KR20020019543A - System for displaying teletext information and television or VCR apparatus comprising such a system - Google Patents

Abstract

A system for displaying teletext information is described in which a user can select teletext information displayed in an information bar displayed in a normal video program. The system includes a video decoder for providing video information, a teletext decoder for providing teletext information, and a display for playing video information or teletext information. A control unit is also provided for controlling the information reproduced on the display, the control unit allowing a user to select teletext information for reproduction by the display as teletext information within a video image reproduced from the video information. It is programmed to be. This system is highly flexible in selecting the information to be displayed.

Description

System for displaying teletext information and television or VCR apparatus comprising such a system

In conventional systems of this type, when a user switches on teletext, essentially the entire display screen area is occupied by teletext information. Even with so-called mixed-mode systems, the viewer rarely sees a normal video program with teletext switched on. Therefore, in this type of conventional system, the viewer may not know if certain important information items in certain teletext pages have been changed or updated when he / she is watching a normal video program.

US-A-3 981 792 describes a television character crawl display method and apparatus by which a viewer can superimpose character information on a normal video program. In this way, the viewer can view the video program and character information at the same time. This known apparatus is provided with a digital logic circuit to extract the character signal from the video signal, and the video data mixer inserts the character signal into the video channel. The character signal is transmitted in successive vertical blanking sections of the television video signal. In the known device, the viewer can only switch on or off the display of character information on the display screen, so that the entire message is displayed when the character information is switched on.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved system of the type mentioned above, in which the above mentioned disadvantages are overcome.

According to the invention there is provided a system of the above-mentioned type, characterized in that a control unit is programmed to allow a user to select teletext information for playback by a display as teletext information in a video image played back from the video information. It is done.

In this way a system is obtained which is capable of substantially displaying teletext information without disturbing the normal video program being played simultaneously with the teletext information bar. A teletext decoder is advantageously used to allow the user to select any teletext information for playback by the display in the information bar. In this way, a very flexible system is obtained which displays teletext information in normal video images.

The present invention includes a video decoder for providing video information, a teletext decoder for providing teletext information, a display for reproducing video information or teletext information, and a control unit for controlling the information reproduced by the display, It relates to a system for displaying teletext information, and also to a television or VCR device comprising such a system.

1 illustrates a portion of a television device incorporating an embodiment of the system of the present invention.

The invention will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings, in which embodiments of the invention are schematically illustrated.

The tuner 1 receives an antenna or cable signal at the input 2 and provides an output signal to the video decoder 3 and the teletext decoder 4. The video decoder 3 provides the video information at the output 5 in RGB format, which is suitable for reproduction by the display device 5. In the same way the teletext decoder 4 provides the teletext information in the output 7 in RGB format, which is also suitable for reproduction by the display device 6. The outputs 5 and 7 are connected to a device 8 having an output connected to the display device 6.

The system further comprises a control unit 9 made of a programmable device. Note that in practice the control unit 9 and the teletext decoder 4 can be manufactured with a single-chip micro-controller integrated with the teletext decoder. The control unit 9 can be controlled using a remote control device 10 which can be operated by a user.

In a conventional method, a user can view normal video information or teletext information by operating the remote control device 10 to switch on teletext. In this case, the entire screen of the display device 6 is occupied by a teletext display. If desired, the control unit 9 can be programmed in a mixed mode capable manner, in which case the teletext information is mixed and displayed with the video program. In such mixed mode, however, it is not convenient to watch normal video programs.

However, in the system of the present invention, by appropriately programming the control unit 9, viewing teletext information can be made more flexible. The teletext decoder 4 can obtain teletext data in the background while the user is watching a normal video program. This teletext data is processed by the control unit according to the control commands provided by the viewer and then displayed in the information bar 11 schematically shown on the display device 6. The area occupied by the information bar 11 is an area where the normal video program image is substantially not disturbed.

The selection of the teletext information to be reproduced by the display device 6 can occur in various ways. As is known, each teletext page has seven items: page magazine, ten pages tens, one page units, ten hours tens, one hour units, Ten hours, ten hours, ten minutes and ten minutes are consistently identified. The user can select the desired pages for playback in the information bar 11 by entering this information via menu control, i.e. via an appropriate graphical user interface. Programming such user interfaces is well known to those skilled in the art and will not be described further.

Alternatively, the remote control device 10 may have an appropriate selection button 12 that the user can press when the user is viewing the desired teletext page. In general, the user would like the text from the selected teletext page or pages to be displayed in more detail in the information bar 11. For example, a user may only be interested in the arrival / departure of certain aircraft, the price of certain stocks, and the like. The control unit 9 selects the text of the teletext page for display by the user selecting, for example, an area of the teletext page using a cursor operated with the arrow keys of the remote control device 10. Can be programmed. As another possibility, the control unit 9 can be programmed so that the user can enter such keywords that inform the control unit to display all lines of text of the teletext page with certain keywords. Alternatively, text selection may also be based on text color.

As is known, teletext systems can include multi-paged text pages. In this case, several text areas on different pages may be selected at one time, and the selected text areas may be displayed in the information bar 11 in order.

Preferably the teletext information is displayed in the information bar 11 in a scrolling manner. The control unit 9 can be programmed so that the user can choose between several display options. In a first selection, the selected text is displayed continuously in the information bar 11 in a scrolling manner. According to a second selection, the user may select a periodic display of the selected text for a predetermined duration and according to a third selection the user may choose to display the selected page only if the teletext page is updated. In a third selection the selected page is again displayed for a predetermined duration. The duration of displaying the selected page may be controlled by the user using the remote control apparatus 10. In particular in the third option, the user can see the normal video program which is not completely disturbed by the information bar 11 unless there is new information to be read. As soon as new information arrives, the selected page is displayed in the information bar 11 for the desired duration.

In order to improve the readability of the selected page in the information bar, the user can change the scrolling speed using the remote control device 11. Optionally, the user can pause scrolling of the selected page on every new line.

In general, the information bar 11 is displayed at the bottom of the display device 6 as shown in the figure. However, in a video program with subtitles, for example, the information bar 11 can be moved to another position on the screen. For this purpose the control unit 9 is programmed so that the user can move the information bar 11 using the conventional arrow keys of the remote control device 10.

In addition, the control unit 9 is programmed so that the user can change the color of the text and / or background displayed on the information bar 11.

Due to the formatting on the normal teletext screen, there are generally some spaces or control characters inserted between the words of the text. This is done for example to sort the columns. When some lines of the teletext page are displayed in the information bar, those spaces or special control characters will break up the words in the sentence. In the system mentioned, this is avoided by programming the control unit 9 such that several consecutive spaces or special control characters are replaced with a single space character. In this method, words of the selected text of the teletext page are displayed in normal intermediate spacing.

As mentioned above, it is evident that a system for displaying teletext information is provided in which a user can select teletext information displayed in an information bar displayed in the normal video program. The system includes a video decoder for providing video information, a teletext decoder for providing teletext information and a display for playing the video information or teletext information. A control unit is also provided for controlling the information reproduced by the display, the control unit being capable of selecting teletext information by the user for reproduction by the display as teletext information in the video image reproduced from the video information. To be programmed. In this way teletext information can be displayed substantially without disturbing the normal video program being played simultaneously with the teletext information. The teletext decoder is advantageously used so that the user can select any teletext information for playback by the display in the information bar in various ways as mentioned above. The system is highly flexible in selecting the teletext information to be displayed.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments and can be modified in various ways within the scope of the appended claims.

It is applicable to a system for displaying teletext information and to a television or video recorder comprising such a system.

Claims (11)

A system for displaying teletext information, comprising: a video decoder for providing video information, a teletext decoder for providing teletext information, a display for reproducing video information or teletext information, and controlling the information reproduced by the display In the system comprising a control unit, And the control unit is programmed to enable a user to select teletext information for reproduction by the display as teletext information in the video image reproduced from the video information. 2. The teletext information display system of claim 1 wherein the teletext information is displayed in a scrolling manner in the information bar. 3. A teletext information display system as claimed in claim 2, wherein the control unit is programmed to control the scrolling. 4. Teletext information according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the control unit is programmed to be able to select a teletext page and select a portion of the selected teletext page for playback in the information bar. Display system. The method of claim 4 wherein the control unit is programmed to select a teletext page using menu control or using one or more selection buttons, wherein the text portion of the selected teletext page uses cursor control or Or using more keywords, in the case of multi-page teletext information text portions of different pages may be selected and the order of the selected text portions of different pages to be displayed in the information bar may be controlled. Teletext information display system. 6. The control unit as claimed in claim 4 or 5, wherein the control unit continues the display of the information bar with the selected teletext information only during an update of the corresponding teletext information for a predetermined duration or for a predetermined duration. And, periodically selected for selection, preferably, the duration can be controlled. 7. Tele, as claimed in any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the control unit is programmed to replace several consecutive space characters and / or special control characters in the selected teletext information with a single space character. Text information display system. 8. A teletext information display system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the control unit is programmed to control the position of the information bar on the display. The teletext information display according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is programmed to control the background color of the information bar and / or the color of the teletext information displayed in the information bar. system. 10. A television device comprising a system according to any of the preceding claims. 10. A video recorder comprising the system according to any of the preceding claims.