JP2003283674A - Conference call system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a conference call system that does not interrupt progress of a conference call and makes a post processing after the conference call simpler. <P>SOLUTION: A proceedings creation section 25 of a server 10 reads out voice data from a first storing section 20 of the server 10 in accordance with an instruction for proceedings creation from the moment which is 10 minutes prior to an instructed time, and causes a second storing section 30 of the server 10 to store the voice data together with voice data obtained during speaking time at every telephone terminal from which the proceedings creation is instructed. A reproducing section 35 of the server 10 reads out the voice data during the speaking time designated by a reproducing instruction from the first storing section 20, and transmits the data to a language converting section 40 of the server 10. The converting section 40 converts the voice data from a receiving section 15 and the reproducing section 35 of the server 10 into the language used by the telephone terminal at each destination and transmits the converted data to pertinent telephone terminals. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a system has been used in which users at remote locations hold a telephone conference. In recent years, various types have been introduced due to the price reduction of videophones, the spread of personal computers and the Internet, and the enhancement of functions such as installed telephones and mobile telephones including mobile telephones (these are all called telephone terminals below). A telephone conference system using the above-mentioned telephone terminals has also been proposed. These telephone conference systems carry out a telephone conference by multiplexing voice data from the telephone terminal devices of conference participants who are speakers and transmitting it to the telephone terminal devices of each attendee. Some of them are voice data and the image data of the face photo of the speaker (sender of the voice data) and the image data of the image of the meeting attendees combined with the image of the virtual meeting room. A system that allows all attendees to feel like a normal meeting held in the same meeting room,
A system has been proposed that aims to record the content of the conference, automatically processes the billing for the conference participants, accepts and registers the conference participation, and promotes the conference more efficiently. ing.

[0003]

However, most of the above-mentioned telephone conference systems do not have a function of recording the contents of a conference, and even a telephone conference system having a recording function just records the speech of each participant as it is. Most of the time. When the conference participants organize post-processing such as organizing the conference contents and creating a report after the conference, the participants will refer to the recorded contents of the participants' comments as they are. for that reason,
There is a problem in that post-processing such as a meeting that takes a long time or a meeting in which the agenda of the meeting is intensely discussed is very laborious and inefficient.

In addition, in the conventional telephone conference system, the participant could not reproduce the previous utterance content during the conference, so that he could refer to or quote the previous utterance content in his own utterance. There is also a problem that the speaker must be asked to explain again when he / she does, and even the conference may be interrupted, resulting in inefficiency.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a telephone conference apparatus capable of more efficiently performing a telephone conference and post-processing of the telephone conference.

[0006]

A first conference call device of the present invention is a conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals, which is input from the plurality of telephone terminals. Receiving means for receiving voice data and minutes preparation instruction, storage means for storing the voice data, transmission means for transmitting the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals, and minutes preparation from the telephone terminal device. It is characterized by comprising a minutes preparation means for preparing the voice data of a portion designated by an instruction as a minutes for the telephone terminal.

Here, the "minutes preparation instruction" is an instruction for recording voice data of a portion that any conference participant wants to record as a minutes, and designates a portion to be recorded or a recording execution instruction. And so on. In addition, as a portion to be recorded specified by the minutes preparation instruction, there are various things such as a statement by a specific speaker, a statement at a specific statement time, and a statement by a speaker immediately before the instruction to execute recording. be able to.

A second conference call device of the present invention is a conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals, wherein voice data and reproduction instructions inputted from the plurality of telephone terminal devices. Receiving means, a storage means for storing the voice data, a transmitting means for transmitting the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals, and a portion of the voice designated by the reproduction instruction from the telephone terminal device. And a reproducing means for reproducing data.

Here, "reproducing the voice data for reproducing the voice data of the portion designated by the playback instruction" means reading the voice data of the portion designated by the playback instruction from the storage means and issuing the playback instruction. It means to send only to the telephone terminals that have been made, or to the telephone terminals of all participants.

The telephone conference apparatus of the present invention comprises a language type registration means for registering a language type used by each user of the telephone terminal, and a language type conversion means for converting the voice data into a language type used by each user. It is preferable that the transmitting means further comprises: and the transmitting means transmits the voice data converted by the language type converting means to a corresponding telephone terminal.

[0011]

According to the first telephone conference device of the present invention,
The minutes creating means creates only the part of the utterance desired by the user as the minutes for the user in response to the minutes creating instruction from the user of the telephone terminal. When the post-processing after the meeting is performed, the post-processing can be efficiently performed by referring to the minutes for himself.

According to the second telephone conference apparatus of the present invention, the reproducing means responds to the reproducing instruction from the user of the telephone terminal.
Since the voice data of the portion desired by the user can be reproduced, the conference participants can refer to or quote the speech of the previous speaker without hindering the progress of the conference.

When the first and second telephone conference devices of the present invention are provided with a language type conversion means for converting voice data into a language type desired by the user of the telephone terminal, the input data is received in the language of the receiving side. It can be converted into seeds and sent, and conference calls with conference participants in different language species are possible.

[0014]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a telephone conference system as an embodiment of the telephone conference apparatus of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the telephone conference system of this embodiment is
Personal computer using internet telephone 1
Or mobile phone 2 or installed phone 3 with liquid crystal display
Or a telephone terminal such as the video conference apparatus 4 and a server 10 for conducting a telephone conference using these telephone terminals. The server 10 and each telephone terminal
Connected via a public communication network such as a telephone network or the Internet.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the server 10 of the telephone conference system shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, the server 10 includes a receiving unit 15 that receives voice data, a minutes creation instruction, a creation stop instruction, a reproduction instruction, a reproduction stop instruction, and the like from each telephone terminal.
Before the conference is held, the conference participants can
A registration unit 18 for registering a name and a language type to be used,
A first storage unit 20 that stores all voice data with a speaking time together with the contents registered in the registration unit 18.
Then, the voice data from 10 minutes before is read from the first storage unit 20 in response to the minutes preparation instruction, and the voice data until the minutes preparation stop instruction is received is stored in the second storage unit 30 described later. The minutes creating unit 25 to be stored, the second storage unit 30 storing the voice data specified by the minutes creating unit 25, and the specified speech according to the reproduction instruction including the specification of the speech time of the audio data. The voice data from the time is read from the first storage unit 20 and transmitted to the language conversion unit 40 described later, and at the same time, the voice data is read from the first storage unit 20 and transmitted to the language conversion unit 40 according to a reproduction stop instruction. According to the language type of each telephone terminal stored in the first storage unit 20 and the reproduction unit 35 that stops the audio data from the reception unit 15 or the reproduction unit 35 of the transmission destination telephone terminal. A language conversion unit 40 for converting the language species over The use, transmission unit 50 for transmitting the audio data converted Language species by the language conversion unit 40 to the appropriate telephone terminal
It is equipped with and.

Before the conference is held, each participant registers his / her name and language type to be used in the registration section 18 via his / her own telephone terminal. Once this registration is complete, the meeting is ready to be held.

Next, with reference to FIG. 3, the operation of the server 10 of the telephone conference system of this embodiment after the conference is started will be specifically described.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the server 10 after the start of the conference. As shown in the figure, when the conference starts, the receiving unit 15 of the server 10 receives input data from any of the telephone terminals (S10), and first confirms whether the input data is voice data (S15).
If the input data is voice data (S15: Yes),
The voice data is transmitted to the language conversion unit 40, and
It is stored in the storage unit 20 (S20).

On the other hand, in step S15, when the input data is not voice data (S15: No), the receiving section 15 further confirms whether this input data is data indicating a minutes preparation instruction (S25). If it is the minutes preparation instruction (S25: Yes), the minutes preparation unit 25 operates, and the voice data from 10 minutes before the minutes preparation instruction is received is read from the first storage unit 20, and the The voice data is stored in the second storage unit 30 for each user who inputs the minutes preparation instruction (S30, S35). The minutes preparation unit 25 continues the processing of step S35 until the minutes preparation stop instruction is received, and finishes the minutes preparation processing in response to the minutes stop instruction (S40, S45).

In step S25, if the input data is data indicating a reproduction instruction (S25: No, S50:
Yes), the reproduction unit 35 operates, and according to the specification of the speech time included in the reproduction instruction, the voice data from this speech time is read from the first storage unit 20 and transmitted to the language conversion unit 40 (S55). The reproduction unit 35 continues the process of step S50 until it receives the reproduction stop instruction, and ends the reproduction processing according to the reproduction stop instruction (S60, S65).

Upon receiving the voice data output from the reception unit 15 or the reproduction unit 35, the language conversion unit 40 first refers to the stored contents of the first storage unit 20, and the user who is the transmission source of this voice data. And the language type used by each destination user are compared (S70). If the source language type and the destination language type are the same (S7
0: No), the voice data is output as it is to the transmitting unit 50 as the converted voice data, but if the source language type and the destination language type are different (S70: Yes),
This voice data 'is converted into the language type of the destination user and the converted voice data is output to the transmitter 50 (S7).
5). The language conversion unit 40 performs the processing from step S70 to step S75 for all the destination telephone terminals to obtain the voice data to be transmitted to the telephone terminals of all the participants.

The transmission unit 50 transmits the voice data V output from the language conversion unit 40 for transmission to each destination telephone terminal to each corresponding user telephone terminal (S80).

As described above, the telephone conference system according to the present embodiment is provided with the minutes preparation section 25, so that each participant can input his or her desired contents by only inputting the minutes preparation instruction. As a result, post-processing after the meeting can be efficiently performed.

Further, the telephone conference system of this embodiment is
By providing the reproducing unit 35, each participant can reproduce the voice data of the utterance of his / her desired time, so that the utterance of the previous utterer can be referred to or quoted. In addition, it is possible to prevent the progress of the conference from being disturbed.

Further, by converting the language type in accordance with the language type used by the destination user, it is possible to realize a telephone conference with participants of different language types.

Although the preferred embodiment of the telephone conference apparatus of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications are made unless the gist of the present invention is changed. be able to.

For example, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the minutes preparation section 25 records the voice data from 10 minutes before the minutes preparation instruction is made, but it goes without saying that different recording start times are adopted. Alternatively, the minutes may be created in response to a minutes creation instruction including identification of the speaker.

Further, the reproduction instruction does not have to specify the voice data to be reproduced by specifying the speech time of the voice data to be reproduced, and a speaker or a keyword may be specified. Good. In this case, the reproduction unit of the telephone conference device may be provided with a search unit that searches for desired voice data from a storage unit that stores voice data based on a speaker, a keyword, or the like.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a telephone conference system as an embodiment of a telephone conference apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a server 10 included in the image service system shown in FIG.

3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the server 10 shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Personal computer 2 mobile phones 3 installed telephones 4 video conferencing equipment 10 servers 15 Receiver 18 Registration Department 20 First storage unit 25 Minutes Creation Department 30 Second storage unit 35 Playback section 40 language converter 50 transmitter

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals, comprising: receiving means for receiving voice data and minutes preparation instructions input from the plurality of telephone terminals; Storage means for storing voice data; transmitting means for transmitting the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals; and a portion of the voice data designated by the minutes creation instruction from the telephone terminal device for the telephone terminal. A conference call device, comprising: a minutes creating means for creating minutes of the meeting. 2. A telephone conferencing apparatus for conducting a telephone conference using a plurality of telephone terminals, comprising: receiving means for receiving voice data and reproduction instructions input from the plurality of telephone terminal apparatuses; A storage unit that stores data; a transmission unit that transmits the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals; and a reproduction unit that reproduces the voice data of a portion designated by the reproduction instruction from the telephone terminal device. A teleconferencing device characterized by: 3. A language type registering unit for registering a language type used by each user of the telephone terminal, and a language type converting unit for converting the voice data into a language type used by each user, 3. The telephone conference apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting unit transmits the voice data converted by the language type converting unit to a corresponding telephone terminal.