KR101147215B1 - DLNA Home Network and Method of Managing Thumbnail Therein - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a DLNA home network and a thumbnail management method of a DLNA home network, wherein at least one media server generates a thumbnail file for an original image file and is generated in the same location as a storage area in which the original image file is stored. When the media player, which has received the user's media search command, transmits a search request message to the at least one media server while storing a thumbnail file, the at least one media server receiving the search request message receives one media item. By presenting all the information about the original image file and the corresponding thumbnail image file in the generated result set and transmitting it to the media player, a simple thumbnail implementation method in a DLNA home network is presented.

Description

Thumbnail management method in DLNA home network and DLNA home network {DLNA Home Network and Method of Managing Thumbnail Therein}

1 is a diagram illustrating a hierarchy of a digital living network alliance (DLNA).

2 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of a DLNA home network structure according to the present invention;

3 is a diagram illustrating an image transmission flow between a media server and a control point in a DNLA network according to the present invention.

4 is a diagram showing the form of an item including thumbnail image information according to the present invention;

* Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings *

100: DMS (Digital Media Server)

200: DMR (Digital Media Renderer)

300: DMP (Digital Media Player)

400: M-NCF (Mobile-Network Connectivity Function)

500: CP (Control Point)

The present invention relates to thumbnail generation and management in UPnP-based DLNA, and more particularly, to a thumbnail management method in a DLNA home network and a DLNA home network, which proposes a specific implementation method of a thumbnail that is not presented in the existing DLNA specification. It is about.

Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is the successor to the DHWG (Digital Home Working Group), a standardization organization that allows home networks to coexist in the home with PC Internet networks (PCs, printers, etc.), mobile networks (PDAs, mobile phones, laptops, etc.) We defined it as a network (TV, audio, DVD player, etc.) and attempted to provide interoperability through three ways: cooperation among major industries, standardization of interoperability frameworks, and products that comply. DLNA currently includes standardization of physical media, network transport, media formats, streaming protocols, and digital right management (DRM), based on Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) technology.

1 illustrates a layer of a digital living network alliance (DLNA).

As shown in FIG. 1, DLNA is a standard for 802.3i, 802.3u, and the like for wired connection and 802.11a / b / g for wireless. In addition, it can be seen that the network layer uses the IPv4 protocol and HTTP is used for the media transport layer.

UPnP AV and UPnP device architectures are used as middleware for device discovery, control and media management. Image, audio and audio / video (A / V) are used as media formats.

As shown in FIG. 1, DLNA is based on UPnP, which is middleware using protocols such as IP, TCP, UDP, HTTP, XML, and the like. Has the feature of enabling control.

The UPnP AV standard defines four services: Connection Manager Service, Rendering Control Service, AVTransport Service, and Content Directory Service.

The Connection Manager Service selects the format and protocol, which allows the control point to use and manage the relationship between the source and the sink of the content. Here, the control point refers to a device having the ability to search for and control other devices. The connection management service also allows the control point to not know the physical media connection technology, and allows the control point to select a source and a sink to play that source.

The rendering control service controls the sound and image characteristics. Most playback devices provide configuration properties that affect content playback, and the rendering control service provides the control point the ability to adjust these playback properties.

The AV transmission service controls playback and recording. The AV transport service provides a mechanism that allows the control point to control the transmission of audio and video streams through operations such as play, stop and pause.

The content directory service is a service that displays a list of contents and metadata. The content directory is a service that control points use to retrieve and store audio and video content. The content directory can list many media types, including songs in an MP3 player, slides with still images, movies in a DVD-jukebox, TV schedules, and more.

The Content Directory Service also describes how to dynamically generate thumbnails for image items and how to efficiently play the generated thumbnails in a control point or media renderer. It is an independent media format in the form of JPEG_TN or PNG_TN.

Here, the thumbnail is generally a smaller sized image than the original image, and refers to a small image used for simultaneously displaying a plurality of images or for previewing an image. By using such a thumbnail image, the contents or characteristics of the image can be known without uploading the entire original image to the memory, and thus, there is an advantage that a large amount of image information can be grasped in a short time. Of course, there is a limit to obtaining more accurate information for reasons such as image size or image quality, but in this case, the efficiency of information display by the function of re-viewing only the original image selected by the rough information analysis result obtained from the thumbnail image Can increase.

To support such thumbnails in the DLNA Content Directory Service, the URI location information of thumbnails should be added to importURI, which is an attribute of the res (resource) element of XML data constituting one image item information, separately from the res of the original image. It has a more constitutive structure. In addition, it is mentioned that when supporting thumbnails, a res component for thumbnails is generated and transmitted separately from the res component of an image or video item, and a specific implementation method is not mentioned in the DLNA specification.

The existing thumbnail support method in DLNA also has a problem that a user needs to create an image thumbnail file and store it in a media server separately from DLNA in order to play an image in thumbnail form.

In order to solve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a method for generating and processing detailed thumbnails on a server side based on a DLNA specification.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a thumbnail management method of a DLNA home network, wherein the at least one media server generates a thumbnail file for an original image file, and the same location as a storage area in which the original image file is stored. Storing the generated thumbnail file in the; A media player receiving a user's media search command, transmitting a search request message to the at least one media server; And generating, by the at least one media server receiving the search request message, a result set including all of the original image file and the corresponding thumbnail image file in one media item and transmitting the result set to the media player. do.

The thumbnail image file may have a file name in a form in which an additional symbol indicating a thumbnail file is attached to a name of an original image file.

The result set includes resource information about the original image file and resource information about the thumbnail image file, and the resource information includes a storage location of the file and protocol information of the file.

The method of managing a thumbnail of the DLNA home network may further include obtaining a thumbnail image file location from a result set received by the media player, accessing the media server, and downloading and displaying the thumbnail image file.

The thumbnail management method of the DLNA home network may further include the media player receiving a playback request from a user for a specific image file by connecting to a media server storing the original image file at the same location as the displayed thumbnail image file. The method may further include downloading and displaying the original image file.

DLNA home network according to another aspect of the present invention generates a thumbnail image file for the original image file, and stores the generated thumbnail image file in the same location as the storage area where the original image file is stored, At least one media server for generating a result set including all information about the original image file and the corresponding thumbnail image file in one media item for the media search request.

The DLNA home network also receives a user's media search command and transmits a search request message to the at least one media server, obtains a thumbnail image file location from the result set received from the media server, and accesses the media server. The apparatus may further include a media player for downloading and displaying the thumbnail image file.

The media player receives a play request for a specific image file from a user, connects to a media server that stores the original image file at the same location as the selected thumbnail image file, and downloads and displays the original image file.

The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) home network according to another aspect of the present invention generates a thumbnail image file for the original image file and stores the generated thumbnail image file in the same location as the storage area in which the original image file is stored. And receiving at least one media server and a user's media retrieval command to generate a result set including all the information about the original image file and the corresponding thumbnail image file in one media item in response to the media retrieval request. And a control point for transmitting a search request message to one media server, obtaining a thumbnail image file location from a result set received from the media server, connecting to the media server, and downloading and displaying the thumbnail image file.

The DLNA home network accesses the original image file by accessing a media server that stores the original image file at the same location as the thumbnail file of the selected image under the control of a control point receiving a playback request for a specific image file from a user. It may further include a media renderer to download and display.

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

2 illustrates an embodiment of a DLNA home network structure according to the present invention.

The DLNA home network includes components such as the DMS 100, the DMR 200, the DMP 300, and the M-NCF 400 as illustrated in FIG. 2.

In UPNA-based DLNA, a device class is set for each device, and the components of FIG. 2 are classified and named according to the device class. Device classes are classified according to which functions they support regardless of their physical characteristics. Since a device may provide various functions, a device may belong to several device classes. The digital media server (DMS) 100 is a device that provides media on a DLNA-based home network, and the digital media renderer (DMR) 200 is a device that plays content received from the home network. The digital media player (DMP) 300 is a device that provides a function of selecting and controlling media on a home network and playing the selected media. The DMP 300 is a combination of a control point function and a DMS function. In addition, the CP 500 refers to a device having the capability of searching for and controlling other devices as described above. CP 500 is usually a portable terminal that supports mobility, such as a remote control commonly used in home appliances for free control and management of the user, but is connected to other devices in the home network by wire. Form is not excluded.

Meanwhile, the mobile-network connectivity function (M-NCF) 400 plays a role of relaying a network connection between a wireless device such as a mobile phone and a wired device such as a DVD player.

DLNA device types classified according to functional and physical characteristics may include a DVD player, a TV, a DVR, a mobile phone, a printer, and a camera. These various types of devices may be DMS, DMR, CP, or DMP depending on the type of service. For example, mobile phones, etc., are likely to function as control points, while TVs, DVRs, etc., are likely to function as DMS or DMR.

On the other hand, thumbnails provide a more intuitive user convenience than text form by providing a list of image items visually, and is highly applicable to DLNA home networks. There are two ways to configure such thumbnails on the server side and on the client side.

The method of configuring on the client side downloads the image on the server as it is and reconstructs it on the client side and plays it as if the thumbnail file is viewed. This has the disadvantage of increasing the network and memory load because the entire image must be transmitted. .

As in the present invention, a method of configuring thumbnails on the server side may be divided into two methods, in which the server separately configures and stores thumbnail files for all images internally, or manually stores externally configured thumbnail files on the server. Can be.

This method of providing thumbnail images generated and stored internally on the server side to the client side in preview form not only reduces the network load but also improves the processing speed compared to transmitting the original image as it is.

A method of generating and storing thumbnails by the media server and transferring thumbnail files between the media server and the control point according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

3 illustrates an image transmission flow between a media server and a control point in a DNLA network according to the present invention.

The media server 100 finds a media item for generating a thumbnail and stores the image file as a thumbnail file after re-encoding / decoding a corresponding image file into a thumbnail sized image file (S310). In this case, the thumbnail file uses a file name having the same form as the original image file in the same storage area as the original image file, but additionally stores the name "_thumb" after the file name (S311). For example, if the original image file is summer.jpg, the thumbnail file for it is named and stored as summer_thumb.jpg.

The generation and storage of such a thumbnail file is preferable to configure the thumbnail in the module in charge of the content directory service by using the fact that the internal routine of the content directory service providing module of the media server has information about all media items due to the nature of DLNA. Will do.

In the state where the thumbnail file generation and storage are completed in the media server 100, it is assumed that the user issues a search command for the media existing in the home network through the DMP 300 (S320). In FIG. 3, the search command is input through the DMP 300, but may be input through a control point instead of the DMP 300. In this case, there may be a difference that the device responsible for media playback is separated by DMR, but the basic flow is the same.

The DMP 300 receiving the media search command requests to report on the media held by each DMS to at least one DMS 100 located in the home network through a browse or search command (S321). Upon receiving the browse / search message of the DMP 300, the DMS 100 creates a result set including information on the image file and the thumbnail file thereof (S312). The result set includes a list of media items, with one res element added for each image file, and information about thumbnails is inserted in the added res. The importURI attribute of the res component added for thumbnails is set to be the same as the importURI of the original image file, but "_thumb" is added after the original file name to indicate that it is a thumbnail file.

The DMS 100 transmits the created result set to the DMP 300 (S313). Upon receiving this, if the fourth field of "res @ protocolinfo" of the received result set indicates a thumbnail, the DMP 300 requests to transmit the corresponding thumbnail file (S322). In order to request a thumbnail file, the DMP 300 transmits an http-get message to the DMS 100 (S323). The DMS 100 transmits the corresponding thumbnail file to the DMP 300, and the received DMP 300 displays the thumbnail file (SS323). That is, the DMS 100 parses the received item list XML of the result set, accesses the location of the importURI attribute of the component having a JPEG_TN type among the res components, and downloads and displays a thumbnail file of the corresponding position (S322 S323). ).

When the user selects the displayed thumbnail file (S324), the DMP 300 requests the DMS 100 to transmit the original image file for the thumbnail file through the http-get message (S325). The DMS 100 finds the original image file at the location where the original image file for the thumbnail file to be transmitted is stored and transmits the original image file to the DMP 300 (S315). That is, upon request of the transfer of the original image file of the DMP 300, the importURI of a component whose type property is not JPEG_TN among two res components included in the corresponding image item is downloaded and displayed.

At this time, since the location where the thumbnail file is stored and the location where the original image file is stored are included in the same storage area, the time required for the DMS 100 to search for the original image file is significantly shortened. Upon receiving the original image file, the DMP 300 responds to the user's request by displaying it (S326).

4 illustrates a form of an item including thumbnail image information according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 displays contents included in one item of a media item list included in the result set as described through the image file transfer process of FIG. 3.

It can be seen that the result set of FIG. 4 includes two res components 410 and 420 in one item 400. Res (410), which contains information about the original image file, is <res importUri = "http: //abcd/～abc/image.jpg" protocolinfo = "*: *: image: JPEG" /> It expresses protocol information about location and image. Res (420), which contains information about thumbnail image files, is in the form of <res importUri = "http: //abcd/～abc/image_thumb.jpg" protocolinfo = "*: *: image: JPEG_TN" /> Where the image file is located and the storage area is the same, the protocol for the image is a JPEG thumbnail image.

That is, as shown in FIG. 4, the correlation between the thumbnail file and the storage location of the original file and the file name is not generated by generating the original image file and the thumbnail image file thereof as a separate media item, but included in a single item list to form a result set. Was easily implemented.

The present invention provides a convenience of easily configuring a thumbnail in a DLNA home network by presenting a specific form of a thumbnail implementation method that is not specifically defined in the existing DLNA specification.

Claims (15)

In the thumbnail management method of a DLNA network comprising at least one media server and a media player, Generating, by the at least one media server, a thumbnail file for the original image file, and storing the generated thumbnail file in the same location as a storage area in which the original image file is stored; A media player receiving a user's media search command, transmitting a search request message to the at least one media server; And At least one media server receiving the search request message generates a result set including all the information about the original image file and the corresponding thumbnail image file in one media item and transmits the result set to the media player; How to manage thumbnails in DLNA home network. The method of claim 1, The thumbnail image file, A thumbnail management method of a DLNA home network, characterized by having a file name in the form of an appended symbol indicating that the original image file is a thumbnail file. The method according to claim 1 or 2, The result set is A thumbnail management method for a DLNA home network that includes resource information for a source image file and resource information for a thumbnail image file. The method of claim 3, And the resource information includes a storage location of a file and protocol information of the file. The method of claim 3, Obtaining a thumbnail image file location from the result set received by the media player, and accessing the media server to download and display the thumbnail image file. The method of claim 5, The media player receiving a play request for a specific image file from a user, accessing a media server storing the original image file at the same location as the displayed thumbnail image file to download and display the original image file; Thumbnail management method of the DLNA home network further comprising. In the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) home network, Create a thumbnail image file for the original image file, store the created thumbnail image file in the same location as the storage area where the original image file is stored, and place the original image file and its corresponding within one media item for a media retrieval request A DLNA home network comprising at least one media server for generating a result set including all information about thumbnail image files. The method of claim 7, wherein The thumbnail image file, DLNA home network, characterized in that the name of the original image file has a file name in the form of appended symbols indicating that the thumbnail file. The method according to claim 7 or 8, The result set is DLNA home network that contains resource (res) information for the original image file and resource information for the thumbnail image file. 10. The method of claim 9, The resource information includes a storage location of a file and protocol information of the file. The method of claim 7, wherein Receives a user's media search command and sends a search request message to the at least one media server, obtains a thumbnail image file location from the result set received from the media server, connects to the media server, and downloads the thumbnail image file. DLNA home network further comprising a media player to receive and display. 12. The method of claim 11, The media player, DLNA home network for receiving a playback request for a specific image file from a user, connecting to a media server storing the original image file at the same location as the selected thumbnail image file, and downloading and displaying the original image file. In the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) home network, Create a thumbnail image file for the original image file, store the created thumbnail image file in the same location as the storage area where the original image file is stored, and place the original image file and its corresponding within one media item for a media retrieval request At least one media server for generating a result set including all the information on the thumbnail image file; Wow Receives a user's media search command and sends a search request message to the at least one media server, obtains a thumbnail image file location from the result set received from the media server, connects to the media server, and downloads the thumbnail image file. DLNA home network with control points to receive and display. The method of claim 13, The thumbnail image file, DLNA home network, characterized in that the name of the original image file has a file name in the form of appended symbols indicating that the thumbnail file. 15. The method of claim 14, Media for downloading and displaying the original image file by accessing a media server storing the original image file in the same location as the thumbnail file of the selected image under the control of a control point receiving a playback request for a specific image file from a user. DLNA home network further comprising a renderer.

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