JP2003018034A - Receiver with automatic channel selection function - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a receiver with an automatic channel selection function where a channel automatically selected at application of power is matches with a desired channel for its time zone by a user becoming high possibility. SOLUTION: The receiver for selecting and receiving an optional broadcast station among a prescribed number of broadcast stations is configured, such that the receiver stores the number of times it is selected by time zone and by each station to a nonvolatile memory 17 and automatically selects a broadcast station which has been selected most frequently up to the previous run for the time zone at application of power.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a receiver having an automatic channel selection function, and more particularly to a receiver having an automatic channel selection function for rationally selecting a channel when power is turned on.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventional television broadcast receivers and radio broadcast receivers (receivers for terrestrial broadcasts, satellite broadcasts, cable broadcasts, etc.) store the channel the user was watching when the power was turned off, and the next power supply. When I turned it on, I was automatically selecting the channel I remembered last time.

According to this channel selection method, when the user turns off the power source by a remote controller or the like, the control device stores the currently selected channel in a battery-backed RAM (non-volatile memory) or the like. Power off. Next, when the power is turned on by the remote controller or the like, the channel stored in the RAM or the like is read and the channel is selected.

According to the conventional channel selection method at the time of turning on the power of the receiver described above, the possibility that the channel the user wants to watch is the same as the channel selected at the time of turning on the power is not so high. In many cases, people selected the channel, and the usability was not very good.

In order to solve this problem, in the channel selection method proposed by the present applicant in Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-394230,
As shown in FIG. 4, when selecting a channel, first, when an EPG (electronic program guide) display request is made by operating a remote controller or the like, the control device displays the program by the EPG. Next, when the user tunes in, the microcomputer increments the number of tunes of the tuned channel, stores the number of tunes in the non-volatile memory, terminates the EPG operation, and displays the designated channel.

When the power is turned on by a remote controller or the like when the power is turned on, immediately after the power is turned on, the microcomputer searches the channel stored in the non-volatile memory, which has the largest number of times of channel selection, and then the channel is selected. Tune in. Then, the selected channel is displayed and the reception state is set.

[0007]

The stations that the user desires to view are often different depending on the time of day.
The tuning method proposed by No. 00-394230 has a problem that the tuning request for each time zone cannot be satisfied.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to provide a channel automatically selected by a user according to a time zone when the power is turned on. It is an object of the present invention to provide a receiver having an automatic channel selection function that is highly likely to match a desired channel in a band.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A receiver having an automatic channel selection function of the present invention is a receiver for selecting and receiving an arbitrary broadcasting station from a predetermined number of broadcasting stations for each time zone. Store the selected number of times in a non-volatile memory for each station,
When the power is turned on, in the time zone at that time, it is configured to automatically select the broadcasting station with the largest number of times selected until the last time.

Further, in the receiver having the automatic channel selection function, the number of times the channel is selected for each station is stored in the non-volatile memory only up to the latest predetermined maximum total number.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A receiver which is an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a digital broadcast receiver which is an embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 1 shown in the figure is a tuning / detecting device, which is a microcomputer 11
The signal of one channel is tuned and quadrature-detected from the signals of the broadcasting waves received by the antenna under the control of the demodulator / decoder 2 and TMCC (Transm).
ission and Multiplexing Configuration Contol) Output to the decoder 3.

The demodulator / decoder 2 is a microcomputer 1.
8PSK (8 obtained from the TMCC decoder 3 under the control of 1
Phase Shift Keying), BPSK (Bi Phase Shift Ke
The signal for quadrature detection is demodulated and decoded by referring to the signal for identifying the transmission multiplex configuration such as ying) and TS
ream) Output to the decoder 4.

The TS decoder 4 is a microcomputer 11
Control multiple programs that are multiplexed into one
The data of one program is restored and output to the descrambler 5. The descrambler 5 is controlled by the microcomputer 11 to scramble (encrypt) pay programs and the like.
The created state is descrambled (decoded) to restore the original video screen signal and output to the program separator 6.

The program separator 6 is controlled by the microcomputer 11 to separate the program sent by compressing the moving picture by the moving picture compression method by MPEFG-2 into individual programs and separate each signal into EPG (. Electronic program guide) Decoder 7,
It outputs to the video decoder 8 and the audio decoder 9.

E controlled by the microcomputer 11
The output signal of the PG decoder 7 and the output signal of the video decoder 8 are converted into a video signal containing characters by the on-screen display 10 and output to the display. Further, the voice decoder 9 drives the speaker by using the input signal as a voice signal.

The microcomputer 11 is a ROM in which signals are input from the remote controller 13, the hard disk driver 14 and other devices 15 via the interface 16 and font data, programs and the like are stored.
The RAM 12 operates as a work memory according to the program of 18 to control the above units.

Each time the microcomputer 11 selects a channel, it stores the number of times the station is selected in the non-volatile memory 17. FIG. 3 shows a table stored in the non-volatile memory 17 for storing the number of channel selections for each channel. The microcomputer 11 also functions as a clock that measures the current time together with the non-volatile memory 17.

FIG. 2 shows a channel storage and channel selection procedure in the digital broadcast receiver of the above embodiment. As shown in FIG. 2, when selecting a channel, first, when an EPG display request is made by operating a remote controller or the like, the control device displays a program by EPG. Next, when the user tunes in, the microcomputer increments the number of times the channel is tuned in during that time period to end the EPG operation and display the designated channel.

When the power is turned on by a remote controller or the like when the power is turned on, immediately after the power is turned on, the microcomputer 11 searches the channel stored in the non-volatile memory 18 at that time and having the largest number of channel selections. And select that channel. In FIG. 3, the number of channel selections of the channel that has the largest number of channel selections for each time period is shown in shaded form. Then, the selected channel is displayed and the reception state is set.

The embodiment is configured as described above, but the invention is not limited to this. For example, the latest 20
It is also possible to store only the selected number of times and select the channel with the most number of times selected. Further, the data of the number of tunings may be reset to 0 periodically.

[0021]

According to the receiver having the automatic channel selection function of the present invention, the channel selected by the user most in each time zone is automatically selected when the power is turned on, so that the selected channel is selected. Is more likely to match the channel that the user desires in that time zone, which improves usability.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a digital broadcast receiver that is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the digital broadcast receiver.

FIG. 3 is a table for explaining the operation of the digital broadcast receiver.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the operation of a conventional digital broadcast receiver.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 tuning / detector 2 Demodulator / decoder 3 TMCC decoder 4 TS decoder 5 descrambler 6 Program separator 7 EPG decoder 8 video decoder 9 voice decoder 10 On-screen display 11 Microcomputer 12 RAM 13 Remote controller 14 Hard disk driver 15 Other equipment 16 interfaces 17 Non-volatile memory 18 ROM

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A receiver for selecting and receiving an arbitrary broadcasting station from a predetermined number of broadcasting stations, stores the number of times of tuning selected for each time zone in a non-volatile memory for each station, A receiver with an automatic tuning function that is configured to automatically select the broadcasting station that has been selected the most times before in the time zone when the power is turned on. 2. The non-volatile memory stores the number of times the station has been selected for each station only up to the latest predetermined maximum total number.
Receiver with automatic channel selection function.