JP2003152626A - Terminal device for receiving multicasted stream contents - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a terminal device in which multicasted stream contents are reproduced with a preset requested quality in a satisfactory ordinary propagation path state and receiving is continued as long as possible even if the reproducing quality of the contents is deteriorated when the propagation path state is deteriorated in a short period of time, in the terminal device for receiving the contents and reproducing them with a quality equal to or lower than the set requested quality. SOLUTION: The stream contents are divided into one or more pieces of additional information from basic information hierarchized corresponding to the requested quality and this device has a receiving means for a high-reliable radio channel for transmitting at least the basic information among a plurality of radio channels from a high-reliable radio channel, on which a transmission quality is high but efficiency in the utilization of radio waves is low, to a large capacity radio channel, on which the transmission quality is low but efficiency in the utilization of radio waves is high, a receiving means for the other radio channels, and a contents reproducing means for reproducing the stream contents with the set requested quality.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a terminal device for receiving stream contents that have been multicast and reproducing them with set required quality from high quality to simple quality.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 1 is a first system configuration diagram for delivering stream contents in the related art. According to FIG. 1, the wireless transmission device 1 receives stream content from the content server 3 and multicasts the stream content to a plurality of terminal devices 2 via one wireless line of constant quality. At this time, transmission quality control cannot be performed between the wireless transmission device 1 and each terminal device 2.

Therefore, as a first method, an antenna or the like is provided so that a certain transmission quality can be secured for each terminal device 2 in consideration of the state of the propagation path between the wireless transmission device 1 and the terminal device 2. It has a function that can change the reception capability of. That is, each terminal device 2 has a quality variation margin according to the propagation path state, and receives content information of transmission quality within a certain range. Therefore, even the terminal devices 2 having the same reception function can be received or cannot be received depending on the difference in the propagation path state.

As a second method, assuming a certain transmission quality in the wireless line, the terminal device has a function having uniform reception capability (for example, the same antenna diameter). Therefore, depending on the terminal device, there is also a device that interrupts the reception of the content information whose transmission quality is lower than the allowable transmission quality.

FIG. 2 is a second system configuration diagram for delivering stream contents in the related art. According to FIG. 2, the wireless transmission device 1 receives the stream content from the content server 3. Stream content is
It is divided into basic information and one or more additional information, and is configured as follows according to the degree of quality.

Information necessary for reproducing high-quality contents =
Basic information + Additional information 1 + Additional information 2 Information necessary for reproducing standard quality contents = Basic information + Additional information 1 Information necessary for reproducing simple quality contents = Basic information

According to FIG. 2, the radio transmitter 1 has a large capacity transmitter 11, a medium capacity transmitter 12, and a small capacity transmitter 13. At this time, the high quality content is transmitted via the large capacity transmission means 11, the standard quality content is transmitted via the medium capacity transmission means 12, and the simple quality content is transmitted via the small capacity transmission means 13.

The wireless transmission device 1 may receive high quality content, standard quality content and simple quality content from the content server 3, respectively. Further, only high-quality content may be received from the content server 3, and only the predetermined content information may be transmitted by each of the transmission means 11-13.

On the other hand, the terminal devices 2 also differ in the required quality of the received content. The terminal device 2 is divided into groups according to the required quality, and includes a receiving device according to the group. Here, it is divided into a high quality content terminal device group, a standard quality content terminal device group, and a simple quality content terminal device group. The high-quality content terminal device needs to be provided with a large-diameter antenna in order to improve the receiving ability, while the simple-quality content terminal device is
Only a simple reception function is required. That is, the terminal device only needs to have a reception capability commensurate with the content quality to be received.

Therefore, according to FIG. 2, the wireless transmitter 1
Prepares a wireless line for each group and transmits as follows. A high-capacity wireless line is prepared for the terminal device for high-quality contents, and basic information + additional information 1 + additional information 2
Will be sent. A medium capacity wireless line is prepared for the standard quality content terminal device, and basic information + additional information 1 is transmitted. A small capacity wireless line is prepared for the terminal device for simple quality contents, and only basic information is transmitted.

At this time, the plurality of wireless lines have different transmission qualities. That is, a large-capacity wireless line can secure transmission quality by using a large-diameter antenna for a receiving terminal device, so that the transmission quality is low, whereas a small-capacity wireless line is a receiving terminal The transmission quality is low and the transmission quality is high because the device is small.

[0012]

However, according to FIG. 1, since the terminal device 2 needs a quality variation margin capable of coping with a certain deterioration of transmission quality, it is excessive during normal times, which occupy most of the time. Need to have good reception capability. In addition, in response to a certain deterioration in transmission quality, the wireless line itself can be improved in transmission quality by slowing down or enhancing error correction. Not suitable for capacity transmission.

Further, according to FIG. 2, it is necessary to transmit a plurality of contents having different required qualities with respect to one content via a plurality of respective wireless lines. In this case, the basic information needs to be transmitted on all the wireless lines from the large capacity wireless line to the small capacity wireless line. Therefore,
There is a problem that the required wireless line capacity increases.

Further, according to FIG. 2, when the high-quality content terminal device is equipped with the small-capacity wireless line receiving function of the simple-quality content terminal device in the transmission quality deterioration state, basic information of the simple-quality content is provided. In that case, there is also a problem that reception is interrupted because it does not have this function, despite the environment in which reception is possible.

Therefore, the present invention provides a terminal device for receiving multicast stream content and reproducing it at a preset required quality or less, and a wireless transmission device for minimizing the required capacity of the wireless line. Correspondingly, when the normal propagation path condition is good, reproduction is performed with the preset required quality, and when the propagation path condition is deteriorated, a terminal device that continues reception as much as possible even if the reproduction quality of the content is deteriorated is provided. The purpose is to

The terminal device of the present invention communicates with a "wireless transmission device for multicasting stream contents" filed on the same date as the present application by the same inventor and the same applicant.

[0017]

According to the present invention, there is provided a terminal device for receiving a multicast stream content and reproducing it at a set required quality from high quality to simple quality. The basic information is layered according to the quality and is divided into one or more additional information. From a highly reliable wireless line with high transmission quality but low radio wave utilization efficiency, low transmission quality but high radio wave utilization efficiency. Among a plurality of wireless lines up to the capacity wireless line, at least a reliable wireless line receiving means for transmitting basic information, at least one wireless line receiving means other than the highly reliable wireless line, and a set required quality In the following, there is provided content reproduction means for reproducing stream content from the received basic information and additional information.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the additional information is received in a one-to-one correspondence on a wireless line other than the reliable wireless line, and at least one additional information satisfying at least the set required quality. It is also preferable to have a receiving means of a wireless line to which information is transmitted.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, it is also preferable that the receiving means of the highly reliable wireless line is configured to be able to receive one or more additional information together with the basic information.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the additional information of the upper layer, which is not received by the receiving means of the high reliability wireless line, is sequentially received by the receiving means of the wireless line having the next highest transmission quality. It is also preferably configured.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the content reproducing means preferably synchronizes the basic information and the additional information by using the label information added to the basic information and the additional information.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, it is impossible to receive additional information that satisfies the set required quality,
When at least the basic information can be received, it is also preferable that the content reproduction unit reproduces the stream content with the set required quality or less and the highest reproducible quality of the received information.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the stream content is also preferably object encoded data in which basic information and one or more additional information are configured as objects.

[0024]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a system configuration diagram of the first embodiment of the present invention. According to FIG. 3, the wireless transmission device 1 includes an information distribution unit 10, a large-capacity transmission unit 11, a standard transmission unit 12, and a highly reliable transmission unit 13. Then, the stream content including the basic information + additional information 1 + additional information 2 is transmitted as follows.

The basic information is transmitted to the highly reliable wireless line via the highly reliable transmitting means 13. The basic information needs to be received by all terminal devices. Therefore, even if the radio wave utilization efficiency is low (capacity: small), the transmission quality is high (transmission quality: high), and the data is transmitted over a highly reliable wireless line.

The additional information 1 is transmitted to the standard wireless line via the standard transmission means 12. The additional information 1 needs to be received by the terminal device that wants to receive the standard quality content and the terminal device that wants to receive the high quality content. Therefore, the radio wave utilization efficiency is medium (capacity:
Medium), transmission quality is medium (transmission quality: medium), and is transmitted by a standard wireless line.

The additional information 2 is transmitted to the large capacity wireless line via the large capacity transmitting means 11. The additional information 2 needs to be received by a terminal device that desires to receive high-quality content. There is also a large amount of information. Therefore, although the radio wave utilization efficiency is high (large capacity), the transmission quality is low and the data is transmitted through a high-speed large-capacity wireless line.

Therefore, in the terminal device 2 of the present invention, the number of wireless lines to be received differs depending on the required quality of the content. Simple quality content terminal device = highly reliable wireless line Standard quality content terminal device = highly reliable wireless line + standard wireless line High quality content terminal device = highly reliable wireless line + standard wireless line + large capacity wireless line

When the wireless transmission device 1 transmits not only the basic information but also the additional information to the highly reliable wireless line, the terminal device 2 can be adapted to receive the information. Further, when the wireless transmission device 1 transmits on the wireless line with the next highest transmission quality in order from the additional information of the upper layer which is not transmitted on the high reliability wireless line, the terminal device 2 can receive it correspondingly. It can also be configured.

FIG. 4 is a specific functional configuration diagram of the terminal device 2 of the present invention. According to FIG. 4, the antenna receiving means 21
A large capacity signal demodulating means 22 and a medium capacity signal demodulating means 2
3, a small capacity signal demodulating means 24, a content reproducing means 25, and a content quality setting means 26. Figure 4
Since the terminal device shown in (1) is compatible with high-quality contents, it has a large capacity signal demodulating means 22. Therefore, for example, the large capacity signal demodulating means 22 is not necessary if the terminal device is required to support only standard quality contents.

The antenna receiving means 21 is the radio transmitter 1
The content information is received from and the information is notified to each of the signal demodulating means 22 to 24. The large-capacity signal demodulating means 22 demodulates a large-capacity wireless communication line signal having a low transmission quality and extracts additional information 2. The standard signal demodulating means 23 demodulates the standard wireless line signal having the standard transmission quality and physical strength, and extracts the additional information 1. The small capacity signal demodulating means 24 demodulates a small capacity wireless line having high transmission quality and extracts basic information. The content reproduction means 25 includes the demodulation means 22 to 24.
The stream information is reproduced by combining the basic information extracted in step 1 and one or more pieces of additional information. First, the content quality setting unit 26 transmits the content type information in order to control the content information to be demodulated by the demodulation units 22 to 24. Secondly, the content quality setting means 26 transmits reproduced content quality information in order to control which quality the content reproducing means 25 reproduces the content.

The antenna receiving means 21 is the terminal device 2
The ability may be changed according to the required quality. For example, in the case of a large-diameter antenna having high reception capability, it is possible to receive all wireless lines in normal times, but it is possible to receive small-capacity wireless lines with high transmission quality even when the transmission line quality is deteriorated. It is possible.

FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of the content reproducing means 25 according to the present invention. The content information notified by the antenna receiving unit 21 is the necessary information selecting unit 251.
Will be received at. The necessary information selecting unit 251 combines only the content information necessary for the quality based on the instruction of the content quality setting unit 26, and notifies the decoder 252 of the content information. The decoder 252 reproduces based on the combined content information.

According to FIG. 5, the content quality setting means 2
Reference numeral 6 indicates that the content should be reproduced as standard quality content. Therefore, although the content reproducing means 25 receives all the information (basic information + additional information 1 + additional information 2) of the high quality content, only the standard quality content is reproduced.

Note that, unlike FIG. 5, the necessary information selecting section 25
1 and the decoder 252 may be combined so that the decoder 252 directly reproduces only the necessary information according to an instruction from the content quality setting means 26.

FIG. 6 is a system configuration diagram of the second embodiment of the present invention. According to FIG. 6, unlike FIG. 3, the content can be reproduced with the highest quality at that time without sticking to the required quality to be reproduced by the terminal device. For example, the standard quality content terminal device always tries to receive all wireless lines. At this time, if not only the basic information and the additional information 1 but also the additional information 2 of the large-capacity wireless line can be received in normal times, the content is reproduced as high-quality content. On the other hand, when only the basic information can be received when the transmission quality is deteriorated, it is reproduced as the simple quality content having the highest quality at that time.

FIG. 7 is a functional diagram of the content reproducing means 25 for realizing FIG. In FIG. 5, when the content quality setting means 26 sets "no content quality setting", the received content information is reproduced without any restriction by the decoder. According to FIG. 7, when the basic information + additional information 1 + additional information 2 can be received in normal times, the high quality content is reproduced as it is. On the other hand, when only the basic information can be received when the transmission quality is deteriorated, the simple quality content is reproduced as it is. As a result, during most of the time when there is no deterioration in the transmission path quality during normal times, it is possible to reproduce high-quality content without having an excessive reception function, and to receive information from wireless lines with low transmission quality. Even when the quality of the transmission path cannot be reduced, it is possible to continuously reproduce the stream content while lowering the content quality according to the degree of deterioration.

FIG. 8 is a packet sequence diagram when content information is received from all wireless lines and high quality content is reproduced. According to FIG. 8, the received basic information and the plurality of additional information synchronize the additional information packet with the basic information packet based on the label information. Then, it is decoded into an analog signal.

FIG. 9 is a packet sequence diagram in the case where content information is received from a highly reliable wireless line and a standard wireless line and simple quality content is reproduced. According to FIG. 9, the received basic information and additional information 1 synchronize the additional information packet with the basic information packet based on the label information. At this time, it is assumed that the additional information 1 is partially lost due to deterioration of transmission quality. When the transmission condition deteriorates,
Transmission quality The content information of a wireless line with low physical strength is sequentially deleted.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing the handling of data normally received in the additional information 1 which is partially lost in FIG. For example, when the additional information 1 is partially lost as shown in FIG. 9, it is determined whether or not the bit error rate of the wireless line is less than the constant value A. If it is less than the constant value A, the additional information 1 that has been normally received is output as it is. On the other hand, if the value is equal to or larger than the constant value A, the received additional information 1
Is discarded.

According to the various embodiments of the present invention described above, various changes, modifications and omissions in the technical idea and scope of the present invention can be easily made by those skilled in the art. The above description is merely an example and is not intended to be limiting. The invention is limited only by the claims and equivalents thereof.

[0043]

According to the terminal device of the present invention, it is possible to cope with a wireless transmission device that minimizes the required wireless line capacity,
When the normal propagation path condition is good, reproduction is performed with the preset required quality, and when the propagation path condition is deteriorated, reception can be continued as much as possible even if the reproduction quality of the content is deteriorated.

Further, the terminal device has a function of receiving all wireless lines for information distribution and a function of dynamically reproducing the content of the quality suitable for the received information even when the received content information amount changes. This makes it possible to receive stream contents with high quality for most of the time without having excessive reception capability and without interruption of reproduction even during a short time when the transmission path quality deteriorates. Become.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a first system configuration diagram for delivering stream content in the related art.

FIG. 2 is a second system configuration diagram for delivering conventional stream content.

FIG. 3 is a system configuration diagram of the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a specific functional configuration diagram of the terminal device of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a specific functional configuration diagram of content reproducing means of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a system configuration diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a functional diagram of content reproducing means 25 for realizing FIG.

FIG. 8: Receives content information from all wireless lines,
It is a packet sequence diagram when reproducing a high quality content.

FIG. 9 is a packet sequence diagram when content information is received from a highly reliable wireless line and a standard wireless line and simple quality content is reproduced.

FIG. 10 is additional information 1 that is partially lost in FIG.
4 is a flowchart showing how to handle data normally received in the above.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 wireless transmitter 10 Information distribution means 11 Large capacity transmission means 12 Standard transmission means, medium capacity transmission means 13 Highly reliable transmission means, small capacity transmission means 2 terminal devices 21 Antenna receiving means 22 Large capacity signal demodulation means 23 Medium capacity signal demodulation means 24 Small capacity signal demodulation means 25 Content Playback Means 251 Necessary information selection means 252 decoder 26 Content Quality Setting Means 3 Content server

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    F-term (reference) 5C064 BA07 BB05 BC10 BC18 BC20                       BD01 BD08 BD09                 5K030 JL01 JT01 JT04 LD06 MB04                 5K033 CB13 DA17 EA06                 5K067 AA13 AA24 BB21 DD41 FF02                       HH21

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A terminal device that receives multicast stream content and reproduces it with a set required quality from high quality to simple quality, wherein the stream content is a layered base according to the required quality. Multiple wireless lines from high-reliability wireless lines with high transmission quality but low radio wave utilization efficiency to large-capacity wireless lines with low transmission quality but high radio wave utilization efficiency. Among the above, at least the receiving means of the high-reliability wireless line to which the basic information is transmitted, the receiving means of at least one wireless line other than the high-reliability wireless line, and receiving at or below the set required quality A terminal device, comprising: content reproduction means for reproducing the stream content from the basic information and the additional information. 2. The additional information is received in a one-to-one correspondence on a wireless line other than the highly reliable wireless line, and at least one of the additional information satisfying at least a set required quality is transmitted. The terminal device according to claim 1, further comprising a receiving unit for a wireless line. 3. The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the receiving unit of the highly reliable wireless line is configured to be able to receive the one or more additional information together with the basic information. apparatus. 4. The receiving means of the wireless line having the next highest transmission quality is configured to be received in order from the upper layer additional information which is not received by the receiving means of the high reliability wireless line. The terminal device according to claim 3. 5. The content reproducing means synchronizes the basic information with the additional information by using label information added to the basic information and the additional information. The terminal device according to item 1. 6. If the additional information that satisfies the set required quality cannot be received, but at least the basic information can be received, the content reproducing means is less than or equal to the set required quality, and The terminal device according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the stream content is reproduced with the highest reproducible quality in the received information. 7. The stream content is object-encoded data in which the basic information and one or more additional information are configured as an object, according to any one of claims 1 to 6. Terminal device.