JP2000115734A - Video telephone set and video telephone system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To attain video communication without giving effect on an operation of other program by relieving a load on a CPU and a system bus of a personal computer PC. SOLUTION: The video telephone set 20 connects to a PC card slot of a notebook-sized PC 10, and an image compander 24 and audio compander 25 provided to the video telephone set 20 apply companding processing to image and audio data. In the case of displaying image data of a communication opposite party on a monitor 13 of the PC 10, image data expansion processed by the video telephone set 20 are transferred via a local path 19 exclusively for an image of the PC card slot of the PC 10. Thus, the processing required by the PC 10 is only transmission of commands to each device of the video telephone set 20 so as to relieve a load of a CPU 11 and the image data are displayed on the monitor not through a CPU bus (consisting of a host bus 17 and a PCI bus 18) so as to relieve the load on the CPU bus.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a videophone device for making a videophone call while looking at the other person's face.
In particular, the present invention relates to a videophone device of a type used by connecting to an information processing device such as a personal computer, and a videophone system using the videophone device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, personal computers (hereinafter, referred to as personal computers).
There is a videophone device of a type used by connecting to an information processing device such as a PC. In this type of videophone device, image data and audio data transmitted from the outside are usually connected to an expansion slot of the PC and transferred to the PC via a system bus of the PC.

In this case, image and audio data are sent from the transmitting side in a compressed form. Therefore, on the PC side, it is necessary to perform processing such as decompressing the data and returning it to the original form, displaying the image on a monitor screen for an image, and outputting the sound to an earphone for audio. .

[0004] The same applies to the case of transmitting data. After the image data input by the video camera or the audio data input through the microphone is compressed into a predetermined format on the PC side, the videophone device is transmitted. It is necessary to perform processing such as transferring the data to an external device via the Internet.

[0005]

As described above, conventionally, compression and decompression processing of image data and audio data has been performed on the PC side. In this case, since the compression and decompression processing of these data was realized by software on the PC side, the P
A heavy load is placed on the CPU in C, and furthermore, all of the data exchange is performed via the system bus of the PC body, so that the system bus is also burdened. There are problems such as affecting the operation of other programs.

[0006] Even if the image data and audio data are compressed and decompressed separately from the PC, the image data is eventually displayed on the display screen of the PC via the system bus in the CPU. Therefore, a burden is imposed on the system bus.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and reduces the load on the CPU of the PC and the system bus to enable television communication without affecting the operation of other programs. It is an object to provide a videophone device and a videophone system.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a notebook PC.
Connect the videophone device to a unique PC card slot,
The video telephone apparatus performs compression and decompression processing of image data and audio data.

According to such a configuration, the processing on the PC side can be reduced to the load on the CPU in the PC by only sending commands to each device of the videophone device. In addition, image data can be displayed on a monitor using a local path (ZV port) dedicated to an image supported by the PC card slot, and the load on the CPU bus can be reduced. Thus, it is possible to solve problems such as affecting the operation of other programs while using the videophone system.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of a videophone system according to an embodiment of the present invention. This system is a notebook PC (personal computer) 1
0 and a videophone device 20 connected to the PC 10.

The PC 10 has a PC card slot 10a that supports a local path dedicated to images as a function unique to a notebook PC. The local path dedicated to the image is specifically a ZV port. The ZV port is a port that directly receives image data from a PC card on the graphic control chip.

The videophone device 20 has a configuration connectable to a PC card slot 10a of the PC 10,
Launched under the control of This video telephone device 20
It has a communication function (modem), is connected to a communication partner via a communication line to perform transmission / reception processing of image data and audio data, and has an image data compression / expansion function and audio data compression / expansion function. Decompression processing of image data and audio data received in a compressed form from
The compression processing of image data and audio data to be transmitted to the outside is performed in this apparatus.

A camera 30 and an earphone microphone 40 are connected to the videophone device 20. The camera 30 is an image input device for video-taking a face or the like of a user using the present system.
0 is installed near the display. Earphone microphone 4
Reference numeral 0 denotes a voice output device (earphone) for outputting voice data of a call partner to the outside and a voice input device (microphone) for inputting voice data of a user during a call.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the internal configuration of the PC 10 and the video telephone 20 of FIG. PC10
Has a CPU 11. The CPU 11 is a PC 10
It performs overall control, and executes various processes by starting a program. In the present embodiment, the videophone system is executed by starting the videophone application program.

Various circuits such as a memory 12 are connected to the CPU 11 via a host bus (system bus) 17. Also, a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is interposed via the host-PCI bridge 14.
A bus 18 is provided, and a video chip 15, a PC card controller 16, and the like are connected to the PCI bus 18.

The video chip 15 is an IC for displaying a video on the monitor 13. The monitor 13 is a PC 1
0 is a display device provided as standard equipment, for example, a TFT color liquid crystal display.

The PC card controller 16 is a PC card controller in FIG.
PC card and PC connected to C card slot 10a
It controls the interface with the device 10. The PC card controller 16 is connected to a local path 19 for sending image data from the PC card directly to the video chip 15. This local path 19
Is the above-mentioned ZV port, and the notebook type P
C is supported by a PC card slot unique to C.

In the present embodiment, the image data from the video telephone device 20 can be sent directly to the video chip 15 and displayed on the monitor 13 using the local path 19.

The configuration of the video telephone 20 will be described. The videophone device 20 has an I / F 21 that is an interface with the PC 10. The I / F 21 is connected to the PC card slot 10 a of the PC 10 by the videophone device 20.
In this state, data transmission / reception processing is performed with the PC 10 while being connected to the PC 10.

The video telephone device 20 is provided with a communication device 22, a data multiplexing device 23, an image compression / expansion device 24, and an audio compression / expansion device 25, each of which communicates with the I / F 21 via a local bus 26. It is connected to the.

The communication device 22 performs transmission / reception processing of image data and audio data with a communication partner via a communication line. The data multiplexing device 23 multiplexes image data and audio data.

The image compression / expansion device 24 performs compression / expansion processing of image data. In this case, the image compression / decompression device 24 expands the image data of the communication partner which has been compressed and transmitted in a predetermined format via the communication line during the call and returns the image data to the original image data. Do. The expanded image data is sent to the PC via the I / F 21.
It is sent to the 10 side. In the PC 10, the image data is
Video chip 15 via local path 19 in C10
And displays it on the monitor 13.

The image compression / expansion device 24 compresses image data captured by the camera 30 during a call, that is, image data obtained by capturing the face of a user using the present system, in a predetermined format. Perform the following processing. The compressed image data is transmitted to the data multiplexer 23.
Multiplexed with the audio data, and sent to the communication partner by the communication device 22 via the communication line.

The audio compression / expansion device 25 performs compression / expansion processing of audio data. In this case, the voice compression / expansion device 25 performs a process of expanding the voice data and returning the voice data to the original voice data with respect to the voice data of the communication partner that has been compressed and transmitted in a predetermined format via the communication line during the call. Do. The expanded audio data is output to the outside via the earphone microphone 40.

Further, the voice compression / expansion device 25 performs a process of compressing the voice data input by the earphone microphone 40 during a call, that is, the voice data of the user using the present system, in a predetermined format. . The compressed image data is multiplexed with the image data by the data multiplexing device 23 and sent to the communication partner by the communication device 22 via the communication line.

Next, the operation of the embodiment will be described. Here, a description is given assuming that a videophone system is constructed by connecting a videophone device to a PC card slot of a notebook PC having a local path (ZV port) dedicated to images.

First, to start a videophone call, a PC
10 starts a videophone application. The user operates the videophone application to start or disconnect the videophone communication. In this case, a command for starting or disconnecting the videophone communication is transmitted from the application to each device on the videophone device 20 via the PC card controller 16 to control these devices.

When the videophone application is started, the image data input from the camera 30 is sent to the PC 10 via the I / F 21 through the image compression / decompression device 24. On the PC 10 side, the input image data is sent from the PC card controller 16 to the video chip 15 via the local path 19 dedicated to the image, and
3 displays the self-portrait.

Here, when the user operates the application to start communication, the image data input from the camera 30 and the audio data input from the earphone microphone 40 are transferred to the image compression / expansion device 24 and the audio compression / expansion device 25, respectively. , And then sent to the data multiplexing device 23. The two data are multiplexed by the data multiplexing device 23 and sent to the communication partner via the communication line by the communication device 22.

On the other hand, data of a communication partner (image data and audio data compressed in a predetermined format) input via a communication line is transmitted from a communication device 22 to a data multiplexing device 23.
And is separated into image data and audio data.

The image data is decompressed by the image compression / decompression device 24 and returned to the original image data.
The data is sent to the PC 10 via the I / F 21. In the PC 10, the input image data is sent from the PC card controller 16 to the video chip 15 via the local path 19 dedicated to the image, and is displayed on the monitor 13. Also,
The audio data is returned to the original audio data that has been expanded by the audio compression / expansion device 25, and then output to the earphone microphone 40.

As described above, in the present system, since the video telephone apparatus 20 performs the compression / decompression processing of the image data and the audio data, the processing performed on the PC 10 side only needs to send a command to each device of the video telephone apparatus 20. CPU
11 can be reduced.

The video telephone 20 is connected to the PC 10
Since the connection is made to the C card slot 10a, the image data can be displayed on the monitor using the local path 19 supported by the PC card slot 10a. Thereby, the CPU bus (host bus 17)
Alternatively, the burden on the PCI bus 18) can be reduced,
Problems such as affecting the operation of other programs while using the videophone system can be solved.

[0034]

As described above, according to the present invention, a video telephone is connected to a PC card slot peculiar to a notebook PC, and image data and audio data are compressed and decompressed on the video telephone. As a result, the processing on the PC side can be reduced to the load on the CPU in the PC by only sending commands to each device of the video phone, and the local path (ZV port) dedicated to the image supported by the PC card slot can be reduced. ) Can be used, and image data can be displayed on a monitor without burdening the CPU bus. Thus, television communication can be performed without affecting the operation of another program.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of a videophone system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of the PC and the video phone of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 PC (Personal Computer) 11 CPU 12 Memory 13 Monitor 14 Host-PCI Bridge 15 Video Chip 16 PC Card Controller 17 Host Bus 18 PCI Bus 19 Local Path 20 Videophone 21 I / F 22 communication device 23 data multiplexing device 24 image compression / expansion device 25 audio compression / expansion device 26 local bus 30 camera 40 earphone microphone

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Katsumi Adachi, Inventor 2-9-9 Suehirocho, Ome City, Tokyo Co., Ltd. Inside the Toshiba Ome Plant (72) Inventor Junichi Yoshizawa 2-9-9 Suehirocho, Ome City, Tokyo Stock Company F-term in Toshiba Ome Plant (reference) 5B089 GA23 JA00 JB03 JB05 KA06 KA07 KB02 KH11 KH14 KH28 LB13 LB14 5C064 AA01 AC04 AC06 AC13 AC16 AC20 AC22 AD01 AD06

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A videophone device which can be connected to a PC card slot provided in a notebook type personal computer and which supports a local path for exclusive use of images, wherein image data and image data are exchanged with a communication partner via a communication line. Communication means for performing transmission / reception processing of audio data; image processing means for performing compression / expansion processing of image data transmitted / received by the communication means; and audio processing means for performing compression / decompression processing of audio data transmitted / received by the communication means. Image display means for transferring image data expanded by the image processing means via a local path dedicated to the image when image data of a communication partner is displayed on the personal computer on a monitor. Videophone device. 2. A notebook personal computer,
A video phone system constructed with a video phone device connected to the personal computer, the personal computer comprising: a display unit for displaying image data; and a display unit for directly transferring the image data to the display unit. A PC card slot supporting a local path dedicated to images, the videophone device having a configuration connectable to the PC card slot, and image data and voice data exchanged with a communication partner via a communication line. Communication means for performing transmission / reception processing of image data; image processing means for performing compression / decompression processing of image data transmitted / received by the communication means; audio processing means for performing compression / decompression processing of audio data transmitted / received by the communication means; When displaying the image data of the other party on the personal computer on the monitor, Image transfer means for transferring the image data decompressed by the image processing means via a local path dedicated to the image, performing compression / decompression processing of the image data and audio data on the videophone device side, and A videophone system wherein image data is transferred to the display means of the personal computer using a local path and displayed on a monitor.