JPH08317353A - Video display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To speedily switch display while effectively utilizing a little memory capacity when preparing a program list while utilizing program information periodically supplied through a data communication path. CONSTITUTION: This device is provided with a data managing means 5 for managing the storage of program information supplied from an input stream into the memory of a terminal so that the look-ahead of information in a proximate area can be performed while displaying the specified area of the program list. Otherwise, the data managing means 5 stores the simplified program information concerning the entire program list and the detailed information is stored while limiting it in the display requested range. Thus, information predicted to be required by a user is prepared while utilizing the time in which the user watches the program list in a certain area, and a program generating means 7 can speedily present the requested program list.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a video display device for processing data relating to the broadcast contents of a program and presenting a program guide such as a television.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, information relating to programs such as televisions is superimposed on broadcast contents and broadcast, and the receiver side uses the information to select programs to be viewed and reserve recording and recording. Various technologies have been developed.

For example, there is one that transmits information about program contents during vertical blanking, reconstructs this at the receiver side, and presents it in the form of a program guide, which has already been used as a form of using teletext or teletext. It is well established. Since the transmission path is not wide enough, even if the information to be transmitted is limited to the start and end times of the program and the title of the program, it takes several minutes to several hours to finish transmitting all the information. For this reason, it is general that the receiver is equipped with a memory capable of storing all the information to be transmitted, and a necessary portion is extracted from the contents stored in the memory and used for display. It is realistic to have enough memory if the total amount of information is not large.

In recent years, with the background of digital technology and high-speed communication technology, CATV or satellite broadcasting is a form in which a plurality of programs are multiplexed on a high-speed transmission path by a digital stream and transmitted at the same time to provide multi-channel programs collectively. Has emerged in the form of. Since video and audio are converted into digital signals and multiplexed, and transmission is performed through a transmission path having a wide band, a large amount of additional information can be multiplexed and transmitted. In another field, in order to make it easy for users to select multi-channel broadcasting by various broadcasting media, there is a communication channel dedicated to program information and a receiver, and there is a technology for providing the same service as above. Has been pioneered. Using a high-speed communication path, the entire program information is repeatedly transmitted at a cycle of several seconds to several minutes, and the receiver generates a program table by receiving this.

In such an application field, not only the broadcast time and title, but also a detailed explanation about the contents of the program, information about performers and producers, information about the broadcast mode of the program, and still images and short moving images are used. There is a possibility that a large amount of data composed of introduction of program touches will be used. On the receiver side, these pieces of information should be processed appropriately, reconfigured into a program guide having two axes of time and channel so that the user can easily understand it, and dialogues should be conducted via the presented program guide. With this, it is possible to easily configure the program viewing and recording reservation.

[0006]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional configuration, the information to be transmitted is over many channels and a long time period, and it is impossible to display all of them at the same time. Select and display.
Further, in the above conventional configuration, it is assumed that the information to be generally transmitted is repeatedly transmitted at a constant time cycle, but when the transmission cycle is long, for example, when it reaches several minutes or several hours, all information is transmitted. Must be stored in receiver memory. If the user acquires the information each time the user specifies a different channel or time zone, the user will be kept waiting for the length of the information transmission cycle.

On the other hand, when the program information is transmitted in a cycle faster than a certain period, all the information is not always stored and the necessary range of information is acquired according to the user's operation. However, it is possible to reduce the required storage capacity.
However, even in this case, since the program information is acquired after the user's designation, it is inevitable that a waiting time occurs depending on the transmission cycle of the program information.

As described above, when the transmission cycle of program information is as short as several seconds or less, it is necessary to store all of the program information in the storage means of the receiver, and according to the operation of the user. It is possible to select either method of acquiring the part, but the former has the drawback of requiring a large amount of storage capacity, and the latter has the drawback of waiting time depending on the program information transmission cycle. is there.

It is an object of the present invention to solve this trade-off and provide a video display device that utilizes a small storage capacity and realizes a response time that does not burden the user.

[0010]

To achieve this object, the present invention has the following constitution.

In the first configuration, program information storage means capable of storing program information for at least a plurality of screens,
The data management means includes data management means for storing the received program information in the program information storage means, and program guide generation means for obtaining information from the program information storage means via the data management means to create a program guide display. Then, the next display page is predicted from the current display request page, and the program information of the predicted page is selected from the input data and stored in the program information storage means.

In the second configuration, program information storage means capable of storing program information for at least a plurality of screens,
The data management means includes data management means for storing the received program information in the program information storage means, and program guide generation means for obtaining information from the program information storage means via the data management means to create a program guide display. Is configured to store the program information in a simplified format for the entire program information, and to store the detailed program information in the range for which a display request has been made. When the detailed program information is selected, the detailed program information is displayed, and when the detailed program information is selected, the detailed display is displayed.

[0013]

With this first configuration, the area of the program guide in which the user's display request is likely to occur is predicted by the cooperation of the program guide generation means and the data management means, and the range in which the constant display request is predicted. Works to get information about. Thereby, when the user views the display of the program table in an area having a certain time or more and then requests the display of the area which is adjacent in time or vertically in the channel, necessary information is stored in advance in the program information storage means. Therefore, the program guide of the requested area can be immediately presented by using this information. Further, since the storage area for storing the program information does not need to store the program information of the entire program guide, the storage capacity can be reduced.

In the second configuration, the function of the data management means causes the program information in the simplified format to be generated for the program information over the entire area and stored as simplified data in the program information storage means. When a display request is made to a certain area of the program guide, the simplified data can be immediately used to generate and display a simplified version of the program guide. In addition, detailed information is acquired in the background when a display request is made, and is changed to detailed display at the time when it is acquired. As a result, users will be able to quickly obtain simple information with a short waiting time, and detailed information will be prepared while watching the simplified program guide, so the user will feel the stress of waiting time. You can get without.

[0015]

【Example】

(Embodiment 1) A first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a first embodiment of a program guide presentation device of the present invention. This embodiment describes an example of a receiving terminal that can receive a program given as digital data through a high-speed data stream such as satellite communication or a cable and can provide a multi-channel service, but the application of the present invention is not limited to this. It is not something that can be done. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that a service for multiplexing and transmitting data such as the title, content, and broadcast time of a current or future program to a data stream of program content, and a program guide presentation device that uses this program information data Describe one configuration.

In the figure, input terminal 1 is supplied with audio / video data which constitutes the program itself, together with information relating to future programs on a plurality of channels selectable by the receiver, as a high-speed bit stream.
The demultiplexing unit 2 demultiplexes the multiplexed stream supplied to the input terminal 1 and outputs each stream of audio data, video data, and service information data. 1
When one input stream contains a plurality of programs, the demultiplexing means 2 selects the programs. In general, the receiver selects and receives multiple input streams,
Although a means for selecting a large number of programs is provided, it is omitted here because it is not directly related to the content of the present invention. The program content streams separated by the demultiplexing means 2 are supplied to an audio decoder 3 and a video decoder 4, respectively. These two decoders process the data stream supplied from the demultiplexing means 2 and output an audio or video signal. The output terminal 9 outputs the content of the selected program as an audio or video signal.
Although only the output to the output terminal is described in the present embodiment, a configuration in which a speaker and a monitor TV are integrated is also possible.

The data stream of the program information, which is another output of the demultiplexing means, is supplied to the data managing means 5. The data management means 5 cooperates with the program guide generation means 7 to perform management for selectively storing necessary program information data in the program information storage means 6. The program guide generation means 7 uses the information stored in the program information storage means 6 via the data management means 5 and processes it to generate a display image of the program guide in a form that is easy for the user to understand. To do. The display image of this program guide is the synthesizing means 8
Is displayed on the display device connected to the output terminal 9 by being superimposed or switched with the screen output from the video decoder 4.

Next, a format of program information used in the present invention and a display example of a program guide will be described with reference to FIG. Figure 2 (a)
As shown in, the program table spreads on a two-dimensional matrix composed of the axis of the channel or broadcasting station and the axis of time, and the content of the program is displayed at the position determined by the frame of channel and time. Since the range of the program information provided generally exceeds the limit of the display capability in both the channel direction and the time direction, a part of the whole is cut and displayed as shown in FIG. 2 (b). FIG. 2C shows an example of program information given to one program. As shown in the figure, the program information is given in the form of text data, and the program broadcast channel, start time and end time,
It is composed of a program title, a description of the program content, an audio mode and other additional information.

As already pointed out, since the entire program information is enormous, a large amount of memory is required to store the entire program information in the storage device of the receiver. On the other hand, in the method of acquiring a necessary portion each time there is a display request, a waiting time occurs depending on the transmission cycle of program information. In order to solve this, by predicting the display range in advance before there is a display request and pre-reading the program information, the reaction time is shortened while reducing the capacity of the storage device. The point is. In the following, an area that is discretely divided by the term display range is shown, and the display request range is performed by selecting this discretized unit, but the display range is divided into multiple ranges and each unit is By performing the same processing for each, continuous movement of the area can also be realized without major changes.

The display range is predicted as follows. As shown in FIG. 3, a case where the display range changes from the position A to the position B in the drawing will be described as an example. At this time, it is considered that there is a high possibility of moving in the same direction as the previous movement, so the priority is set high in the previous moving direction, and low priority is assigned to the opposite direction and the orthogonal direction. Here, a coefficient of 2 is assigned to the same direction as the previous movement and a coefficient of 3 is assigned to the other direction, and the product of the movement amount and the coefficient is used as the priority index of each area. The area with the lowest index is the area where data is acquired preferentially. When the number of areas that can be stored in the program information storage means is 6, six areas surrounded by dotted lines in the figure are set as areas for which program information should be acquired.

The contents of the processing will be described below with reference to the flow charts shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 in order to specifically show the relationship between the processing of creating the program guide and the acquisition of the program information. Since the entire processing is performed in parallel for each processing unit, not the entire processing flow but the processing flow for each processing unit is shown. In Figure 4,
It shows the flow of processing that the program guide generation means takes when it receives a request to display a program guide. S101 shows the start of the program guide display process. This process is started by receiving a signal of data acquisition completion from the data management means when the user requests the display of the program guide, when the user instructs the change of the channel or the time zone to be displayed when the program guide is presented. Occurs when The range to be displayed is already specified elsewhere. At the beginning of the process, an inquiry is made to the data management means in S102 to notify that the display request range has been changed and to confirm whether or not the display request range is stored in the program information storage means. If the information necessary for display is already in the program information storage means, the information is obtained from this and a display of the program guide is generated in S104. For the processing to compose a program guide from program information,
Conventional techniques can be used and will not be described in detail here. If the program information storage means does not store the necessary program information, it is necessary to newly obtain the necessary program information from the input stream, and therefore an acquisition request is issued to the data management means in S105. As will be shown later, the data management means again issues a signal of data acquisition completion to the program guide display task when all the necessary information is prepared, so that the display can be performed immediately when all the necessary information is prepared. After performing the processing of either S104 or S105, this processing is terminated, and the processing is passed to another task until another processing request is made.

Next, the flow of processing of the data management means, which is the main point of this embodiment, will be described with reference to FIG.
S201 shows the flow of processing that is constantly performed in response to the input stream of the data management processing. The start of this processing occurs when the program information stream is supplied from the demultiplexing means. In S202, it is determined whether or not there is information to be stored in the program information storage means according to a predetermined standard. If it is the information to be stored, the data is shaped and then stored in the program information storage means in S203. If there is no need, the process ends.
After storing new information, it is determined in S204 whether or not the data required for the program guide display processing is completely stored in the program information storage means, and if it is confirmed that the information is complete, S205 Informs the program guide display process that the data is complete.

The criteria for determining whether or not the information is the necessary information, which is obtained by the above processing, is determined by the processing from S211. This process is also the process of the data management means, but occurs when the display request range of the program table is changed. In S212, the range for which a display request has been made is reflected in the determination criteria in S204. Next, in step S213, the future display designated range is predicted from the movement of the display request range based on the above-described determination criteria, and the priority is calculated. In S214, an area for which information should be acquired is determined according to this priority and the total storable capacity. In S215, the portion of the program information currently stored that should be invalidated is determined, and the required storage area is secured. Finally, in step S216, the result of the area to be acquired calculated in step S214 is reflected in the criterion for determining whether or not to store the image used in step S202.

With the above configuration, the data management means predicts the next moving direction during the display of the program guide, and performs the process of acquiring the information necessary for displaying the next screen. When the operation for moving to the screen is performed, the information necessary for the display can be accumulated with high accuracy. By pre-reading the information by utilizing the time for watching one screen of the program guide, the waiting time when the display request screen is changed can be reduced. On the other hand, the information that must be stored in the receiver is limited to a part of the entire program guide information around the currently displayed area, and the capacity of the prepared storage area can be reduced.

(Second Embodiment) Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. This embodiment is also intended to solve the same problem as in the first embodiment, but the content of the entire program information is restricted, not by dividing the program information into areas and restricting the acquired area. A different point is that the simplified program information is stored. Since the configuration of this embodiment is also similar to that of the first embodiment, the description is omitted.

In this embodiment, since the simplified program information is stored in the entire area, the data management section has a function of converting the inputted program information into a simplified format. When the program information to be input is composed of, for example, (start time, end time, program title, descriptive text of program content, audio mode), in simplified form, (start time, end time,
It is stored in the form of a simplified program title). Since the explanation text of the program content occupies a large part in the original information, omitting this can greatly reduce the data amount. Based on this, the following operation modes can be realized. If there is detailed data at the time of requesting the program guide display, the entire program title is displayed, additional information about the program is also displayed, and an explanation about each program can be presented upon request. Even if there is no detailed data, the simplified data is immediately displayed based on the simplified data, the detailed data of the display request range is acquired, and when the data is complete, the display is rewritten to the detailed data. The program guide is presented without giving the user substantial waiting time.

There is a method of selecting a designated number of characters from the beginning for simplification of the title, but by including a shortened title in the program information supplied in advance, it is possible to obtain a shortened title that is easier to understand. it can. For this purpose, a method of providing two separate fields and a method of describing the entire title name including a short name by using an escape code or the like can be used.

The contents of the processing will be described below with reference to the flow charts shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 in order to specifically show the relationship between the processing of creating the program guide and the acquisition of the program information. Since the entire processing is performed in parallel for each processing unit, not the entire processing flow but the processing flow for each processing unit is shown. In Figure 6,
It shows the flow of processing that the program guide generation means takes when it receives a request to display a program guide. S301 shows the start of the program guide display process. This processing is started when the user requests the display of the program guide, when the user instructs the change of the channel or the time zone to be displayed when the program guide is presented, the completion of data acquisition of the display range from the data management means. Occurs when a signal is received. The range to be displayed is already specified elsewhere. In the processing, first, in S302, an inquiry is made to the data management means to confirm whether or not the detailed data of the display request range is stored in the program information storage means. If the information necessary for displaying the details already exists in the program information storage means, the information is obtained from this and S3
At 03, a display of the program guide based on the detailed data is generated.
Since a conventional technique can be used for the process of constructing the program guide from the program information, it will not be described in detail here.
In the display by the detailed data, it is possible to display the program title without omitting it, and it is possible to present an explanation or the like regarding the content of the program in response to the user's request.
When the detailed information of the requested range is not found in the program information storage means in the determination of S302, the data management means is requested to acquire the detailed data of the requested range of S304, and then the simplified format data is sent in S305. Is stored in the program information storage means. If there is accumulation, S30
In step 6, the display of the program guide is generated using the simplified data accumulated for the entire range. This abbreviated data contains information about the shortened program title and start and end times, and is sufficient to generate a simplified title description similar to the detailed data display. After performing any display generation, this processing ends.

Next, the processing flow of the data management means of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. S401 shows the flow of processing that is constantly performed in response to the input stream of the data management processing. The start of this processing occurs when the program information stream is supplied from the demultiplexing means. In step S202, it is determined whether the currently supplied data is within the required display range according to a predetermined required display range. If it is included in the display range, the data is shaped in S403 and then stored in the program information storage means. In S404, it is determined whether the detailed data required for the program guide display processing is completely stored in the program information storage means, and if it is confirmed that the necessary detailed data are available, the data is displayed in the program guide display processing in S405. Notify that has been completed. On the other hand, S402
If the condition is not satisfied in step S3, that is, if the currently supplied data is not within the requested display range, S4
Data in a simplified format is created in 06, and stored in the program information storage means in S407. In S408, it is determined whether or not the simplified format data is prepared for the entire area, and if so, it is notified in S409 that the entire simplified data is prepared for the program guide display processing.

The criteria for the filtering process in S402 are determined by the processes in and after S411. This process is also the process of the data management means, but occurs when the display request range of the program table is changed. In S412, the range for which a display request has been made is reflected in the judgment criteria in S402. Then, in order to secure the storage area of the program information storage means, the information in the range where the detailed information need not be stored is invalidated in S413, and the required storage area is secured.

With the above configuration, the data management means always stores the simplified program information for the entire range in the program information storage means, so that the user's request to move the display range is requested. Whenever there is, a simplified program listing can be displayed immediately. Furthermore, if the same display range is presented for a certain period of time, detailed information is acquired during that period, so a detailed program guide can also be obtained. Since the user can see the simplified program guide during the waiting time, the waiting time is not a burden. On the other hand, the information that must be stored in the receiver is the information of the area currently displayed in the entire program guide information,
Since it is limited to simple information over the entire area, the capacity of the prepared storage area can be reduced.

The effects of the above-described two embodiments can be further enhanced by simultaneously combining and implementing the contents. That is, in the second embodiment, the detailed information has been described as being acquired only in the area currently requested to be displayed, but as in the first embodiment, the capacity capable of storing the detailed information for a plurality of areas. The detailed information can be read in advance based on the prediction of the display area.

[0034]

As has been described above, according to the first configuration of the present invention, the program management program and the program guide generating means cooperate with each other to generate a program guide which will cause a user display request. It is possible to obtain an effect of predicting a region and acquiring information of a range in which a display request is predicted at all times. Thereby, when the user views the display of the program table in an area having a certain time or more and then requests the display of the area which is adjacent in time or vertically in the channel, necessary information is stored in advance in the program information storage means. Therefore, the program guide of the requested area can be immediately presented by using this information. Further, since the storage area for storing the program information does not need to store the program information of the entire program guide, the storage capacity can be reduced. As a result, it is possible to configure a video display device that can effectively utilize a small memory capacity and present the requested program guide area with a short waiting time.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the data management means generates program information in a simplified format for the program information over the entire area and stores it in the program information storage means as simplified data. When a display request is made to a certain area of the program guide, the simplified data can be immediately used to generate and display a simplified version of the program guide. In addition, detailed information is acquired in the background when a display request is made, and is changed to detailed display at the time when it is acquired. As a result, users will be able to quickly obtain simple information with a short waiting time, and detailed information will be prepared while watching the simplified program guide, so the user will feel the stress of waiting time. You can get without. With this second configuration as well, similar to the first configuration, it is possible to configure a video display device that can effectively utilize a small memory capacity and present the requested program table area with a short waiting time. Is possible.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a data structure of a program guide and program information in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of program information acquisition priority in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a flow of a program guide creation process according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the flow of program guide data acquisition processing according to the first embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the flow of a program guide creation process according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the flow of program guide data acquisition processing according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Input Terminal 2 Demultiplexing Means 3 Audio Decoder 4 Video Decoder 5 Data Management Means 6 Program Information Storage Means 7 Program Guide Generating Means 8 Synthesizing Means 9 Output Terminals

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A program information storage means capable of storing program information for at least a plurality of screens, a data management means for storing a necessary part from the received program information in the program information storage means, and the data management. Program guide generating means for obtaining information from the program information storage means via the means to create a program guide display, and the data management means predicts the next display range from the current display request range and is predicted. A video display device, characterized in that program information in a range is selected and stored in the program information storage means. 2. The video display device according to claim 1, wherein the prediction of the next display range is performed by selecting a part which is continuous with the current display request range in terms of time or station number. 3. A program information storage means capable of storing program information for at least a plurality of screens, a data management means for storing received program information in the program information storage means, and via the data management means. A program guide generation unit that obtains information from the program information storage unit and creates a program guide display, and the data management unit has a function of selecting a minimum portion of the program information, and regarding the entire program information. Stores program information in a simplified format, stores detailed program information in a range for which a display request has been made, and the program guide generation means displays the simplified program information when detailed program information cannot be selected. A video display device, which performs detailed display when detailed program information is selected. 4. The simplified program information is information related to the start / end time of the program and a simplified program title, and the detailed program information includes information that is not omitted in addition to the information included in the simplified program information and a description of the program content. The video display device according to claim 3, wherein the video display device includes additional information.