit 18 and an operation unit 17 are connected to the moving image transmission unit 15b, and an image pickup unit 16 in the first moving image transmission device 12a. The image capturing state by the operation unit 17 in the second moving image transmission device 12b
Can be configured so that remote control is possible.

[0011]

As described above, according to the present invention, various means used for moving image transmission can be added to the basic moving image transmission unit as required, so that the purpose and method of use are not specified. Scalable system can be provided.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS As shown in FIG. 1, a moving picture transmission system 10 according to the present invention has first and second sets of two sets which will be described in detail later. By providing the moving image transmission devices 12a and 12b and connecting the two moving image transmission devices 12a and 12b in a wireless state via at least one mobile phone 11, a moving image at a remote location can be obtained without being limited to an imaging position. An image can be displayed.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the moving image transmitting apparatus 12 has a moving image transmitting unit 15 in which a data processing means 13 is housed in a main body case 14 as a basic unit. One or more of the means 16, the operation means 17, and the display means 18 may be connected as necessary via the connection terminal group 19 or the connector, or may be connected to the body case 14 integrally or via the connector. By connecting the circuit boards and permanently disposing them, a set of moving image transmission devices 12 is configured.

Further, as shown in FIG. 1B, a secondary battery 20 can be built in the main body case 14 so as to be portable and movable, or a fixed type driven only by a commercial AC power supply 21 can be used. Like, it has a flexible configuration.

With such a configuration, for example, in the system shown in FIG. 1A, the first and second moving image transmission devices 1
Both 2a and 12b are equipped with all of the above-described means for enabling connection, so that they can be used as a videophone or videoconference system based on two-way equal data communication.

On the other hand, in the system shown in FIG.
While the first moving image transmission device 12a is provided at a position where neither the wired public line 22 nor the commercial AC power supply 21 is provided, the second moving image transmission device 12b provided at a base station equipped with these facilities is used. A moving image can be displayed while remotely controlling the imaging state of the first moving image transmission device 12a.

In this case, the moving image transmission unit 15a on the side of the first moving image transmission device 12a has a minimum necessary configuration, the capacity and power consumption of the main body case 14 are reduced, and driving by the secondary battery 20 is possible. As enhances portability and mobility. Further, it has a plurality of imaging means 16 and transmits data via the mobile phone 11.

On the other hand, on the side of the second moving image transmitting apparatus 12b, the image pickup means 1 is provided in the moving image transmitting unit 15b.
As many as necessary functions except for 6 are housed together as much as possible, and driving by a commercial AC power supply 21 and data transmission via a wired public line 22 are performed.

In the following, as shown in FIG. 3, a moving picture transmission unit 15 constructed in the form of a handy personal computer having the above-mentioned display means and operation means integrated in a main body case 14 is exemplified.

However, the present invention is not limited to this. As shown in FIG. 7, the image pickup means is also incorporated in the main body case 14 so as to form a handy type video camera, or conversely, the above three means are excluded from the main body case 14. The capacity of the main body case 14 and the moving image transmission unit 1
5 It is also possible to suppress the power consumption of the device itself to a necessary minimum.

The moving image transmission unit 15 includes a data processing means 13 inside a flat main body case 14 having a substantially rectangular cross section.
To store. Further, a display 24 made of a liquid crystal display panel is provided as a display means on the front side of the main body case 14, and the supporting legs 60 are provided on the back side so as to be able to freely come and go.

A keyboard 23 provided as an operating means is swingably attached to the main body case 14 so as to close the display screen 61 of the display 24, and data can be input / output to / from the data processing means 13 on the side surface. Are arranged.

With this configuration, during storage, the keyboard 23 and the support legs 60 are in close contact with the main body case 14 to reduce the number of projections, thereby improving the storage efficiency. On the other hand, at the time of use, the main body case 14 can be held in an inclined state by the support legs 60, and the keyboard 23 is opened, so that the display screen 61 of the display 24 is tilted when the main body case 14 is placed on a desk. The keyboard 23 is opened horizontally so that the keyboard 23 can be operated while looking in from above.

In FIG. 3, a touch panel 25 is further provided as the operating means 17 so as to cover the entire display screen 61 of the display 24, thereby enabling a direct instruction operation with a fingertip and driving the camera. Means 5
6 shows an example in which a joystick 26 specially configured for the operation 6 is connected, but the present invention is not limited to this, and various operation means such as a mouse and a trackball can be used.

The data processing means 13 has basically the same configuration as that of a conventional personal computer as shown in FIG. 4, and connects a CPU 28, an internal memory 29 or various controllers 30 via a bus 27. CPU according to a program stored in internal memory 29
Reference numeral 28 performs basic data processing operations necessary for image processing.

Further, data that needs to be permanently stored, or data that exceeds the capacity of the internal memory 29, is stored in the memory card 31 that is removably inserted into the main body case 14 as storage means 32.

An extension board is detachably connected to the bus 27 via a general-purpose or dedicated connector (not shown), so that image information can be input and output through a terminal group 19 provided on the extension board. An extended data processing operation corresponding to input / output data is enabled.

The extension board illustrated in FIG.
3 input terminal 19a and image signal 33 output terminal 19b
The input terminal 19c of the audio signal 34a, and the audio signal 34
b, an input / output terminal 19e for transmission data 35 transferred to and from the mobile phone 11, a connection terminal 19f for the joystick 26, and an input / output terminal 19g for the control signal 36. The connector of the shape corresponding to them is exposed from the peripheral surface position.

Here, the input terminal 19a of the image signal 33a
And a plurality of sets (four sets in the present embodiment) of an audio signal 34a and an input terminal 19c of the audio signal 34a. As shown in FIG.
Are connected, the moving image and the sound at the four locations are input in parallel to the multiplexer 41 in the video signal conversion circuit 40 and the multiplexer 42 in the sound data processing unit 47 constituting the image data processing unit 39, respectively. I am trying to.

From the four sets of image signals 33a and sound signals 34a input in parallel, only one set of signals is selectively extracted according to designation by the control unit 43 and the multiplexers 41 and 42. In the following, for simplicity, the operation will be described for the case where one set of the image signal 33a and the sound signal 34a is input, but the same applies to the case of a plurality of sets.

The NT input via the video camera 37
The analog image signal 33a such as the SC system is sequentially converted from analog to digital by a video decoder 44 provided in a video signal conversion circuit 40, and stored in a transmission frame memory 45a. Circuit 5
5 stores the image data 4 from the frame memory 45 as necessary.
6 is read out, digitally displayed as a moving image on a dedicated display 24, or converted again from digital to analog, and an analog display is displayed as a moving image on a monitor (not shown) connected to the output terminal 19b of the image signal 33. Make it possible. It should be noted that the video camera 37 is not limited to the analog type as described above, and it is a matter of course that the digital camera can be implemented in substantially the same manner.

The audio signal 34a input through the microphone 38 is converted from analog to digital by an A / D conversion circuit 48 of the audio data processing unit 47, and the audio data 49a is converted.
a, and the multi-data simultaneous communication processing unit 50 shown in FIG.
After synthesizing with the image data 58 stored in 5a, the data is converted into a data format corresponding to the communication mode of the mobile phone 11 by the modem 51, and the data is transmitted through the mobile phone 11.

On the other hand, the transmission data 35 transmitted from the other moving image transmission apparatus 12 via the mobile phone 11 as described above is the same as the transmission of the transmission data 35 described above, but is a simultaneous multi-data transmission. The processing unit 50 separates the image data 58 into sound data 49 and the inputted sound data 49b is subjected to digital / analog conversion in a D / A conversion circuit 52, so that sound is generated by sound generation means 53 such as an earphone or a speaker. Can be reproduced as

The image data 58 separated from the transmission data 35 is subjected to predetermined data processing, which will be described later, in a transmission / reception image data processing circuit 54 of the image data processing unit 39, and is developed in a reception frame memory 45b. The necessary image data 46b is extracted to the synthesizing circuit 55, so that the transmission frame memory 4 described above is obtained.
The image data 46a extracted from the image data 5a and the image data 46a and 46b alone are combined with the display 2
4 is displayed.

Each of the video cameras 37 is provided with a camera driving means 56, and the imaging direction or range of the video cameras 37 is controlled in response to an instruction operation by a push button or lever operation of the joystick 26 provided as a dedicated operation means. It is also possible to configure such that control of imaging conditions such as is performed.

In this case, the operation state of the operation unit 17 is determined by the control unit 43, and when it is determined that the operation is the operation of the video camera 37, the control signal 36 is directly transmitted to the camera driving unit 56. And the necessary driving operation is performed.

Conversely, if it is determined that the operation is for another moving image transmission apparatus 12, the control data 43 corresponding to the operation is transmitted from the control section 43 to the multi-data simultaneous communication processing section 50, and the modem 51 and the portable telephone 11 are transmitted. The moving image is transmitted to the other moving image transmission device 12 via the other terminal. Then, as in the case described above, the control data 57 separated from the transmission data 35 in the multi-data simultaneous communication processing unit 50 is input to the control unit 43. Then, a control signal 36 corresponding to the control data 57 is sent from the control unit 43 to the camera driving unit 56, and a necessary driving operation for the video camera 37 is executed.

A moving image during a period in which active image monitoring is not being performed, such as a period during which moving image transmission and display are stopped, and a video camera that is not selected among a plurality of video cameras 37. For a captured moving image or a moving image selected by the operator to save, a video is generated each time a predetermined trigger such as detection by a sensor or a switch operation or a predetermined condition such as a set time interval is satisfied. The moving image input from the camera 37 is captured as a still image and can be stored in the memory card 31.

It is preferable that data can be transmitted in addition to or in place of the above-mentioned moving image by an instruction using the operating means 17 from the moving image transmitting apparatus 12 at a remote position.

The method of synthesizing the transmitted / received image data 58, the sound data 49, and the control data 57 through the multi-data simultaneous communication processing unit 50 is performed in substantially the same format as that of the related art. Here, the detailed description is omitted.

According to the present invention, the transmission / reception image data processing circuit 54 further transmits the image data 46 developed in the transmission frame memory 45a via the mobile phone 11 in the transmission / reception image data processing circuit 54. The data is thinned and compressed, and conversely, the data is developed in the frame memory 45b for reception.

That is, when reading out the image data 46 expanded in the transmission frame memory 45a, not all data is read out but read out in a state where data is thinned out according to a predetermined algorithm described later and transmitted per frame. After the amount of data to be reduced is reduced as much as possible, data compression is performed in substantially the same manner as before.

Conversely, on the receiving side of the image data 58,
After decompressing the data compressed as described above, the data decimated at the time of transmission is expanded in the reception frame memory 45b while complementing the data using a predetermined algorithm, thereby preventing the deterioration of the image quality for each frame as much as possible. However, image transmission with few dropped frames is realized.

Here, as the above-described data thinning procedure, in the present embodiment, the following methods are combined and applied.

The first method utilizes the fact that images are generally continuous in many cases. If the direction in which images tend to be continuous is in the horizontal direction of the display screen 61, data in dot units is used. If the unit data is oblique, the dot data in both the vertical and horizontal directions are made to correspond to the inclination angle, or if no continuous direction is specified, the dot data in the vertical and horizontal directions are evenly distributed, for example, every other dot data. The image data 58 is transmitted in a state of being thinned out according to a predetermined standard such as

On the other hand, at the time of reception, it is assumed that the data at the position decimated at the time of transmission changes at a predetermined rate such as a linear change or a logarithmic change, and data complementation is performed using these criteria. Is what you do.

In the second method, the positions of dot data or line data to be thinned out are made different from frame to frame as described above, so that while data for a plurality of frames is received, the data thinned during transmission is automatically converted. It is based on the fact that it is complemented by

Further, as a third method, instead of transmitting the data of the entire screen evenly, in the range where detailed information is required, the above-described thinning frequency is reduced so that the moving image transmission is performed as faithfully as possible. Conversely, for a range that does not require much attention, the thinning data is increased as much as possible to reduce the amount of transmission data.

The selection of the range in which the difference in transmission image quality is made can be performed by automatically selecting a range in which the image data changes little between frames or a range that is not important as an object to be observed, for example, by taking a difference in data between frames. Alternatively, it is specified by a range specification on the display screen of the operator.

In this embodiment, instead of using the above three thinning methods alternatively, all the thinning procedures are integrated so that one or three methods can be performed in parallel and simultaneously. . For this purpose, a plurality of thinning-out patterns are created which enable to specify the position of data in all dot data constituting the display screen to be transmitted.

Then, before the start of data transmission, every set time, every time a predetermined number of frames are transmitted, or automatically at a predetermined timing such as immediately after the imaging range is changed by the camera driving means 56, It is determined whether it is appropriate to apply the thinning method. Further, a thinning pattern corresponding to the determination result is selected to perform a data thinning operation, and data is transmitted to the receiving side together with selection data for specifying which pattern has been selected.

On the other hand, on the receiving side, there is provided complementary processing data individually corresponding to each of the above-described thinning patterns. Then, from the selection data received from the transmitting side, it is determined which thinning pattern is used to perform the data thinning processing, and the complementary processing of the received data is performed based on the complementary processing data corresponding to the thinning pattern. , The moving image is restored.

For example, in a frame immediately after the apparatus is started, all image data is transmitted. At a predetermined determination time such as the next frame, the first method is used to determine in which direction on the display screen continuity is recognized, and a thinning pattern corresponding to the determination is selected to transmit data. do.

In the next frame, the thinning pattern complementary to the thinning pattern described above is selected and transmitted using the second method. At the same time, if a display range in which there is no or little change in data between frames is determined, a thinning pattern from which data in that area is selectively excluded is selected and used for data transmission.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a moving image transmission system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an overall configuration of a moving image transmission device.

FIG. 3 is a partially broken perspective view showing an example in which the moving image transmission unit is configured in a handy personal computer format.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a data processing unit.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a specific configuration of a video signal conversion circuit and an audio data processing unit.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating a specific configuration of an image data processing unit.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view illustrating an example in which the moving image transmission device is configured in a video camera format.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 10 moving image transmission system 11 mobile phone 12 moving image transmission device 13 data processing means 14 body case 15 moving image transmission unit 16 imaging means 17 operation means 18 display means 19 connection terminal 20 secondary battery 21 commercial AC power supply 22 public line 23 keyboard 24 display 25 touch panel 26 joystick 27 bus 28 CPU 29 internal memory 30 controller 31 memory card 32 storage means 33 image signal 34 acoustic signal 35 transmission data 36 control signal 37 video camera 38 microphone 39 image data processing unit 40 video signal conversion circuit 41 multiplexer 42 multiplexer 43 control unit 44 video decoder 45 frame memory 46 image data 47 sound data processing unit 48 A / D conversion circuit 49 sound data 50 various kinds of data Data simultaneous communication processing unit 51 modem 52 D / A converter 53 sound generating means 54 transmits and receives the image data processing circuit 55 the image synthesizing circuit 56 camera drive unit 57 control data 58 the image data 60 support legs 61 display screen

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:
A moving image transmission system for transmitting data to each other via at least one mobile phone, wherein the moving image transmission device includes a moving image transmission unit including predetermined data processing means. And a means for connecting at least one of the display means and the imaging means, and a means for enabling data transmission with a mobile phone. 2. The moving image transmitting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display unit, the image pickup unit, the operation unit, and the mobile phone are connected to the moving image transmission unit. The image signal output from the imaging unit in the transmission device is converted into a data format that can be transmitted by the mobile phone by the data processing unit, and then transmitted to the other moving image transmission device to the outside. 2. The moving image transmission system according to claim 1, wherein in the image transmission device, the received data is converted by the data processing means into a data format that can be displayed on the display means, and then displayed as a moving image on the display means. 3. The above-mentioned first moving image transmission device includes a portable moving image transmission unit driven by a secondary battery,
One or a plurality of image pickup means can be connected to the moving image transmission unit, and a mobile phone is connected. The second moving image transmission device includes a moving image transmission unit driven by a commercial AC power supply. A display unit and an operation unit are connected to the moving image transmission unit, and an imaging state of the imaging unit in the first moving image transmission device can be controlled by the operation unit in the second moving image transmission device. Item 4. The moving image transmission system according to Item 1.