JP2001156730A - Electronic program guide generator and electronic program guide generating method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic program guide generator that informs only parties to which a communication service is requested about a program frame of a communication program. SOLUTION: A EPG generator 100 receives program information with respect to a program broadcast from a program management system 200. A communication,service genre setting means 110 sets a genre classification of the program information with respect to programs serving the communication service to a value decided in advance with enterprises to which the communication service is requested. The program information a genre of a communication program of which is set is transmitted to an EPG conversion means 120. The EPG conversion means 120 converts the program information into a prescribed format and generates a program information guide.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an electronic program guide generating apparatus and an electronic program guide generating method, and more particularly to an electronic program guide generating apparatus and an electronic program guide generating apparatus for generating an electronic program guide for a broadcasting service that provides a communication service using a digital broadcasting platform. The present invention relates to an electronic program guide generation method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, digital multi-channel broadcasting has become widespread. In digital multi-channel broadcasting, as a guide for selecting a program to be viewed from a large number of broadcast programs, an electronic program guide (EPG, Electric Program) aiming at supplying information on the program.
Guide). The electronic program guide includes basic information of program contents such as a channel name, a program name, and a program description, additional information, a program genre classification, and the like. Some receivers that have received such an electronic program guide have a function of displaying a program by performing color coding for each program genre when displaying a program table based on the basic information of the program contents described above. . FIG. 4 is an example of a display of a program guide in the electronic program guide receiver. From the information such as the channel name of the electronic program guide, the program name, the start time, the end time, etc., the program title columns 401a, 401b, 401c, 401d,
401e is constituted. Also, the program title column 401a
A description about the program of the information of the program selected from among the programs 401 to 401e is displayed based on the program description. Genre column 4
03 displays the genre selected according to the viewer's preference. When the genre is color-coded, the genre column 403 is displayed in a different color, and the program title columns 401a to 401e are also color-coded according to the genre. In this case, a corresponding color is selected with reference to the program genre classification of the electronic program guide. In the case of FIG. 4, "overseas" is colored in a predetermined color.

[0003] In addition, as communication and broadcasting become closer to each other, the integration of communication and broadcasting is progressing, and a communication service using a part of the broadcasting platform has been started in digital multi-channel broadcasting. Generally, communication having broadcast characteristics is referred to as “communication having openness”, and broadcast having communication characteristics is referred to as “broadcasting having limitation”. The communication service here is the latter, and refers to a service that distributes video and audio equivalent to broadcast to the whole country as “communication”.

[0004]

However, in the conventional electronic program guide generating apparatus, the "limitedness" of the communication service is limited.
Is not guaranteed, or the receiver of the communication does not know the program in which the communication service is performed.

[0005] As described above, the electronic program guide generating device sends out program contents such as a channel name, a program name, and a program description. For this reason, if the contents of the communication are described in the same way as the broadcast in the guide for the communication program that provides the communication service, viewers other than the receiver of the communication can also know the contents of the communication, and the characteristic of "restriction" I cannot guarantee it.

Further, in order to keep the contents of communication secret, for example, it is assumed that a program name or a program description is "communication channel" or "communication program" and the contents of communication are not described. In this case, the contents of the communication can be kept secret, but the person receiving the communication cannot know the time zone or the like during which the received communication program is performed from the electronic program guide information. For this reason, the company providing the communication service has to send the communication program guide to the recipient by another method, and cannot fully utilize the advantage of performing communication using the broadcasting platform.

[0007] The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and provides an electronic program guide for sending out an electronic program guide that can notify a program frame of a communication program only to a person who has entrusted a communication service. It is an object to provide a generation device and an electronic program guide generation method.

[0008]

According to the present invention, there is provided an electronic program guide generating apparatus for generating an electronic program guide of a broadcast service for providing a communication service using a digital broadcast platform. Of the predetermined program information including the program name, the program description, and the genre classification, only the consignor of the communication service and the person permitted to receive the communication service in the predetermined area of the program information file corresponding to the program providing the call service A communication service setting means for adding a code capable of recognizing the program provided by the communication service, and converting the program information to which a code capable of recognizing the program provided by the communication service is added by the communication service setting means into a predetermined format. Electronic program guide conversion means for generating program guide information; Generator, it is provided.

In the electronic program guide generating apparatus having the above-described configuration, when the communication service setting means includes a program providing a communication service in program information in which information on a program to be broadcast is registered, a contractor of the communication service is provided. A code is added to a predetermined area that has been agreed in advance so that only a consignor of the communication service and a person permitted to receive the communication service can recognize the contents of the program provided by the communication service. The electronic program guide conversion means converts the program information to which the recognition code of the program provided by the communication service is added by the communication service setting means into a predetermined format, and generates an electronic program guide. The generated electronic program guide is multiplexed with a broadcast signal and transmitted to a receiver.

[0010] Also, in an electronic program guide generation method for generating an electronic program guide of a broadcast service that provides a communication service using a digital broadcasting platform, the communication service of the consignor is previously exchanged with the consignor of the communication service. A predetermined code capable of identifying a program frame of a program to be provided and an area for setting the predetermined code are determined, and a program of the program providing the communication service including a channel name, a program name, a program description, and a genre classification is provided. An electronic program guide generating method, comprising: setting the predetermined code in the setting area of information; converting the program information into a predetermined electronic program guide format to generate an electronic program guide. Is done.

[0011] The electronic program guide generating method according to the above-described procedure is arranged so that a predetermined code to be added to the program information relating to the program providing the communication service and the predetermined code are exchanged with a consignor entrusting the program providing the communication service. The area for setting the sign of is decided in advance. The predetermined code set in the predetermined area is for making only the consignor of the communication service and the person permitted to receive the communication recognize the contents of the program provided by the communication service. In this way, the program information to which a predetermined code is added is converted into a predetermined format, and an electronic program guide is generated. The generated electronic program guide is multiplexed with a broadcast signal and transmitted to a receiver.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an electronic program guide generation device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

An electronic program guide generating apparatus according to the present invention (hereinafter referred to as an EPG generating apparatus; EPG (Electric)
A Program Guide) 100 is a device that acquires program information from the program management system 200 and generates an electronic program guide. The communication service genre setting unit 110, which is a communication service setting unit, and the electronic program guide conversion unit. And certain EPG conversion means 120.

The communication service genre setting means 110 includes:
A genre code set in advance with a consignor who provides the communication service is set in a genre classification area included in the program information of the program providing the communication service. For example, the genre of the communication program of company A is “movie”, company B
Is set such that the genre of the communication program is "sports".

The EPG conversion means 120 converts the program information in which the communication program genre is set by the communication service genre setting means 110 into a predetermined format, and generates a program information guide. The format is defined in “Program Arrangement Information Used for Digital Broadcasting” (ARIB STD-B10) specified by the Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB).

FIG. 2 shows an example of a content descriptor describing the genre of a program. The content descriptor includes a descriptor tag for identifying the descriptor, a descriptor data length indicating the data length of the descriptor, a content nibble 1 (311) describing content information, and a content nibble 2 (3
12) and user nibbles 321 and 322. Content nibble 1 (311), content nibble 2 (312), and user nibble 321,
In 322, the genre of the program can be described.
Therefore, when there are a plurality of companies outsourcing the communication service, the content nibble 1 (3
11) Change the values of the content nibble 2 (312) and the user nibbles 321 and 322. This value is set in advance for each company.

Next, the EPG generation apparatus 1 having such a configuration will be described.
Returning to FIG. 1, the operation of 00 will be described. The EPG generation apparatus 100 receives program information on a program broadcast from the program management system 200. The communication service genre setting unit 110 sets the genre classification of the program information regarding the program providing the communication service in the program information to a value determined in advance with a company to which the communication service is outsourced. For example, when there are companies A and B that outsource communication services, the communication program of A is set to a value indicating the genre of “movie”, and the communication program of B is set to a value indicating the genre of “sports”. At this time, A
Is notified that the genre of the communication program of A is set to "movie". Similarly, B is notified that the genre of the communication program of B is set to "sports". The program information in which the genre of the communication program is set is sent to the EPG conversion means 120. E
The PG conversion means 120 converts the program information into a predetermined format and generates a program information guide. For example, in the case of the example described above, the user nibble 32 of the communication program of A
1 and 322 are set to values indicating “movie”, and the user nibbles 321 and 322 of the communication program of B are set to values indicating “sports”. The electronic program guide generated in this way is
It is multiplexed with the broadcast signal and sent to the receiver.

The receiver receiving such an electronic program guide can display the program guide in a normal processing procedure. In addition, the receiver who is permitted to receive the communication program and is notified of the set genre of the communication program in advance can specify the genre color using the program display function of the receiver. The receiver who has specified the genre color knows that the program whose color is specified among the programs whose channel name is described as “communication service” is the corresponding program.

As described above, by adding information about a communication program to the electronic program guide, in a broadcast system in which communication services are operated in a mixed manner, a person who has entrusted the communication service can receive the same information as a normal broadcast program. In addition, a program frame can be notified through a telegraph program guide. Further, the contents of the communication can be hidden from a person other than the consignor of the communication service and the person permitted to receive the communication service.

Next, as an example, a satellite broadcasting system incorporating the above-described EPG generation device will be described.
FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a satellite broadcasting system incorporating an electronic program guide device according to an embodiment of the present invention. The satellite broadcast system includes a broadcast transmission system 400 that transmits a broadcast via a transmission antenna 510, and a receiver 600 that receives a broadcast via a satellite 520 and a reception antenna 530.

[0021] The broadcast transmission system 400 complies with E described above.
PG generating apparatus 100, encoder 410 for encoding broadcast video and audio signals, multiplexing section 420 for multiplexing the encoded signal and the electronic program guide, and modulation section 430 for frequency modulating the multiplexed signal. Consists of The receiver 600 includes a tuner 610 for selectively receiving a channel, a demodulation unit 620 for demodulating a received signal, a demultiplexing unit 630 for separating an electronic program guide and a video / audio signal, and a decoder for decoding a video / audio signal. 640.

The operation of the satellite broadcasting system having such a configuration will be described. The electronic program guide generated by EPG generation device 100 is sent to multiplexing section 420. The video and audio signals of the broadcast program are also transmitted by the encoder 4.
10 and output to the multiplexing unit 420.
Multiplexing section 420 multiplexes the input coded signal and the electronic program guide, and sends the multiplexed signal to modulating section 430. Modulation section 430
Frequency modulates the multiplexed signal and uplinks to satellite 520 via transmit antenna 510. Satellite 520 amplifies the uplinked signal and downlinks to the receiving station. The receiving station receives the signal at the receiving antenna 530 and performs signal processing at the receiver 600. In receiver 600, tuner 610 selects and receives a channel, and demodulation section 620 demodulates the received signal. The demodulated signal is separated by a separation unit 630 into an electronic program guide and a coded video / audio signal. The encoded signal of the video / audio signal is
The data is decoded by the decoder 640.

As described above, since the electronic program guide is multiplexed with the broadcast program and sent to the receiver, if information on the communication program is added during the electronic program guide, the means for transmitting the information on the communication program is provided. Do not need.

The above processing functions can be realized by a computer. In this case, the processing contents of the functions that the electronic program guide generating device should have are described in a program recorded on a computer-readable recording medium. Then, by executing this program on a computer, the above processing is realized on the computer. As a computer-readable recording medium,
There are a magnetic recording device and a semiconductor memory. When distributing in the market, CD-ROM (Compact Disc ReadOnly Mem
Ory) or a floppy disk or the like, and the program may be stored and distributed, or stored in a storage device of a computer connected via a network, and transferred to another computer via the network. When executing the program on a computer, store the program on a hard disk device in the computer,
Load into main memory and execute.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, when there is a program providing a communication service in the program information, the communication service consignor and the reception are set in a predetermined area which has been previously agreed with the communication service consignor. An electronic program guide is generated by adding a code that allows only authorized persons to recognize the contents of the program provided by the communication service. The generated electronic program guide is
It is multiplexed with the broadcast signal and sent to the receiver.

As described above, by adding to the electronic program guide a code that allows only the consignor of the communication service and the person authorized to receive the communication service to recognize the contents of the communication service providing program.
A program frame providing a communication service can be notified through an easily available electronic program guide, and the contents of the communication can be hidden from others.

In the electronic program guide method of the present invention, a predetermined code and a predetermined code to be added to the program information of the communication service are set in advance with a consignor who entrusts the program providing the communication service. Arrange the area to be determined. The predetermined code set in the predetermined area is for making only the consignor of the communication service and the person permitted to receive the communication recognize the contents of the program provided by the communication service. An electronic program guide is generated from the program information. The generated electronic program guide is multiplexed with a broadcast signal and transmitted to a receiver.

As described above, by adding, to the electronic program guide, a code by which only the consignor of the communication service and the person permitted to receive the communication service can recognize the contents of the communication service providing program.
A program frame for providing a communication service can be notified by using an existing method called electronic program guide transmission. further,
This electronic program guide can hide the contents of communication from persons other than the consignor and the authorized recipient.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an electronic program guide generation device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an example of a content descriptor describing a genre of a program.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a satellite broadcasting system incorporating an electronic program guide device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an example of a display of a program guide in the electronic program guide receiver.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 ... Electronic program guide generation device (EPG generation device), 1
10: communication service genre setting means, 120: EPG
Conversion means, 200: programming management system

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Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An electronic program guide generating apparatus for generating an electronic program guide for a broadcast service which provides a communication service using a digital broadcast platform, comprising: a predetermined program information including a channel name, a program name, a program description, and a genre classification. Communication in which a code that allows only the consignor of the communication service and a person permitted to receive the communication service to recognize the program provided by the communication service is added to a predetermined area of the program information file corresponding to the program providing the call service. Service setting means; and electronic program guide conversion means for converting program information to which a code for recognizing the program provided by the communication service is added by the communication service setting means into a predetermined format to generate electronic program guide information. An electronic program guide generation device, characterized in that: 2. The communication service setting means sets a genre code determined in advance with a contractor of the communication service in an area for setting a genre classification of the program information. An electronic program guide generation device according to claim 1. 3. An electronic program guide generating method for generating an electronic program guide of a broadcast service that provides a communication service using a digital broadcast platform, wherein the communication service of the contractor is previously communicated with a contractor of the communication service. A predetermined code capable of identifying a program frame of a program to be provided and an area for setting the predetermined code are determined, and a program of the program providing the communication service including a channel name, a program name, a program description, and a genre classification. An electronic program guide generating method, comprising: setting the predetermined code in the setting area of information; converting the program information into a predetermined electronic program guide format to generate an electronic program guide.