EP1836846A1

EP1836846A1 - Apparatus and method for resource management in data broadcast receiver

Info

Publication number: EP1836846A1
Application number: EP06702712A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Kyu-tae 108-204 Cheonggu Narae Apt. YANG; Bong-ho 512-1108 Cheongsol Apt. LEE; Gwang-Soon Lee; Young-kwon 133-101 Hanbit Apt. HAHM; Soo-In Lee; Do-Hyung 18f Nara Investment Banking Corp. KIM
Original assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute ETRI; Alticast Corp
Current assignee: Alticast Corp
Priority date: 2005-01-12
Filing date: 2006-01-12
Publication date: 2007-09-26
Also published as: EP1836846A4; KR100742614B1; WO2006075884A1; KR20060082432A

Abstract

Provided is a resource management apparatus for a data broadcast receiving device that can make an application use resources efficiently by categorizing one or more resources into an essential group and an optional group and managing and distributing them on a group basis, and clearly control and distribute resources requested essentially or optionally by a predetermined application based on a policy, and a method thereof . The apparatus includes a resource request receiving unit for receiving the request for resources required by an application on a group basis; and a resource distributing unit for distributing the resources corresponding to the group unit to the application.

Description

APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN DATA

BROADCAST RECEIVER

Description Technical Field

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for managing resources in a data broadcast receiving device ; and more particularly, to a resource management apparatus for controlling the ownership and right to make use of resources that an application should use in a data broadcast receiver , such as a Digital Multimedia Broadcasting ( DMB ) executing a plurality of applications , and a method thereof .

Background Art

Data broadcast independently sends a data file and executable program codes in real-time in addition to traditional broadcast that broadcasts video and audio such as television and radio . A data broadcast receiving device receives and analyzes the data file and the program codes , then it displays accordingly . Generally , the data broadcast receiving device analyzes the program codes , shows them to a user through a graphic user interface , and operates upon input from the user .

In the process , diverse hardware devices such as a graphic device , an input device , a tuner , a video decoder , and an audio decoder, should be controlled in the data broadcast receiver . Generally , a system software that manages low-level hardware resources and provides high- level services to applications is called middleware .

Current data broadcast-related standard technologies are represented by the Multimedia Home Platform ( DVB-MHP ) Specification established by the DVB of the Europe in connection with the digital television . The specification features transmitting Java applications through the DMB broadcasting network, and it is designed for the transmitted Java program to receive diverse types of data such as image and control the data broadcast receiving device . At present, the specification provides a basis to the OpenCable Application Plateform ( OCAP ) and the Advanced Common Application Platform (ACAP ) , which are the U . S . digital cable data broadcast specifications .

Meanwhile , the Digital Multimedia Broadcasting ( DMB ) is technology for receiving high-quality digital video even when users are moving at a high-speed . Related data broadcast specification is underway in the name of DMB MATE in Korea .

Just as the digital television , the DMB MATE receives Java programs and data based on Java-based specifications through the DMB broadcasting network and controls the data broadcast receiving device to thereby provide diverse services to users .

In case of conventional data broadcast receivers , proprietary resources are controlled among many applications in the following two methods .

One is that an application requests and acquires resources on the basis of individual resource before it uses them. An example of this method is a resource management model suggested by the Digital Audio Visual

Council ( DAVIC ) , which is one of organizations for establishing standards of video/audio devices . When middleware can provide resources desired by an application , the application requests and acquires the resources , uses them for a required time , and then returns the resources to the middleware after using them. When an application acquires a resource and another application requests the resource again before the first application preoccupying the resource returns the resource . This model provides a method determining which of the two applications will have the resource by exchanging messages . However , this model has a problem that none of the applications can be executed in case that a plurality of applications should acquire more than two resources to begin operation , or in case that an application is deprived of the acquired resource while it requests other resources .

The other method is that the data broadcast middleware requests and acquires resources needed for work on a basis of individual work that the data broadcast middleware provides to an application . An example of this method is a resource management model suggested in the DAB- Java by the WorldDAB , which is a standardization organization related to digital radio technology . According to the method, an application does not request a resource when it is in need of the resource for a particular work, but it requests the execution of the work. Then , a data broadcast middleware controls the ownership of the resource , which is needed for the work, in a similar way as the first method . In the second method, resources can be processed by being grouped into a bunch within one sort of work, but the logical work unit of the application may be formed of a plurality of works executed in the data broadcast receiving device , there is the same problem as that of the first method that none of applications acquires resources in need or subsequent work is stopped due to lack of resources .

Disclosure Technical Problem

It is , therefore , an object of the present invention to provide a resource management apparatus for a data broadcast receiving device that can make an application use resources efficiently by categorizing one or more resources into an essential group and an optional group and managing and distributing them on a group basis , and clearly control and distribute resources requested essentially or optionally by a predetermined application based on a policy, and a method thereof . The other objects and advantages will be able to be understood by the following description and embodiments . Also, it is obvious to those skilled in the art that the objects and advantages of the present invention can be realized by the means as claimed and combinations thereof .

Technical Solution

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention , there is provided a resource managing apparatus for receiving a request for resources required by an application and distributing the resources on a group basis in a data broadcast receiving device , which includes : a resource request receiving unit for receiving the request for resources required by an application on a group basis ; and a resource distributing unit for distributing the resources corresponding to the group unit to the application .

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention , there is provided a resource managing method for receiving a request for resources required by an application and distributing the resources on a group basis in a data broadcast receiving device , which includes the steps of : a ) receiving the request for resources requested by an application on a group basis ; and b ) distributing resources corresponding to the group unit to the application .

Advantageous Effects

The present invention described above can increase resource applicability in a data broadcast receiving device capable of executing a plurality of applications simultaneously by grouping resources into an essential group and an optional group for each application and requesting , acquiring , and abandoning resources on a group basis . The present invention can also simplify the application and the data broadcast receiving device and enhance a process efficiency additionally .

Also, the present invention solves the problem of inefficient use of resources , which is caused as an application acquires only part of essential resources and removes inefficiency that the resource ownership is managed on an individual resource basis by dividing resources into essential resources that the application necessarily needs and optional resources needed optionally .

Description of Drawings

The above and other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments given in conjunction with the accompanying drawings , in which :

Fig . 1 is a block diagram illustrating a data broadcast receiving device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention ;

Fig . 2 is a block diagram showing a resource managing unit in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention ;

Fig . 3 is a flowchart describing a resource management process in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention ;

Fig . 4 shows a process of distributing resources on an essential group basis in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention ; Fig . 5 shows a process of distributing resources on an optional group basis in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention ; and

Fig . 6 shows a process of distributing resources including an essential group and an optional group in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention .

Best Mode for the Invention

Other objects and aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following description of the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings , which is set forth hereinafter . Accordingly, the technological concept of the present invention can be easily implemented by those skilled in the art of the present invention . Also , when it is considered that detailed description on a related art of the present invention may obscure the points of the description , the description will not be provided herein . Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings .

Fig . 1 is a block diagram illustrating a data broadcast receiving device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention .

As illustrated in Fig . 1 , the data broadcast receiving device includes a plurality of applications 200 , resources 300 , and a resource managing unit 100 for managing and controlling the resources 300 , the resource ownership and on the right to use of each resource , which will be simply referred to as a resource use right hereinafter , on a group basis between the applications 200 and the resources 300.

As shown in the drawing, the resources 300 controlled by the data broadcast receiving device include a user input device , a graphic device , a media decoder , a communication interface , a tuner , and a storage . Among the resources , the tuner and the media decoder are resources that should be proprietarily used by one application at one time .

The resource managing unit 100 is mounted on a system as a system software or middleware , which is mentioned in the description of a related art . When a plurality of applications 200 are executed, the resource managing unit 100 provides a unit capable of requesting the resources needed for each application to execute a predetermined work on a group basis and, at the same time , it provides a procedure for appropriately changing the ownership of resources between applications . The structure and operation of the managing unit 100 will be described in detail with reference to drawings .

Generally, applications require many resources such as a tuner , a video decoder , a video overlay . Herein , overlay stands for a physical space for representing video . Each application generally executes more than one work, such as a predetermined channel tuning and video replay .

Therefore , an application needs to acquire many resources at once on the basis of a unit required by the application . When resources are acquired one by one individually or on a basis of a predetermined work, the application may lose pre-acquired resources to another application while it acquires resources for another work, or it may occupy unnecessary resources while it still has resources that it needs to acquire but has not acquired . Therefore , the resource managing unit 100 of the present invention divides resources into an essential group , which is formed of a plurality of essential resources , and an optional group, which is formed of resources optionally required among many resources , and manages the resource ownership and the resource use right on a group basis .

Fig . 2 is a block diagram showing the resource managing unit 100 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention . As shown in Fig . 2 , the resource managing unit 100 includes a resource request receiver 110 , a resource use right distributor 120 , a resource use right authenticator 130 , a resource ownership change notifier 140 , and a resource ownership registry 150. The resource ownership registry 150 registers such information as which application currently owns and uses which hardware/software resources in the data broadcast receiving device .

The resource request receiver 110 receives resource request data from the application on a group basis , manages the resource requests transmitted from many applications such that the same resource is not requested, and outputs resource ownership change request data to the resource use right distributor 120 in response to the received resource request data .

The group unit may be an essential group or an optional group . The essential group is formed of resources that an application necessarily needs . When any one of the resources of the essential group is not acquired, even the other resources cannot be used. On the other hand, at least one resource of the optional group is acquired, the acquired resource can be used individually .

Also, the resource request data include priority information of an application . The priority information is used when a plurality of applications request the same resource . A resource ownership and a resource use right are preferentially distributed to an application with a high priority order .

The resource use right distributor 120 receives the resource ownership change request data , manages a resource ownership that corresponds to received resource request result data based on the priority order of the application program with respect to the resources with reference to the resource ownership status data of the resource ownership information , and changes the resource ownership and the resource use right .

The resource ownership change notifier 140 notifies the resource ownership change to a program which has originally possessed the resource before the change upon the change in the resource ownership .

The resource use right authenticator 130 checks not the resource ownership but the resource use right whenever an application uses resources , and notifies the program that has requested the resource of the resource use right check result .

Fig . 3 is a flowchart describing a resource management process in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention .

First , in step S310 , the resource request receiver 110 receives resource request data from an application on the basis of an essential group and/or an optional group .

In step S320 , the resource request receiver 110 requests the resource use right distributor 120 to change the ownership of resources on the basis of the above-determined group .

Subsequently, in step S330 , the resource use right distributor 120 refers to the resource ownership status stored in the resource ownership registry 150 , changes the ownership of resources on the group basis , and registers the change in the resource ownership registry 150.

When the group unit is an essential group and any one of the resources of the essential group cannot have its ownership changed, the ownership of all the resources of the group cannot be changed . The resource ownership can be changed only when all the resources of the group can have their ownership changed . When the group unit is an optional group, the group ownership is changed with respect to one resource which can have its resource ownership changed . Subsequently, in step S340 , the resource use right distributor 120 notifies the change in the resource ownership to an application which originally possesses the resource whose ownership is changed through the resource ownership change notifier 140. In step S350 , the resource use right distributor 120 registers the changed the resource use right in the resource ownership registry 150. In step S360 , the resource use right distributor 120 notifies a resource request result corresponding to the received resource request data to an application which requested for the resource through the resource request receiver 110.

Then , in step S370 , the application program which has received the resource request result outputs resource use right check request data to the resource use right authenticator 130 when it uses the resource it requested to use . In step S380 , the resource use right authenticator 130 inquires the resource ownership registry 150 and notifies the resource use right check result to the application . Fig . 4 shows a process of distributing resources on an essential group basis in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention .

In the embodiment shown in the drawing , an application A requests a resource 1 and a resource 2 to thereby form an essential group, and an application B also requests the resource 1 and a resource 3 to form another essential group . In this case , the two applications acquire all the requested resources .

When the resources 1 , 2 and 3 are all available resources and the application A has a higher priority order than the application B , the resource managing unit distributes the resources 1 and 2 , which are designated as resources of an essential group, to the application A. Herein , the priority orders are registered in the resource request data . In short , the resource managing unit acquires and transmits both resource 1 and resource 2 to the application A with the higher priority order and it notifies the application B that the resource acquisition is failed . Therefore , it is possible to prevent the applications from being hold back for execution while they secure only- one of the resources 1 and 2 , individually , and wait for the resource possessed by their counterpart . Also, although one application fails to acquire even one resource , this method does not make the application affect the operation of the other application by immediately abandoning other resources it has acquired so that the other application can be executed .

Fig . 5 shows a process of distributing resources on an optional group basis in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention .

In the embodiment shown in Fig . 5 , an application A requests a resource 1 and a resource 2 to thereby form an optional group, and an application B requests the resource 1 and the resource 2 to thereby form an optional group .

When the resources 1 and 2 are all available resources and the application A has a higher priority order than the application B , the resource managing unit distributes only any one ( resource 1 ) of the resources 1 and 2 designated for the optional group to the application A, and it distributes the other resource ( resource 2 ) to the application B . Then , the applications A and B can acquire and use any one of the resources 1 and 2.

Fig . 6 is view describing a process of distributing resources including both essential group and optional group in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention .

In the embodiment shown in the drawing, an application A requests an optional group including a resource 2 and a resource 3 to form an essential group and it further requests a resource 1 for the essential group . On the other hand, an application B requests the optional group including the resources 2 and 3 to form an essential group and it further requests a resource 4 for the essential group . When the resources 1 , 2 , 3 and 4 are all available resources and the application A has a higher priority order , which is registered in the resource request data, than the application B, the resource managing unit distributes the resource 1 and any one ( resource 2 ) of the resources 2 and 3 designated as the optional group to the application A and distributes the resource 4 and the other resource ( resource 3 ) available in the optional group to the application B . Therefore, both of the applications A and B can acquire one of the resources of the optional group and the resource of the essential group .

The method of the present invention , which is described above , can be realized as a program and stored in a computer-readable recording medium such as CD-ROM, RAM, ROM, a floppy disk, a hard disk, and a magneto-optical disk . Since the process can be easily implemented by those skilled in the art of the present invention , further description on it will not be provided herein .

While the present invention has been described with respect to certain preferred embodiments , it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the following claims .

Industrial Applicability

The technology of the present invention can be applied to a Digital Multimedia Broadcasting ( DMB ) receiver .

Claims

What is claimed is :

1. A resource managing apparatus for managing resources on a group basis in a data broadcast receiving device , comprising : a resource request receiving unit for receiving the request for resources required by an application based on a group unit; and a resource distributing unit for distributing the resources corresponding to the group unit to the application .

2. The apparatus as recited in claim 1 , wherein the group unit is an essential group of essential resources , in which when at least any one of the resources included in the essential group is not acquired, the other resources of the essential group cannot be used .

3. The apparatus as recited in claim 1 , wherein the group unit is an optional group including optional resources , in which although only at least any one of the resources included in the optional group is acquired , the acquired resource can be used .

4. The apparatus as recited in claim 1 , wherein the group unit includes : an essential group which is a group of essential resources , in which when at least any one of the resources included in the essential group is not acquired, the resources of the essential group cannot be used, and an optional group including optional resources , in which when at least any one of the resources included in the optional group is acquired, the acquired resource can be used .

5. The apparatus as recited in claim 1 , wherein the resource request receiving unit receives priority order information of the application that has requested resources along with the resource request data .

6. The apparatus as recited in claim 1 , wherein when the group unit is the essential group and when all resources of the group can be distributed, the resource distributing unit distributes a resource ownership for all the resources of the group .

7. The apparatus as recited in claim 1 , wherein when the group unit is the optional group, the resource distributing unit distributes a resource ownership for any one resource among the resources of the group .

8. The apparatus as recited in claim 1 , wherein the resource distributing unit includes : a resource ownership registry for registering and storing information on which resource is currently owned and used by which application in the data broadcast receiving device ; a resource use right distributor for changing a resource ownership and a resource use right by referring to resource ownership status data stored in the resource ownership registry and managing the resource use right corresponding to the received resource request data based on a priority order of an application for the resources a resource use right authenticator for checking a resource use right when an application uses a resource and notifying a resource use right check result to the application; and a resource ownership change notifier for notifying an application which originally owns the resource that the ownership of the resource is changed, when the resource ownership is changed .

9. A resource managing method for managing resources on a group basis in a data broadcast receiving device , comprising the steps of : a ) receiving the request for resources requested by an application based on a group unit ; and b ) distributing resources corresponding to the group unit to the application .

10. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein the group unit includes : an essential group which is a group of essential resources , in which when at least any one of the resources included in the essential group is not acquired, the resources of the essential group cannot be used, and an optional group including optional resources , in which when at least any one of the resources included in the optional group is acquired, the acquired resource can be used.

11. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein , in the step a ) , priority order information of the application that has requested resources is received along with the resource request data .

12. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein, in the step b ) , when the group unit is the essential group and when all resources of the group can be distributed, a resource ownership for all the resources of the group is distributed .

13. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein , in the step b ) , when the group unit is the optional group , a resource ownership for any one resource among the resources of the group is distributed.

14. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein the step b ) includes the steps of : bl ) registering and storing resource ownership status data , which is information on which resource is currently owned and used by which application , in the data broadcast receiving device ; b2 ) changing a resource ownership and a resource use right by referring to resource ownership status data and managing the resource use right corresponding to the received resource request data based on a priority order of an application for the resources ; b3 ) checking a resource use right when an application uses a resource and notifying a resource use right check result to the application ; and b4 ) when the resource ownership is changed , notifying an application which originally owns the resource that the ownership of the resource is changed .