JP4518823B2 - Digital broadcast receiver - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a digital broadcast receiving apparatus that receives a digital broadcast.

  A broadcast receiver that receives satellite digital broadcasts or terrestrial digital broadcasts selects an arbitrary broadcast wave from a plurality of broadcast waves received through a dedicated antenna or terrestrial antenna using a digital tuner, and selects the selected broadcast wave. An arbitrary channel is selected from among a plurality of included channels by demultiplex processing, a digital signal of the selected channel is taken out, and decoded to output a video / audio signal.

Also, in digital broadcasting, electronic program guide (EPG) information, which is information such as program content and broadcast time of a broadcast program, is included in a broadcast signal as service information (SI: Service Information). The broadcast receiving apparatus separates the SI from the broadcast signal and displays an EPG screen by an OSD (On Screen Display) function (see Patent Document 1).
As shown in FIG. 5, a broadcast receiving apparatus that receives a digital broadcast includes a digital tuner 2, a TS separation unit (demultiplexer) 3, a video / audio processing unit 4, a video / audio output unit 5, and the like. Prepare. The EPG generation unit 7 performs processing for incorporating EPG video data based on character information and color information instructed to be output from the control unit (CPU) 9 into received video data using the OSD function.

  By the way, in satellite digital broadcasting, each broadcasting station is supposed to send EPG information of other stations, but in terrestrial digital broadcasting, each broadcasting station sends only EPG information of its own station. For this reason, the terrestrial digital broadcast receiver must sequentially switch channels and acquire SI in each channel selection channel. However, this process (particularly the process of changing from the reception state of one channel to the reception setting for reception of another channel) requires a lot of time, and during this process time, video is displayed on the screen. It cannot be displayed. Therefore, the user must wait while viewing a screen on which no video is displayed until the acquisition of EPG information for all stations is completed.

  In view of the above circumstances, the present invention can eliminate as much as possible the state in which the program video being viewed is not displayed during the acquisition process of program information (particularly, program information in terrestrial digital broadcasting). An object of the present invention is to provide a digital broadcast receiver capable of shortening the time required for the transmission as much as possible.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the digital broadcast receiving apparatus of the present invention is a digital broadcasting apparatus that acquires program information carried on a digital broadcast wave in each channel by automatically switching the channel sequentially. In a broadcast receiving apparatus, storage means for temporarily storing a received program video of a user viewing channel at the time when a user instructs acquisition of program information, and a screen of the stored program video during channel switching for acquiring the program information And display means for executing display.

  With the above configuration, since the screen display of the stored program video of the user viewing channel is continued during channel switching for program information acquisition, program information (particularly, program information in terrestrial digital broadcasting) It is possible to eliminate as much as possible the situation in which the program video being viewed is not displayed during the acquisition process.

  In the digital broadcast receiving apparatus having the above configuration, after acquiring program information through one or more switching channels, the program returns to the user viewing channel and temporarily stores the received program video in the storage means, and also acquires the next program information. The display means may be configured to display the screen of the stored program video during switching of the next channel for. Also, the execution of switching from the reception state of the user viewing channel to the other channel is somewhat delayed, the received program video received during the delay time is stored in the storage means, and a longer time than the delay time is required during channel switching. Then, the stored received program video may be displayed as a moving image.

  Further, in these configurations, a first separation unit and a second separation unit for separating various kinds of information from the digital broadcast wave are provided, and the selected digital broadcast wave transport stream is input to both separation units. The separation unit is set to be suitable for normal program reception, and the second separation unit is set to be suitable for acquiring the program information packet, and is configured to be used at the time of channel switching for program information acquisition. May be. With such a configuration, it is possible to shorten the time required to acquire the program information, compared to changing the setting of the separation unit every time the channel is switched.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to eliminate as much as possible the state in which a program image being viewed is not displayed during the acquisition process of program information (particularly, program information in terrestrial digital broadcasting), and further, the time required for this acquisition process is reduced. There is an effect that it can be made as short as possible.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, but here, a case of receiving terrestrial digital broadcasting is illustrated. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a broadcast receiving apparatus of this embodiment. For convenience of explanation, the same elements as those in the conventional broadcast receiving apparatus shown in FIG.

  The antenna 1 receives a digital broadcast transmitted from a terrestrial broadcast station. The digital tuner 2 extracts a signal of a specific frequency from the high frequency digital modulation signal including video / audio data. The digital tuner 2 demodulates the selected digital modulation signal and outputs a transport stream (TS), and detects and corrects an error in the digital data.

  The TS separation unit 3 separates the output transport stream into an MPEG2 (Moving Picture Experts Group 2) video stream, an audio stream, PSI / SI (Program Specific Information / Service Information), and the like.

  The video stream and audio stream separated by the TS separation unit 3 are supplied to the video / audio signal processing unit 4. A video decoder in the video / audio signal processing unit 4 decodes the input variable length code to obtain a quantization coefficient and a motion vector, performs inverse DCT conversion, motion compensation control based on the motion vector, and the like, and outputs video data. . The audio decoder in the video / audio signal processing unit 4 decodes the input encoded signal to generate audio data.

  The video / audio output unit 5 converts the received video data and audio data into, for example, an NTSC video signal and outputs it. The audio / video output unit 5 includes an OSD (On Screen Display) circuit. The OSD circuit generates video data based on the character information and color information for EPG instructed to be output from the EPG generation unit 7. The video / audio output unit 5 performs processing for incorporating the video data output from the OSD circuit into the received video data. Thereby, an EPG (Electronic Program Guide) screen display is realized.

  The SI processing unit 6 receives the SI separated by the TS separation unit 3, converts it into information used for EPG, and gives it to the control unit (CPU) 8.

  The video storage memory 10 stores received video data for a predetermined time (delay time) among the received video data output from the video / audio signal processing unit 4. The structure and the like of the video storage memory 10 are not limited, and may be a built-in semiconductor memory such as a field memory, or an external storage medium such as a hard disk or a memory card.

  The user I / F (interface) unit 9 is, for example, a light receiving unit that receives infrared rays from a remote control transmitter (not shown), or switches provided in the receiving device body. Information obtained by the user operating the remote control transmitter or the like is given to the control unit 8 via the user I / F unit 9. The remote control transmitter is provided with an EPG button, and when the user desires to display the EPG screen, the EPG button is pressed.

When detecting the pressing of the EPG button, the control unit 8 generates data for an EPG screen having a predetermined layout based on the information from the SI processing unit 6 and gives the data to the EPG generation unit 7. Here, in the case of digital terrestrial broadcasting, as described in the conventional section, it is necessary to sequentially switch channels and acquire SI in each channel selection channel. Hereinafter, the SI acquisition process of each station channel by the control unit 8 will be described.
(1) When the control unit 8 detects that the EPG button is pressed while displaying the video of the received program, the control unit 8 starts processing for temporarily storing the currently received program video in the video storage memory 10. Here, the video to be stored may be one field or one frame (still image), but in this embodiment, video data for a predetermined time (a predetermined delay time) is stored. To do. The predetermined time is determined by a balance between the capacity of the video storage memory 10 and the time required to acquire the program information of each channel. Here, the predetermined time is, for example, 10 seconds. Further, the control unit 8 stores the number of the channel (user viewing channel) currently being received.
(2) The control unit 8 starts the storage process of the program video being received, and the video data for the memory 10 so that the video during storage and after storage is displayed in a small scale (in a frame-by-frame manner). A read command is issued. The video / audio signal processing unit 4 supplies video data to the memory 10 and supplies video data read from the memory 10 to the video / audio output unit 5. In such a process, the display image is displayed frame by frame from when the EPG button is pressed. Then, the image for 10 seconds is displayed frame by frame for 90 seconds, for example.
(3) The controller 8 performs channel switching for acquiring each station SI 10 seconds after the EPG button is pressed. That is, channel tuning information is given to the digital tuner 2 and setting information for SI acquisition is given to the TS separation unit 3. For example, the channel is switched in ascending order of channel numbers.
(4) When the SI can be acquired in the switched channel, the control unit 8 performs a channel switching process for returning to the user viewing channel. That is, tuning information of the user viewing channel is given to the digital tuner 2 and setting information for obtaining a video packet or the like is given to the TS separation unit 3. If it takes 180 seconds to acquire SI, for example, after the stored image is displayed over the 90 seconds, 90 seconds elapse while the final image is still.
(5) When returning to the user viewing channel, the control unit 8 starts the received video data storage process and the frame-by-frame video display again, and performs the channel switching process to obtain the SI of the next station. Do. Thereafter, these processes are repeated. Channel switching for acquiring each station SI includes switching for a channel that has already been determined to be stationed or switching only for a channel that has been selected in advance by the user.

  In the above example, the frame-by-frame video display is started at the same time as the EPG button is pressed. In addition, a still image is displayed for 10 seconds after the EPG button is pressed, and frame-by-frame advance is performed after 10 seconds. A typical video display may be started. In addition, the channel selection for SI acquisition → user viewing channel → next channel selection for SI acquisition → user viewing channel is switched for each channel, but not limited to this, for SI acquisition 1st channel selection-> 2nd channel selection for SI acquisition-> user viewing channel-> 3rd channel selection for SI acquisition-> 4th channel selection for SI acquisition-> user viewing channel As described above, channel switching may be performed, or channel switching may be performed as in the case of all channel selection → user viewing channels scheduled for SI acquisition.

  Further, as shown in FIG. 2, a configuration including a first TS separation unit 3A and a second TS separation unit 3B connected to the digital tuner 2 may be employed. In normal reception video display, the first TS separation unit 3A is used. The first TS separation unit 3A is set to be suitable for acquiring video packets and the like. On the other hand, when the pressing of the EPG button is detected, the SI processing unit 6 receives the SI separated by the second TS separation unit 3B. The second TS separation unit 3B uses all or most of the filtering resources for SI acquisition.

  In the configuration including one TS separation unit 3 as shown in FIG. 1, in the channel selection state of the user viewing channel, the TS separation unit 3 is switched to a filter resource allocation state suitable for obtaining video packets and the like. Therefore, in the channel selection state, the TS separation unit 3 is switched to the filter resource allocation state suitable for SI packet acquisition, which requires some time for SI acquisition. On the other hand, if two TS separation units 3A and 3B are provided and the respective filter resources are appropriately set for the purpose, the time required for SI acquisition can be shortened.

  In this embodiment, SI acquisition for EPG can be performed at a predetermined timing such as when the EPG button is pressed, when the power is turned on, when the power is turned off, every predetermined period, and the like. Yes.

1 is a block diagram showing a digital broadcast receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is the block diagram which showed the other example of the digital broadcast receiver of embodiment of this invention. It is the block diagram which showed the conventional digital broadcast receiver.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Antenna 2 Digital tuner 3 TS separation part 3A 1st TS separation part 3B 2nd TS separation part 6 SI processing part 8 Control part (CPU)
10 Video storage memory

Claims (3)

In digital broadcast receivers that acquire program information on digital broadcast waves by switching channels automatically in sequence, the user viewing at the time when the user instructs acquisition of program information Storage means for temporarily storing the received program video of the channel, and display means for executing screen display of the stored program video during channel switching for acquiring the program information ,
Delay execution of switching from the reception state of the user viewing channel to another channel, store the received program video received during the delay time in the storage means, and take a longer time than the delay time during channel switching, A digital broadcast receiver characterized by displaying a stored received program video as a moving image .   The digital broadcast receiving apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the program information is acquired through one or more switching channels, and then the user viewing channel is restored to temporarily store the received program video in the storage means. A digital broadcast receiving apparatus configured to cause the display means to display a screen of the stored program video during switching of the next channel for acquiring program information. 3. The digital broadcast receiver according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising a first separation unit and a second separation unit for separating various information from the digital broadcast wave , wherein the digital broadcast wave selected by both separation units is provided. The first separation unit is set to be suitable for normal program reception and is used for normal program reception, and the second separation unit receives the program information packet. A digital broadcast receiving apparatus characterized in that it is set to be suitable for acquisition and used when switching channels for acquiring program information .

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