GB2404766A

GB2404766A - A method of displaying a message sent over a digital radio or tv wireless transmission network

Info

Publication number: GB2404766A
Application number: GB0417684A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Peter Charles Florence; Les Sabel
Original assignee: RadioScape Ltd
Current assignee: RadioScape Ltd
Priority date: 2003-08-07
Filing date: 2004-08-09
Publication date: 2005-02-09
Anticipated expiration: 2024-08-09
Also published as: GB0318525D0; WO2005015793A1; GB0417684D0; GB2404766B

Abstract

A method of displaying a message sent over a digital radio or television wireless transmission network, includes the steps of: <SL> <LI>(a) receiving the message at a digital radio or television receiver with a unique ID; and <LI>(b) displaying the message on the receiver only if the unique ID matches an identifier in the message. </SL> The message may be sent over DAB or DVB networks. The message may be sent from a computer or mobile phone and can be addressed to a group of recipients.

Description

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2404766

METHOD OF DISPLAYING A MESSAGE SENT OVER A DIGITAL RADIO OR TV WIRELESS TRANSMISSION NETWORK

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a method of displaying a message sent over a digital radio or television wireless transmission network. It may be deployed to allow messages sent from a mobile telephone to be displayed on a digital radio or television receiver.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART

Digital radio receivers are typically low cost receivers for receiving and playing audio broadcast by digital radio stations. One feature that differentiates DAB (digital audio broadcasting, based on the Eureka-147 standard) receivers from analogue radio receivers is that the radio stations can broadcast small amounts of text (e.g. the station name; the name of the current song being played) using PAD (programme associated data), X-PAD; PAD can include the following data types: DLS (dynamic label segment) and MOT (multimedia object transport). However, this kind of text is not specific to an individual end-user.

The present invention, which in one implementation makes use of the pre-existing PAD capabilities of DAB receivers, overcomes this limitation.

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SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

In a first aspect, there is a method of displaying a message sent over a digital radio or television wireless transmission network, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving the message at a digital radio or television receiver (as appropriate) which has a unique ID; and

(b) displaying the message on the receiver only if the unique ID matches an identifier in the message.

Hence, a low cost digital radio or television receiver can be used to display messages specifically for the user of that receiver. A 'digital radio receiver' should be construed as a radio receiver designed to receive broadcast (i.e. one to many) audio such as music and news programs; such a receiver is not therefore primarily a one to one radio based text or audio communications device, such as a pager or mobile telephone. But the present invention enables such a receiver to combine its primary role of receiving broadcast audio with a new role of receiving and displaying messages that may be one to one (or indeed also one to a group of individuals belonging to a common group). A digital radio receiver is not limited to any specific digital radio system, and hence includes DAB, DRM, HD radio and any other digital radio system or standard.

A 'digital television receiver' should be construed as a television receiver designed to receive broadcast (i.e. one to many) television such as music and news programs; such a receiver is not therefore primarily a one to one radio based text or audio communications device, such as a pager or mobile telephone. A digital television receiver is not limited to any specific digital television system, and hence includes DVB, DVB-H and any other digital television system or standard.

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DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The core idea in one implementation is to be able to use the digital radio network to carry text messages that can be received and displayed by low-cost digital radio or television receivers. To facilitate this, the digital radio receiver is modified to hold an ID that is unique to each user or user group. An infrastructure server holds a database mapping the details of individuals to their unique ID. It also contains details about the interest groupings to which the individuals belong, if any (this is to enable one-to-many messaging) as well as preferred carriers and stations (e.g. BBC1 or Virgin Radio). Note that an individual can belong to many user groups. The ID of the individual and any applicable user group(s) is entered into the radio by the end-user and stored in Non-Volatile memory

An implementation at the infrastructure side would be envisaged to be connected to a mobile phone operator text-messaging gateway. Then, to send a message to someone or a specific group the present 'text to radio' implementation of the invention, an end user could simply send a text (e.g. SMS, or other similar or successor/enhanced formats) in a normal manner from the mobile telephone, perhaps to a special 'virtual' telephone number provided by the operator. There exist a number of scenarios for distribution to the digital radio receiver:

1. the text message could be targeted at an individual. In this case the receiver will display the message or a message received indication to allow the user to read the message.

2. the text message may be targeted at a specific user group (e.g. local church group). In this case the receiver will display the message or a message received indication to allow the user to read the message. This scenario could be used for business applications where specific information is to be distributed, most likely time sensitive information.

3. the text message may be targeted at the listeners of a specific radio station and possibly a specific program (e.g. breakfast radio). In this case the message may be edited by the station and may be displayed through the DLS rather than a specific

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message 'window'. The window can take many forms from a simple 1 line scrolling display to a graphics based rendering.

All of these scenarios can be implemented on either a local or national transmission basis.

While this 'text to radio' application is mainly targeted at time sensitive information transmission, there will be situations where the user may wish to retransmit the same message over a longer time period, e.g. a number of days.

One possible address scheme would be to use mobile numbers as the ID, where one digit could be changed, or a prefix code used, to differentiate the 'text to radio' address from the conventional mobile number. In another embodiment, a specific group-related addressing scheme could be used, for example where the number contained the individual's ID as well as a set of 1 or more tags which define the relevant user groups which should obtain the text message.

The text message would be delivered by the mobile phone operator's gateway to the DAB broadcast infrastructure, where it would be encoded into a form suitable for carriage as a DAB data service. It is anticipated that the messages would be highly compressed; a range of scheme exist for such compression.

There are a number of possible transport mechanisms, the use of which somewhat depend on the scenario as described above. A number of distribution methods are described below, note however that the list is not exhaustive, only illustrational:

1. for text to individuals, the messages could be transported in a packet data service on 1 or more ensembles, national or local. They could also be contained within a data service offering, or even a subscriber service offering. Indeed in business to business applications this could effectively be a paging service. In business to consumer applications it could target groups with commonalities such as drivers of a particular type of car. The message content could be informative, personal or even advertising.

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If the message is specific to a particular radio station is could be carried in PAD of XPAD, or if it is to be distributed across an entire ensemble the FIC may be used although the available bandwidth will be limited.

2. For text to groups the methodology in 1 could be used or the DLS could be used. Indeed the DLS style scrolling could be multiplied on the screen such that the standard station DLS appears along with (for example above or below) the specific user group message.

3. For targeted listeners of specific radio stations a secondary channel, a dedicated packet channel or PAD/XPAD could be used.

Clearly, since there is no acknowledgement backchannel, a given target message may have to be sent out multiple times in order to maximise the probability of reception.

At the receiver side, software will continuously monitor the text-to-speech service (whether this is transmitted inline or in its own packet service component or otherwise), and check the ID in the message's header against the users ID. The receiver must have means for the user to input their individual ID and group IDs into the receiver, and for this to be retained in Non Volatile memory, e.g. Flash memory. Note that while it would be possible simply to rely upon the receiver's unique ID imprinted at manufacture, this would be inefficient in terms of broadcast bandwidth, since multiple 'addresses' would have to be sent if a user owned multiple radios. Indeed the use of portable IDs will allow the user to receiver messages on multiple radio receivers.

Upon receipt of a message matching one of the user's ID, the receiver can respond in a number of ways. One of the simplest would be to simply show the message repeatedly scrolling across the display of the receiver (DLS style) until the user presses a 'stop' button. Practically all DAB radios have the ability to display rolling text (DLS) so this option should be relatively low cost to implement. Similarly it is a simple matter to implement a scrolling message of a television screen.

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Another possibility would be for the receiver to use voice synthesis to 'speak' the message using the radio's speakers.

Yet another possibility would be for the receiver to take some action, such as changing channel, setting off an alarm, etc., when the message was received. This option may be useful for emergency situations where all users local to an area need to take specific action, e.g. for a local transmission at a football ground when a fire breaks out or an emergency situation occurs in a road or rail tunnel which has DAB rebroadcast. Where the receiver is in effect acting to receive an emergency alarm message, it will also be useful for it to alert the user if radio reception drops below a threshold level so that it is not longer able to reliably receive the alarm message.

It would also be possible for the receiver to store the message (if the receiver was fitted with memory) for later playback.

While the examples above have used the transmission of a text message from a mobile phone, a range of transmission possibilities exist, including, non-exhaustively, the transmission from a computer connected to the Internet via a web gateway, or even a local computer network at a broadcaster's station.

Further still, many messages are sent not from individuals but from information providers — e.g. a mobile network operator may provide a service where it sends news updates or sports updates as messages to subscribers' mobile phones. With the present invention, these kinds of one-to-many messages can now also be sent to digital radios, opening up a new subscription based revenue stream for DAB broadcasters. End-users could subscribe to different packages of message alerts, as they do with current cellular mobile telephones (e.g. to a sports package, or a news alert package, a joke package etc.) and then would receive on the DAB receivers appropriately displayed messages. The existing cellular infrastructure could be used to generate the messages, which would then be forwarded to the text-

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messaging gateway and converted to the format necessary for reception and display on a DAB receiver.

Subscription based services may require encryption so that group ID is not distributed freely. An example of this would be to have a service locked to specific receiver platforms where the Group ID needs to interact with the unique identifying code within the radio before decryption and display can take place.

In addition to the display of text on the radio's display, the text may also be converted to speech using a speech synthesiser. This option should be user selectable and have an option to set the volume of the text to speech conversion. An additional option would be to be able to set the relative levels of both the primary audio output and the synthesised speech. For example this would allow the primary audio to be reduced to say half the original volume or even muted while the text to speech audio is output.

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Claims

1. A method of displaying a message sent over a digital radio or television wireless transmission network, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving the message at a digital radio or television receiver which has a unique ID; and

2. The method of Claim 1 in which the digital radio receiver is a DAB receiver.

3. The method of Claim 1 in which the digital television receiver is a DVB-H receiver.

4. The method of Claim 1 in which the ID is unique to a user of the receiver as opposed to being unique to the receiver.

5. The method of Claim 1 in which the ID is unique to a group of users, each with a receiver.

6. The method of Claim 1 in which there is a database that maps details of each end-user to his or her unique ID and the database is accessed when a message is to be sent to an end-user in order to add that unique ID to the message prior to transmission over the network.

7. The method of Claim 1 in which the ID is entered into the receiver by an end-user and stored in non-volatile memory

8. The method of Claim 1 which further comprises the steps of sending a text message from a mobile telephone via a text message gateway, the message then being sent over the digital radio or television wireless transmission network.

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9. The method of Claim 1 which further comprises the steps of sending a message from a computer connected to a network that can interface directly or indirectly to the digital radio or television wireless transmission network.

10. The method of Claim 1 in which the message is displayed as continuously scrolling text

11. The method of Claim 1 in which the message is synthesised to speech which is then output as an audio signal.

12. The method of Claim 11 in which the sound volume of a digital radio or television channel tuned to by the receiver is automatically lowered when a message is spoken.

13. The method of Claim 1 in which the message automatically causes the receiver to take a predefined action

14. The method of Claim 13 in which the predefined action is to change to a predefined channel.

15. The method of Claim 1 in which the message is sent from an individual.

16. The method of Claim 1 in which the message is sent from a commercial information provider.

17. The method of Claim 1 in which the message is one of the following types of message: news, sports news, financial news, weather; jokes, commercial information, advertising information.

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18. The method of Claim 1 in which the message is stored on the receiver for later playback on the receiver.

19. A digital radio receiver adapted to perform the method of any preceding Claim 1 -18.

20. A digital television receiver adapted to perform the method of any preceding Claim 1-18.