JPH1175130A - Device and method for selecting program of reception terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To configure a program list by programs themselves to be received by providing only one tuner and to select a program, based on the program list. SOLUTION: In this device, a tuner section 10 receives a signal of a television broadcast while selecting any of plural channels at a prescribed time interval. A video configuration section 11 configures video data from received signals. A video recording section 14 records configured video data in the unit of frames for each channel. An image configuration section 12 configures an image with video data of a channel being received and a recorded frame of other channels. An input section 13 designates a program selected by the user from the configured image.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a television receiver for receiving terrestrial waves, a program selection device for a reception terminal for receiving satellite broadcasting and cable television broadcasting, and a method therefor.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, the following three methods have been used to select a program such as a television broadcast at a receiving terminal. 1. Channels are arranged one-dimensionally, and channels before and after the currently selected channel are selected to select a program. 2. A number is assigned to each channel as an identifier, and the program is selected by inputting the number. 3. A program guide is constructed using information of the program guide, and a program is selected.

[0003] The method 3 will be described below with reference to FIGS.
This will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 6, reference numeral 60 denotes a tuner unit that receives a signal of a specific frequency, 61 denotes a video constituent unit that forms video data from a signal received by the tuner unit 60, and 66 denotes a program table. This is a program guide recording unit. Reference numeral 65 denotes a program guide constituent unit that records program guide information from a signal received by the tuner unit 60 in a program guide recording unit 66 and forms a program guide from the recorded program guide information. Reference numeral 62 denotes a video constituent unit. A screen configuration unit that configures a program selection screen from the video data configured by 61 and the program table configured by the program table configuration unit 65. An input unit 63 specifies a program selected by the user from the program selection screen. .

The operation of the conventional program selection device for a receiving terminal configured as described above will be described below.

[0005] In a conventional program selection device for a receiving terminal,
In order to display the program guide on the screen, the tuner section 60 receives the program guide information in advance, records the information in the program guide recording section 66, and displays the program guide in the program guide forming section 65 from the recorded information. Constitute.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a program table configured as described above. In this example, the broadcast time zone, title, and commentary of each program broadcasted from 7:00 to 9:30 in the morning on channels C, D, E, and F are configured in a table format. The program being broadcast on the current channel is indicated by a bold frame. As can be seen from this table, the program table is originally configured to indicate the schedule of the program of each channel.

To select another program currently being broadcast from the program table, the user moves the position of the thick frame with a remote controller or the like to specify a channel.

[0008]

However, in the above methods 1 and 2, it is necessary to select a program without knowing the contents of the program to be selected.

In the third method shown in the conventional example, it is necessary to create program data information in advance at the transmission source, and to separately receive the information at the receiving terminal side. Did not know the progress of the.

Some receiving terminals include a plurality of tuners, but such terminals are very expensive.

According to the present invention, in consideration of the above-mentioned conventional problems, it is only necessary to provide one tuner, and a program table can be constructed from a received program itself. It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method for selecting a program of a receiving terminal that can select the program.

[0012]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a tuner section for receiving a television broadcast signal while switching a plurality of channels at predetermined time intervals, and a video constituting video data from the received signal. A configuration unit, a video recording unit that records at least one of the configured video data on a frame basis for each channel, and a video data configured by a video configuration unit of a receiving channel and each channel other than the receiving channel And a screen configuration unit that allocates and configures the recorded frame to the divided area of the screen, and an input unit that specifies a program to be selected by the user from the image of each channel allocated to the divided area. It is a program selection device.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the above-described structure, a program selection of a receiving terminal including a channel to be tuned, a tuning time of the channel, a screen size, and a screen configuration recording unit for recording a position on the screen. Device.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, a television broadcast signal is received while switching a plurality of channels at predetermined time intervals, video data is formed from the received signal, and at least one of the configured video data is received. One frame is recorded for each channel on a frame basis, and the video data composed of the channel being received and the recorded frame of each channel other than the channel being received are allocated to a divided area of the screen, and are allocated to the divided area. This is a method of selecting a program of a receiving terminal for designating a program to be selected by a user from images of each channel being set.

With the above arrangement, the present invention determines the tuning time for each channel of the tuner and records information of at least one frame in the video data of each channel, thereby displaying the contents of all channels. The published program guide is created automatically. Further, it is possible to show a plurality of channels simultaneously with one tuner.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings showing an embodiment.

FIG. 1 shows a configuration diagram of a program selection device of a receiving terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 denotes a tuner unit that receives a signal of a specific frequency. Reference numeral 11 denotes a video configuration unit that configures video data from a signal received by the tuner unit 10.
Reference numeral 14 denotes a video recording unit that records the video data configured by the video configuration unit 11 on a frame basis for each channel.
Reference numeral 2 denotes a screen configuration unit that configures a program selection screen from the video data configured by the video configuration unit 11 and the frames recorded in the video recording unit 14. An input unit 13 specifies a program selected by the user from the program selection screen.

The operation of the program selecting device of the receiving terminal according to the present embodiment configured as described above will now be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG.

First, a method of constructing a program table will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 shows time periods T1, T2, T3.
In addition, the tuner unit 10 is connected to channels C, D, and E, respectively.
3 shows frames 1 to N that are configured by the video composition unit 11 when tuning is performed.

FIG. 3 shows that the screen composing unit 12 is a video recording unit 14.
Frame (channels A, B, C, D,
4 shows a program table including frames N of F, G, H, and I) and video data of channel E.

The tuner section 10 changes the channel to be tuned at regular intervals. The video composing unit 11 sends the program of the channel received by the tuner unit 10 to the screen composing unit 12 for each frame, and the last frame is transmitted to the video recording unit 1.
Send it to 4. Each time the tuner section 10 changes the channel to be tuned, the last frame of each channel is recorded in the video recording section 14.

The screen composition unit 12 divides the screen into nine parts, and calculates the video data sent from the video composition unit 11 and the last four frames of a total of eight channels recorded in the video recording unit 14 in other channels. The screen shown in FIG. 3 is configured, and a program table is configured.

Using the input unit 13, an arbitrary program is selected from the program table, and the tuner unit 10 is tuned to the selected channel. As shown in FIG. 3, which program is selected from the program table is indicated by enclosing the current position with a bold frame, indicating an input indicating movement to a position relative to the current position, and indicating that the selection is determined. Make an input.

Further, in addition to the above configuration, as shown in FIG. 4, a screen configuration for recording a channel to be displayed in the program guide, and a screen configuration table indicating the tuning time of the channel, its size on the screen, and its position. By providing the recording unit, the user can create an arbitrary program guide. FIG. 5 shows a screen configuration created based on the screen configuration table of FIG.

As described above, the program selecting device of the receiving terminal according to the present invention separately prepares the commentary data of the program on the transmitting side, and can transmit only the nuances of the program without receiving the data. Tables can be created automatically.

A plurality of programs can be watched by one tuner. In addition, manual channel zapping can be performed automatically, and the remaining images of the zapped programs can be viewed on one screen. Further, it is possible to automatically switch the channel between the program being watched and the counter program.

In the above-described embodiment, an example in which the screen is divided into nine is shown. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Any number is acceptable.

In the above embodiment, the video recording unit 1
The frame recorded in No. 4 has been described by taking the last frame at the time of channel switching as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and any of video data received on each channel may be used. Further, one frame is recorded, but the number of frames to be recorded is not limited to this.

[0029]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, a tuner section which receives a television broadcast signal while switching a plurality of channels at predetermined time intervals, and forms video data from the received signals. A video composition unit;
A video recording unit that records at least one of the configured video data in a frame unit for each channel, and a video data configured by a video configuration unit of a receiving channel and a video data of each channel other than the receiving channel. Since a screen configuration unit that allocates and configures a frame to a divided region of the screen and an input unit that specifies a program to be selected by the user from the image of each channel allocated to the divided region,
It is only necessary to provide one tuner, and it is possible to compose a program guide from a program to be received and to select a program based on the program guide.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a program selection device of a receiving terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between time and a video frame in the program selection device of the receiving terminal according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a program table and a configured screen in the program selection device of the receiving terminal according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing screen configuration data in the program selection device of the receiving terminal according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a program table based on screen configuration data and a configured screen in the program selection device of the receiving terminal according to the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of a conventional program selection device for a receiving terminal.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a conventional program guide and a configured screen.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10, 60 ... Tuner section 11, 61 ... Video composition section 12, 62 ... Screen composition section 13, 63 ... Input section 14 ... Video recording section 65 ... Program table Component part 66 ・ ・ ・ Program table recording part

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Masahiro Kawai 1006 Kazuma Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A tuner section for receiving a television broadcast signal while switching a plurality of channels at predetermined time intervals, a video composing section for composing video data from the received signal, and at least one of the configured video data. A video recording unit that records one frame for each channel, and video data configured by the video configuration unit of the channel being received and the recorded frame of each channel other than the channel being received. A program selection device for a receiving terminal, comprising: a screen configuration unit configured to be allocated to a divided area; and an input unit that specifies a program selected by a user from images of respective channels allocated to the divided area. 2. A channel to be tuned,
Tuning time, screen size and
The program selection device for a receiving terminal according to claim 1, further comprising a screen configuration recording unit that records a position on the screen. 3. A television broadcast signal is received while switching a plurality of channels at predetermined time intervals, video data is formed from the received signal, and at least one of the configured video data is provided for each channel. Recording is performed in frame units, and the configured video data of the channel being received and the recorded frames of each channel other than the receiving channel are allocated to a divided area of a screen, and are allocated to the divided area. A program selection method for a receiving terminal, wherein a program to be selected by a user is specified from an image of each channel. 4. A channel to be tuned,
Tuning time, screen size and
4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the position on the screen is recorded.