MXPA96005481A

MXPA96005481A - Title or subtitulation of automatic description for a recording of a reproductor of tapes of vi

Info

Publication number: MXPA96005481A
Application number: MXPA/A/1996/005481A
Authority: MX
Inventors: Edwin Hailey James
Original assignee: Thomson Consumer Electronics Inc
Priority date: 1995-11-09
Filing date: 1996-11-08
Publication date: 1997-08-01

Abstract

In a television system in which less program title information is transmitted in advance for programs to be transmitted in the future, to form a channel guide list, an apparatus is provided for acquiring title information and the current date, and generate a visual display signal comprising data representing a text screen containing a title information and the current date to record a visual display on the screen that the user can see on a videotape before the signal from the television program. The title or date information acting as a guide for the next television show. In a second embodiment of the present invention, in those cases where a descriptive text accompanies the program listing, the apparatus of the present invention records the descriptive text related to the title, the protagonist, the director, or the context of the program.

Description

TITLE OR SUBTITULATION OF AUTOMATIC DESCRIPTION FOR A RECORDING OF A VIDEO TAPE PLAYER The present invention concerns the field of video cartridge players and programmers of television programs. Many viewers record television programs to play at a more convenient time. This practice is commonly known as "time change". Unfortunately, many people today have little free time in their hectic schedules to spend time watching these tapes. As a result, a considerable number of tapes containing these changed recordings of time can be accumulated before the viewer reproduces them. In the best of all possible worlds, the viewer will have the outer part of each tape labeled with the title and date of the recorded television program. However, in actual practice, there is little chance that one is so organized. Consequently, a viewer may have three or four tapes accumulated, each containing an episode of a favorite show and, in the absence of neatly labeled tapes, then the viewer must play a portion of each tape to see if that is the desired episode . Many video recorder cameras include an electronic titration circuitry that includes a dashboard to add a text screen superimposed on the image being recorded, so that the user can record a title along with the video. However, given the fact that many viewers do not even label their tapes, it is highly unlikely that a viewer would use such a time-consuming and tedious feature to electronically title each tape. On the other hand, the electronic titling through the use of a board is contrary to the current trend in the industry to make the recording of a television program a quick and easy procedure. In a television system in which at least one program title information is transmitted in advance for the programs that are to be transmitted in the future to form a channel guide listing, the apparatus for acquiring at least one information is provided. of the title and the current date, and generating a visual display signal comprising data representing a text screen containing at least one title information and the current date to record a visual screen display that the user can see on a videotape before the signal of the television program. Then the title that the user can see or date information acts as a guide for the next television show. In a second embodiment of the present invention, in those cases where a descriptive text accompanies the list of programs, the apparatus of the present invention records the descriptive text related to the title, the protagonist, the director, or the context of the program. FIGURE 1 is an illustration of a visual screen display of a portion of a typical channel guide, as is known from the prior art. FIGURE 2 is an illustration of a visual screen display showing an auxiliary text description associated with a particular program guide entry, as is known from the prior art. FIGURE 3 is an illustration of a visual display of titration screen in accordance with the present invention. FIGURE 4 is an illustration in block diagram form of an apparatus suitable for the practice of the present invention. FIGURE 5 is a flowchart illustrating an automatic titration process suitable for use in the present invention. Television systems such as the direct-broadcast satellite system RCAR DSSR and StarsightR transmit channel guides for visual display on the subscribers' television receivers. FIGURE 1 shows a visual display of the Program Guide screen produced, for example, by a direct transmission satellite receiver system RCAR DSSR, manufactured by Thomson Consumer Electronics, Inc. Indianapolis, IN. A user selects a television program from a Program Guide 100 to view it, by means of moving a cursor (by operating the direction control keys up, down, right, and left of the remote control, which are not shown) to a block of the visual screen display of the program guide that contains the name of the desired program. When a RECORD key on the remote control is pressed, the cursor position x and y are evaluated to derive the virtual channel and program schedule information. In this example, a particular television program, TRAVEL TO THE STARS, has been highlighted for selection by using the cursor keys on a remote control unit (eg, 450R of FIGURE 4). The highlighting is illustrated by the dark box by profiling the title in FIGURE 1. After pressing the RECORD key, the relevant programming data is transferred to a programming unit such as the video tape player 402 of FIGURE 4. This procedure is commonly known as one-touch recording. In FIGURE 2, a text box 210 is displayed visually at the top of the Program Guide 200. The text box 210 contains title, schedule, channel and date information, and may also contain a description of the highlighted program. This information is derived from the auxiliary information signals transmitted with the program signals. In terrestrial systems, such as StarsightR, it is transmitted during the vertical blanking interval. In the DSSR satellite system, it is transmitted in data packets together with the program guide information, the description information packets, and the program data. The present invention recognizes that this auxiliary information can be used to form a "guide tape" for the program to be recorded. In this way, the title of the program and the date on the tape are recorded as a visual screen display (OSD) that the user can read before the desired television program. FIGURE 3 shows such screen display 310 being displayed visually on the screen of a screen receiver 300 during playback, just before the start of the recorded program. The visual display includes program information such as title, date, start time, channel, points, and may also include a description of the program. Although it is not necessary to record all this information, it is preferable that at least the title information be used or at least the information of the date to form the program information screen. For example, it might be easy to identify an episode of a given television series (eg, Star Trek), and all that is needed for more identification is to visually display the date on which the episode was recorded. On the other hand, in the present it is also recognized that in some cases it could be useful for the spectator additional descriptive text of the content, to identify the television program recorded in the video cartridge. As mentioned above, the data of the channel guide used by the controller of the present apparatus can be received from a satellite television communication system, or from standard terrestrial transmissions. FIGURE 4 shows such a satellite television communication system in which a 400S satellite receives a signal representing audio, video, or data information from a transmitter based on the ground 400T. The satellite amplifies and retransmits this signal to a plurality of 400R receivers, located in the residences of consumers, by means of response radio beacons operating at specified frequencies and having given bandwidths. Such a system includes a portion of upper link transmission (earth to satellite), a unit of reception and transmission of a satellite rotating around the earth, and a lower link portion (satellite to ground) including a receiver located in the residence of the user. In such a satellite system, the information necessary to select a given television program is not fixedly programmed within each receiver, but rather is continuously loaded downward from the satellite in each response beacon. The television program selection information comprises a data set known as a Master Program Guide (MPG), which describes the titles of the television program, its start and end times, a virtual channel number to be displayed visually to the user, and information that distributes virtual channels to the frequencies of the response beacon and to a position in the data stream multiplexed by time transmitted by a particular response beacon. In such a system, it is not possible to tune any channel until the first master program guide is received from the satellite, because until the guide is received, the receiver (IRD, or Integrated Receiver Decoder) literally does not know the location of any channel , in terms of frequency and position (ie, data time slot) inside the data stream in no response beacon. A master program guide of preference is transmitted on all response beacons with the video and audio data of the television program, and is repeated periodically, for example, every 2 seconds. Once received, the master program guide is maintained in a memory unit in the receiver, and it is updated periodically, for example, every 30 minutes. The retention of the master program guide allows the instantaneous selection of the television program because the necessary selection data are always available. If the master program guide is to be discarded after using it to select a television program, then a delay of at least two seconds will be incurred while a new program guide is acquired, before any other selections can be made. TV shows. Once the channel response beacon carrying a desired television program is tuned, data packets containing audio and video information for that program can be selected from the data stream received from the response beacon. , by examining the data packets for the 12-bit code of the SCID (Service Component Identifier). If the Service Component Identifier of the newly received data packet matches the Service Component Identifier of the desired television program, as listed in the program guide, then the data packet is routed to the appropriate processing sections. receiver data. If the Service Component Identifier of a particular packet does not match the Service Component Identifier of the desired television program, as listed in the program guide, then the data packet is discarded. A brief description of the hardware of the system is given below, suitable for the implementation of the present invention described above. In FIGURE 4, a transmitter 400T processes a data signal from a source 401 (e.g., a television signal source) and transmits it to a 400S satellite, which receives and relays the signal to a receiving antenna 400A, which applies the signal to a 400R receiver. The transmitter 400T includes an encoder 410T, a modulator (i.e., front error modulator / corrector (FEC)) 420T, and a top link unit 430T. The encoder 410T compresses and encodes the signals from the source 401, in accordance with a predetermined standard such as MPEG. MPEG is an international standard developed by the Moving Picture Expert Group of the International Standards Organization for the encoded representation of motion pictures and the storage medium of audio or associated digital storage . A coded signal is supplied from the 410T unit to the Modulator / Front Error Corrector 420T, which encodes the signal with error correction data, and the Quaternary Phase Shift Key (QPSK) modulates the encoded signal on a carrier. The upper link unit 430T transmits the compressed and coded signal to the 400S satellite, which transmits the signal to a selected geographic reception area. The signal from the satellite 400S is received by an antenna dish 400A coupled to an input of a so-called up-receiver 400R (i.e., an interface device located at the top of a television receiver). The receiver 400R includes a demodulator (forward error correction demodulator / decoder) 410R for demodulating the signal and for decoding the error correction data, an infrared receiver 412 for receiving infrared remote control commands, a microprocessor 415R, which operates interactively with the forward error correction / scrambler unit 410R and a transport unit 420R to transport the signal to an appropriate decoder 430R within the unit 400R, depending on the content of the signal, i.e. audio or video information. An NTSC 440R encoder encodes the decoded signal into a format suitable for use by signal processing circuits in a standard NTSC consumer tape player 402 and a standard NTSC consumer television receiver 403. The microprocessor (or microcontroller, or microcomputer) 415R receives infrared control signals from the remote control unit 450R, and sends the control information to the video cassette player 402 via an infrared link 418R. The 415R microprocessor also generates the on-screen visual display signals needed to present the interactive sentence, or confirmation sentence, to the user. The 415R microprocessor also receives and interprets X and Y information from the cursor key in order to control the highlighting of the user's selections in the visual displays on the screen. FIGURE 5 is a flow chart showing the operation of the controller (eg, the 415R microcontroller of the DSS 400R receiver) a little before the designated recording schedule of a program. desired television. The routine is introduced in step 500. In step 515 a command is sent to the video tape player 402 (by infrared signal or over a control busbar) to turn on the video tape player. In step 520, the DSS circuit system is controlled to select the appropriate television program (i.e., select the appropriate signal from the correct satellite, from the correct response beacon, and from the correct time slot in the current of data). In step 525, a visual display of the title and description screen is prepared and output to the video tape player 402 and the television receiver 403. If it turns out that the television receiver 403 is on, it will be visually displayed the title and description screen on the television receiver screen 403. In step 528 the DSS unit is on (ie energized from a standby state, if necessary). In step 530, the video tape player 402 is controlled to begin recording. What will be recorded at this time is the title and description screen generated by the DSS 400R receiver. In steps 535 and 540 a delay is executed for an appropriate period of time to allow the user to read the title and description screen when the cartridge is being played. In step 545, the title and description screen is removed to allow recording of the desired television program. The recording will continue during steps 550 and 555 until the program is finished. In step 560, the video tape player is controlled to stop recording and shut down. In step 570 the DSS 400R receiver is turned off, and the routine is output in step 575. In this way, an apparatus has been described for automatically recording a recording on a video tape, which requires no action on the part of the viewer, other than selecting the program that will be recorded. It is important to note that the user can read the recorded title information when the tape is played. Although the system has been described with respect to one-touch recording, it is equally applicable to recording by chronometer, because the DSSR system or the StarsightR system can access the necessary data from a knowledge of time and channel. Although the present invention has been described with respect to a video tape player, any recording device, such as a recordable videodisc or electronic memory storage or a computer-type disc drive, is contemplated and is considered which fall within the scope of the following claims.

Claims

1. - An automatic titration apparatus for a recording device, comprising: elements (415R, 420R) for selecting a particular television program to be recorded at a future time, from a plurality of television programs; an item (410R) for acquiring schedule information of television programs, including at least one title and date for each of the television programs; elements (430R, 440R, 402) for processing and recording television signals representative of the selected television signal; an element (415R) for generating signals to visually display a message suitable for visual screen display (403), said message including at least one title and date information of that particular television program, and characterized by: an element (402) to record at least one title and date information of the particular television program in a storage medium of the recording device as a visual display message on the screen that the viewer can see and, after that, record the particular television program.

2. The automatic titling apparatus of claim 1, characterized in that: the visual display element (403) visually displays the programming information to enable the viewer to select the particular television program.

3. The automatic titling apparatus of claim 1, characterized in that: the message recorded in the recording medium includes descriptive text of the content related to the particular television program.

4. An automatic titration apparatus for a recording device, comprising: a source (400A) of television signals and schedule information of television programs, including at least one of a title and a date for each television program in the schedule; an element (420) for selecting one of the television signals; elements (430R, 440R, 402) for processing and recording the selected television signal; an input element (412R) for entering data in response to a user's operation; an element (415R) for generating signals to visually display the schedule information in a form that the user can read; and a control element (415R) coupled to the input element (412R), to the selection element (420), and to the processing and recording elements (430R, 440R, 402), to select a particular television program for recording, from the schedule information in response to said data, and characterized in that: the control element (415R) that gives access to the schedule information and causes the recording of at least one title and date information of the particular television program in a storage medium of the recording device, such as a visual display message that the user can see and, after that, record the particular television program.

The automatic titling apparatus of claim 4, characterized in that: the visual display element (403) visually displays the programming information to enable the viewer to select the particular television program.

6. The automatic titration apparatus of claim 5, characterized in that: the message recorded in the recording medium includes descriptive text of the content related to the particular television program.

7. A method for automatically titling a recording of a television program, when that television program is recorded on a recording device, comprising the steps of: selecting a particular television program to be recorded in the future from a plurality of television programs; Acquiring information about the schedule of the television program, including at least one of a title and a date for each of the television programs; generating signals to visually display a message suitable for visual display on the screen, including the message at least one title and date information of the particular television program, and characterized in that: it records at least one title and date information of the particular television program in a storage medium of the recording device as a visual display message that the user can see on the screen, and thereafter records the particular television program. The method of claim 7, comprising the additional step of: causing the display element on the screen to visually display the schedule information to enable the viewer to select the particular television program. The method of claim 1, comprising the additional step of: recording the descriptive text of the content of the recording medium related to the particular television program. COMPENDIUM In a television system in which less program title information is transmitted in advance for programs to be transmitted in the future, to form a channel guide list, an apparatus is provided for acquiring title information and the current date, and generate a visual display signal comprising data representing a text screen containing a title information and the current date to record a visual display on the screen that the user can see on a videotape before the signal from the television program. The title information or date acting as a guide for the following television program.- In a second embodiment of the present invention, in those cases where a descriptive text accompanies the list of programs, the apparatus of the present invention records the text descriptive related to the title, the protagonist, the director, or the context of the program.