EP1876740A1 - Service guide fragmenting method, server and terminal to be used in a radio communication network - Google Patents

Abstract

The method involves analyzing request of service guides emitted by a radio communication terminal, and determining frequenting rules based on the analysis result. One of the service guides are fragmented by utilizing the frequenting rules, and a bi-directional or unidirectional mode is associated with the fragmented service guide in a radio communication server. The fragmented service guide is transmitted towards the terminal via a unidirectional network. Independent claims are also included for the following: (1) a radio communication server for controlling the transmission of service guides via unidirectional or bi-directional network (2) a radio communication terminal for receiving service guides via a unidirectional or bi-directional network (3) radio communication system comprising a terminal.

Description

The present invention relates to a fragmentation method of SG guides as well as a server and a terminal for a radio communication network.

Radiocommunications between a server and terminals may be in a unidirectional broadcast mode such that the server transmits radio signals for all terminals in its broadcast area. For example, the DMB DVB-H or MBMS protocols, meaning respectively in English, Digital Multimedia Broadcast, Digital Video Broadcast or Multimedia Broadcast / Multicast Service, use such broadcast or 'broadcast' in English.

The radiocommunications between a server and a terminal can also be carried out in a bidirectional mode called point-to-point or 'unicast' in English, such that the transmission of the server is only intended for this terminal. In this case, the radio communication is dual and the terminal also transmits radio communications with respect to the server. By way of example, mention may be made of radio communications implementing the UMTS or WIMAX protocols, meaning in English respectively Universal Mobile Telecommunications System or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access.

• Un premier type d'informations est un contenu multimédia comprenant, par exemple, des images, des sons, des séquences vidéo, du logiciel, des scripts ou du texte.
• Un second type d'information est relatif à l'organisation, la présentation ou l'accès du contenu multimédia indiqué ci-dessus. Ce second type d'information est compris dans un groupe dénommé par la suite guide SG pour 'Service Guide' en anglais. De tels guides SG, également dénommés ESG pour `Electronic Service Guide' en anglais dans l'art antérieur, sont décrits par exemple dans le projet de norme 'Service Guide for Mobile Broadcast Services', Draft version 1.0, du 15. février 2006, référencée OMA-TS-BCast_Service Guide-V1_0_0-20060215-D de l'Open Mobile Alliance..

In bidirectional or unidirectional radiocommunications, a server can issue two types of information:

• A first type of information is multimedia content including, for example, images, sounds, video sequences, software, scripts or text.
• A second type of information relates to the organization, presentation or access of the multimedia content indicated above. This second type of information is included in a group subsequently referred to as the SG Guide for Service Guide. Such SG guides, also referred to as ESG for the Electronic Service Guide in English in the prior art, are described for example in the Draft Service Guide for Mobile Broadcast Services, Draft version 1.0, of 15. February 2006, referenced OMA-TS-BCast_Service Guide-V1_0_0-20060215-D of the Open Mobile Alliance ..

Considering an offer of transmission of video programs accessible by broadcasting from a server to a mobil terminal, a guide SG can provide the terminal with information on these programs such as their broadcast schedules, their descriptions - for example with text , images, a video or a program of lower quality - or ways to purchase these programs.

An SG guide can also provide a so-called high-level description of a program, which typically includes the name of the program, its year of production, genre, director, key actors and a summary.

When the SG guides are transmitted by broadcast, the large amount of data to be transmitted by the server faces the bandwidth limits specific to the bandwidth of the radiocommunication concerned. As a result, the unidirectionally transmitted SG guides use a method called carousel with a loop transmission of the SG guides.

Such a method has the disadvantage of imposing on the user of a terminal a waiting period between the moment when he wishes to consult a given SG guide and the moment when this SG guide is issued by the server.

Furthermore, it is also known to transmit SG guides when, in a point-to-point radio (unicast in English), the terminal requires this transmission to a server that can provide such SG guides.

In this bidirectional mode, as in the unidirectional mode, there arises the problem of the need to memorize the SG guide in the terminal because the speed of access of a user to an SG guide is increased if this SG guide is maintained in the terminal memory. But this maintenance is even more problematic as the size of the SG guide is important.

The present invention aims to solve at least one of the disadvantages mentioned above. It results from a finding specific to the invention, namely that it is possible to fragment an SG guide comprising different information. For example, an SG guide comprising text and a video clip may be fragmented into two SG guide fragments including one text and one video clip.

• L'étape d'analyser des requêtes de guides SG émises par le terminal,
• L'étape de déterminer en fonction de cette analyse des règles de fréquentation, et
• L'étape de fragmenter au moins un guide SG en utilisant ces règles de fréquentation.

Therefore, the present invention relates to a fragmentation method of SG guides providing information on multimedia content accessible to a user. terminal by radio communication from a server via a unidirectional network or via a bidirectional network, this method being characterized in that it comprises:

• The step of analyzing requests from SG guides issued by the terminal,
• The step of determining according to this analysis of the rules of attendance, and
• The step of fragmenting at least one SG guide using these attendance rules.

Such an invention makes it possible to automatically cut SG guides, this fragmentation can be achieved using software (software) and / or hardware (hardware) components at a server issuing these SG guides as at a terminal receiving these SG guides.

This fragmentation is performed according to attendance rules representative of the interest of the user of the terminal in question with regard to information contained in SG guides. Thus, the invention makes it possible to identify information of increased interest for this (or these) user (s) and to provide personalized access to this information through the SG guide fragments.

When the fragmentation is implemented at the server, the method may include the step of associating with a guide fragment SG a unidirectional or bidirectional radiocommunication mode.

The fragmentation of SG guides can thus make it possible to avoid the unidirectional diffusion of SG guides having too large a size or being weakly required.

In this case, it reduces the time required to access a distributed SG guide since it reduces the amount of information transmitted by the carousel method by assigning to a bidirectional mode fragments of large size or little solicited by the user.

Finally, by accelerating access to a SG guide and customizing it, a method according to the invention makes the transmission of multimedia content by broadcasting more user-friendly and attractive, thus increasing the use of these contents by a user.

In one embodiment, two SG guide fragments are associated to be transmitted in different radiocommunication modes. Thus, the terminal receiving these two fragments according to these two distinct radio modes can combine them easily.

In one embodiment, a first fragment of the SG guide is sent from the server to the terminal via the unidirectional network, this fragment limiting the load required by the server for these broadcast transmissions with respect to the entire SG guide.

In this case, according to one embodiment, a second fragment is issued from the same SG guide as the first fragment, from the server to the terminal, via the bidirectional network. Thus, this second fragment is transmitted only if, for example, the terminal sends a request in this direction via this bidirectional network.

In one embodiment, the SG guides are fragmented according to predetermined rules before implementing the attendance rules. For example, these predetermined rules may be defined by the operator of the radio networks to manage the issuance of SG guides.

When the method is implemented at the terminal, the latter can fragment an SG guide received to store in the terminal a fragment of this SG guide. Thus, the use of the terminal memory can be optimized and access to the memorized fragment is carried out quickly.

The invention relates to. also a radio server which can control the transmission, via a unidirectional network or via a bidirectional network, of SG guides providing information on multimedia content accessible by radio communication, characterized in that it comprises a divider for fragmenting at least one SG guide according to rules of attendance at these guides SG.

In one embodiment, the server includes an SG guide query analyzer received by the server to determine these attendance rules.

In one embodiment, the server comprises means for associating a unidirectional or bidirectional radiocommunication mode with a guide fragment SG.

In one embodiment, the server comprises means for associating two SG guide fragments intended to be transmitted in different radio modes.

According to one embodiment, the server comprises means for radiocommunicating an SG guide fragment in a bidirectional mode or in a unidirectional mode.

In one embodiment, the server comprises means for fragmenting the SG guides according to predetermined rules prior to their fragmentation by attendance rules.

The invention also relates to a radiocommunications terminal that can receive, via a unidirectional network or via a bidirectional network, SG guides providing information on a multimedia content accessible to this terminal by radio communications, characterized in that it comprises means for determining rules of attendance to SG guides by analyzing his requests for SG guides and means to fragment at least one SG guide according to these attendance rules.

In one embodiment, the terminal comprises means for storing a guide fragment SG, this fragment being selected according to the attendance rules.

Finally, the invention also relates to a radio communication system comprising a server and at least one terminal, the server being able to control the transmission, via a unidirectional network or via a bidirectional network, of SG guides providing information on a multimedia content accessible to the terminal. by radio communication, characterized in that it comprises means for determining the rules of attendance of the terminal to these SG guides and means for fragmenting at least one SG guide according to these attendance rules.

Other features and advantages of the invention will emerge in the light of the description given below, by way of illustration and without being limiting, of an embodiment of this invention referring to the single attached figure on which is represented a radio network implementing a method according to the invention.

The method described below with the aid of the single figure appended to the application represents radiocommunications between a server 100 and terminals 102 and 104 located, respectively, in a cell 103 or 105 of respective radio networks 107 and 109. using a DVB-H protocol to broadcast multimedia content.

The server 100 transmits radiocommunications broadcast, or 'broadcast' in English, 106 vis-à-vis the terminal 102 or 108 vis-à-vis the terminal 104; the content of the broadcast can be distinct depending on the cell 103 or 105 considered.

Moreover, the server 100 can also implement a point-to-point transmission with the terminal 102 which is also in a bidirectional network 101 such as a UMTS network.

The terminal 102 can then receive an SG guide relating to multimedia content from the server 100 either in a unidirectional broadcast mode, or in a bidirectional point-to-point mode or in a combination of these two modes.

According to the invention, the server 100 and the terminal 102 comprise means for determining the rules of attendance of the terminal to these SG guides and means for fragmenting at least one SG guide according to these attendance rules, these various means being described in detail later.

Thus, when a guide SG is composed of a plurality of fragments relating to different information of a multimedia content, this SG guide can be fragmented at the server 100 or the terminal 102 according to the stored accesses of this terminal 102 to these informations.

At this stage, it should be noted that if the following description of the invention presents SG guide fragmentation means in the server 100 and in the terminal 102; it is clear that these means can be implemented independently.

• Dans une première étape, les différentes informations relatives à un contenu multimédia sont agrégées (112) en des guides SG par le fournisseur de service 1 10. Ces guides SG sont ensuite transmis à un diviseur 122 de guides SG qui, dans une seconde étape, peut fragmenter un guide SG en différents fragments, les différents fragments ainsi obtenus étant associés à différents paramètres tels qu'un mode de radiocommunications ou, plus précisément, un réseau de radiocommunications spécifique tel qu'un réseau DVB-H de diffusion ou UMTS point-à-point.

To fragment a SG guide at the server 100, different steps are implemented:

• In a first step, the various information relating to a multimedia content is aggregated (112) into SG guides by the service provider 1 10. These SG guides are then transmitted to a divider 122 of SG guides which, in a second step, can fragment a SG guide into different fragments, the different fragments thus obtained being associated with various parameters such as a radio mode or, more specifically, a specific radio network such as a broadcast DVB-H network or UMTS point- medium rare.

Also, it is possible to associate a guide to a sub-element of a network such as a cell 103 or 105 as in the example described.

Fragmentation of SG guides is performed automatically by considering rules 116 predetermined by the operator 114 of radio networks. For that, these predetermined rules can be memorized by indicating the different constituents of a guide and predefined attributes or information for a guide.

For example, an SG guide may be considered for multimedia content relating to a film production, this SG guide including as information a summary in the form of a text, an image and a video sequence as a trailer.

The predetermined rules 116 can then provide that the image and text portions of the guide are broadcast while, if the user wishes to see the sequence emptied, it will require the latter by the point-to-point network. Thus, this guide, which requires a large bandwidth and a large storage on the terminal, is no longer a constraint for the dissemination of SG guides via the unidirectional network 107.

These predetermined rules 116 make it possible to identify the SG guides to be fragmented and to perform their fragmentation. In the previous example, the SG guide comprising a summary in the form of a text, an image and a video sequence as a trailer is fragmented into a first fragment comprising the text and the image, intended broadcasting to the unidirectional network 107, and to a second fragment comprising the video sequence, intended for transmission via the bidirectional network 101.

The predetermined rules 116 may be modified to accommodate new needs of the operator 114, such as transmission schedules. For example, a presentation of a program may be required in the guides broadcast the day before the broadcast of that program. In another example, the operator can define a rule to describe specific SG guides such as payment based on access to content, or 'pay-per-view' in English.

The fragmentation of the SG guides also takes into account historical rules 120, or attendance, which are determined from the access analysis or access requests made by the terminal 102 for guides. For this purpose, the server 100 comprises a query analyzer 118 which supplies the base comprising the rules 120.

Thus, after the application of the rules 116 determined by the operator 114, the divider 122 takes into account the attendance rules 120. However, it should be noted that an SG guide may not be fragmented after the application of the predetermined rules 116 or 120 of attendance and be broadcast entirely broadcast.

For this purpose, the analyzer 1 18 includes a template SG guides that indicates attributes or information such as the genre and name of a content or the name of a guide. For example, by considering guides described in XML language, it is possible to use XML tags to describe such a model.

After applying the attendance rules 120, the divider 122 transmits the SG guides, fragmented or not, to a memory 124 in which these SG guides are classified according to the radio communication mode implemented for each of them, namely bidirectional or unidirectional.

Subsequently, this memory 124 transmits these SG guides or SG guide fragments to transmission means 126 carrying out their transmission in a broadcast mode, by the network 107, in a point-to-point mode, by the network 101, or by a combination of these two modes of radiocommunications.

In this example, the broadcast is performed in particular according to the geographical location of the terminal, namely in a cell 103 or 105 of a DVB-H network. In this case, the transmitter 126 must identify the network used for issuing an SG guide or a SG guide fragment before transmission and transmit differently with respect to each terminal 102 and 104.

The invention is implemented at the terminals 102 and 104 via an SG guide engine 130 which combines the SG guides or SG guide fragments received by diffusion with the SG guides or the SG guide fragments. received by the point-to-point network 101 when these relate to the same multimedia content.

Furthermore, these terminals 102 and 104 include a memory 132 which stores the SG guides frequently required by the user of the terminal. When the size of an SG guide is greater than the memory available to the terminal, the memory 132 selects SG fragments of the most relevant, for example the most consulted or having an optimal size with respect to the storage capacity terminal, to store these in the available size.

Thus, this memory 132 performs a fragmentation of SG guides with the help of an analysis of access or requests to SG guides. In other words, this memory 132 uses attendance rules established by the terminal vis-à-vis these accesses or access requests to SG guides.

A method according to the invention can be implemented, for example, in the Draft Service Guide for Mobile Broadcast Services, Draft version 1.0, of the February 15, 2006, referenced OMA-TS-BCast_ServiceGuide-V1_0_0-20060215-D of the Open Mobile Alliance already described or in any other method using a radiocommunication of SG in a broadcast mode or point-to-point, such as DVB processes.

The present invention is capable of many variants. Thus, in one variant, a terminal comprises means for displaying an incomplete SG guide, received for example by broadcast, while awaiting the transmission of complementary data in a bidirectional mode.

According to another variant, the user of a terminal can display on his screen the fragmentation rules of the SG guides applied by his terminal or by the operator in order, for example, to modify the latter.

Claims (16)

A method of fragmenting SG guides providing information on multimedia content accessible to a terminal (102) by radio communication from a server (100) via a unidirectional network (101) or via a bidirectional network (107), characterized in that that it includes: The step of analyzing (1 18) SG guide requests issued by the terminal (102), The step of determining (120) according to this analysis of the attendance rules, and - The step of fragmenting (122) at least one SG guide using these attendance rules. The method of claim 1 including the step of associating a unidirectional or bidirectional radiocommunication mode with a SG guide fragment in the server (100). The method of claim 2 including the step of associating two SG guide fragments to be transmitted in separate radio modes. The method of claim 2 or 3 including the step of fragmenting the SG guides according to predetermined rules before implementing the attendance rules. Method according to one of the preceding claims, comprising the step of transmitting a first fragment of the SG guide from the server to the terminal via the unidirectional network. The method of claim 5 including the step of transmitting a second fragment, from the same SG guide as the first fragment, from the server to the terminal via the bidirectional network: Method according to one of the preceding claims comprising the step of fragmenting a SG guide received by the terminal (102) to store in this terminal (102) a fragment of this SG guide. A radio communication server (100) capable of controlling transmission, via a unidirectional network (101) or a bidirectional network (107), of SG guides providing information on multimedia content accessible by radio communication, characterized in that it comprises a divider (122) to fragment at least one SG guide according to rules of attendance of these SG guides. The server (100) of claim 8 including an SG guide request analyzer (118) received by the server (100) to determine attendance rules. The server (100) of claim 8 or 9 including means for associating a unidirectional or bidirectional radiocommunication mode with an SG guide fragment. The server (100) of claim 10 including means for associating two SG guide fragments to be transmitted in different radio modes. Server (100) according to one of claims 8, 9, 10 or 11 comprising means for transmitting by radio a SG guide fragment in a bidirectional mode or in a unidirectional mode. Server (100) according to one of claims 8 to 12 comprising means for fragmenting SG guides according to predetermined rules (116) prior to their fragmentation by attendance rules: A radio communication terminal (102) capable of receiving, via a unidirectional network (101) or via a bidirectional network (107), SG guides providing information on a multimedia content accessible by radio communication, characterized in that it comprises means (132) ) to determine rules of attendance to SG guides by analyzing his requests for SG guides and means to fragment at least one SG guide according to these attendance rules. Terminal according to claim 14 comprising means (132) for storing in the terminal a guide fragment SG, this fragment being selected according to attendance rules. A radio communication system comprising a server (100) and at least one terminal (102), the server (100) being able to control transmission, via a unidirectional network (101) or via a bidirectional network (107), of SG guides providing information on a multimedia content accessible to the terminal by radiocommunication, characterized in that it comprises means for determining the rules of attendance of the terminal to these SG guides and means for fragmenting at least one SG guide according to these attendance rules.

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