JP2001157134A - Digital broadcasting receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a broadcasting receiver capable of comfortably performing genre retrieval of a program. SOLUTION: When a broadcast program is watched for a fixed fine or longer, the genre code of the program is acquired and information showing the viewing frequency of the genre is stored in a nonvolatile memory 13. The program information of a genre with a high viewing frequency is acquired among program information transmitted during viewing the program, on the basis of the genre viewing frequency information and stored in a memory 12. When a viewer instructs genre retrieval, the program information is read from the memory 12 and displayed on the screen by supplying the program information to an OSD(on-screen display) circuit 10.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a digital broadcast receiving apparatus for receiving a digital broadcast for transmitting program information in addition to video and audio.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Image compression using digital signal compression technology
There is digital broadcasting that compresses audio signals and broadcasts a stream (transport stream) obtained by time-division multiplexing of video and audio digital signals of a plurality of programs via a transponder (satellite repeater). Since there are a plurality of transponders and a plurality of channels are multiplexed on each transponder, the number of channels is as large as several hundreds. On the other hand, a broadcast receiving apparatus that receives such a digital multi-channel broadcast selects one of a plurality of transponders of the digital broadcast received through a dedicated antenna by a tuner, and selects a plurality of channels included in the one transponder. One of them is selected by demultiplex processing, and a video / audio signal is output by decoding a digital signal of the selected channel.

[0003] By the way, in such digital television broadcasting, in addition to transmitting video and audio in the same manner as conventional analog broadcasting, service information (program name, program content, program start time, program end time, program genre code) is provided. , Program viewing appropriate information, etc.), so that the program desired by the viewer can be efficiently selected from the multi-channel broadcast. In particular, in the program genre code, foreign film,
Program classifications such as Japanese movie and baseball are made, and viewers can listen to EPG (Electronic) provided in the broadcast receiver.
When a genre of a program that the user wants to watch is designated from a screen menu by a Program Guide screen display function, the broadcast receiving apparatus searches for program information from a stream currently being transmitted, and the program name, program content, A list such as a program start time is displayed on a display screen.

[0004]

However, in reality, it takes a considerable amount of time to retrieve program information and display a list of relevant program names. For example, in the current transmission frequency of program information in CS digital broadcasting using a communication satellite, the viewer typically specifies a genre he wants to watch and usually takes several tens of seconds until the screen of the corresponding program is displayed. It takes about several minutes from. In addition, there is also a problem that the viewer needs a lot of key input operations to specify a genre he wants to see on the genre search screen, which makes remote control operation cumbersome.

An object of the present invention is to provide a digital broadcast receiving apparatus capable of comfortably searching for a program genre in view of the above circumstances.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a digital broadcast receiving apparatus of the present invention obtains a genre code of a viewed program and generates frequency information for generating information indicating a viewing frequency of the genre. Creating means, program information acquiring means for acquiring program information of a genre having a high viewing frequency based on the genre viewing frequency information from program information transmitted during viewing of the program, and a genre search instruction issued by the viewer. Search result display means for displaying the program information acquired by the program information acquisition means when the search is performed.

With the above arrangement, if the viewer frequently watches baseball broadcasts, for example, program information having a genre code of baseball is extracted from the program information transmitted during viewing of the program. When the viewer gives a genre search instruction, baseball program information is automatically displayed. The genre specified by the viewer when performing a genre search is usually a genre that the viewer is interested in, and it is unlikely that a genre search is performed by specifying a genre that the viewer is not interested in. Then, what kind of genre the viewer is interested in can be grasped by information on what kind of genre the program that the viewer is actually viewing belongs. Therefore, it can be considered that a viewer who often watches baseball broadcasts often tries to perform a genre search for baseball when performing a genre search. When program information about baseball is displayed as described above, In many cases, the search matches the search intention of the user, and in such a case, key operations up to the genre search screen can be largely omitted. Also, since the broadcast receiving apparatus acquires the program information while viewing the program, the search result can be immediately displayed on the screen when the viewer gives a genre search instruction.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
3 will be described with reference to FIG.
(Communication Satellite)
The case where a digital broadcast is viewed is illustrated. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a digital broadcast receiving apparatus 20 of this embodiment for receiving a CS digital broadcast, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a genre search screen, and FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing an example of processing for creating and storing information indicating the viewing frequency.

In FIG. 1, a tuner 1 extracts a signal of a specific frequency from a received high-frequency digital modulation signal. That is, a process of selecting one from a plurality of digital broadcast transponders is performed. Further, the tuner 1 includes a demodulation circuit, a deinterleave circuit, an error correction circuit, and the like, and thereby demodulates the selected digital modulation signal and outputs a transport stream. This transport stream includes, for example, a plurality of transport packets for 4 to 8 channels.

The demultiplexer (DEMUX) 2 converts the transport stream received from the tuner 1 into an MPEG2 (Moving Picture Ex
parts transport group 2) video transport packet, audio transport packet, and P
SI (Program Specific Information)
mate). The video transport packet is supplied to the video processing circuit 4, the audio transport packet is supplied to the audio processing circuit 5, and the service information included in the PSI is supplied to the CPU 3. As described above, a plurality of channels are multiplexed in the transport stream, and a process for selecting an arbitrary channel from the multiplexed channel is performed by selecting an arbitrary channel from the PSI in the transport stream. This becomes possible by extracting data such as whether the data is multiplexed by the packet ID. Further, the selection of the transport stream (the selection of the transponder) can also be performed based on the PSI information.

The video processing circuit 4 decodes the input variable-length code to obtain a quantization coefficient and a motion vector, and performs inverse DCT.
It performs conversion and motion compensation control based on motion vectors.
The NTSC converter 7 receives the video data from the video processing circuit 4, performs D / A conversion, converts the video data into an NTSC format composite signal, and supplies this to a video output terminal 8. The audio processing circuit 5 decodes the input coded signal to generate audio data, and performs D / A
The conversion processing is performed to generate a right (R) sound analog signal and a left (L) sound analog signal, which are supplied to the audio output terminal 9.

An OSD (on-screen display) circuit 10 outputs bitmap data based on character information specified by the CPU 3 to the adder 6. Adder 6
Performs a process of incorporating the bitmap data into video data output from the video processing circuit 4. The OSD circuit 10 allows an EPG (Electronic Program G) based on the service information included in the PSI.
uide) In addition to realizing the screen display, the operation guide screen can be displayed.

The remote control receiving section 11 receives a remote control signal light from a remote control transmitter (not shown), converts the light into an electric signal, and supplies the electric signal to the CPU 3.

The CPU 3 performs the following processing according to the present invention.

[0015] The genre code of the currently viewed program is acquired, information indicating the viewing frequency is created, and the created genre viewing frequency information is stored in a nonvolatile memory (for example, an EEPROM) 13. That is, when the viewer designates a channel, a tuning process is performed to receive a broadcast program of the designated channel, and a received image is displayed on a display. As shown in the flowchart, the tuning process (step S
The program information being viewed is acquired from the PSI service information received after 1) (step S2). Then, it is determined whether the program has been watched for a certain time or more (step S3). If the program has not been watched, the program waits for a certain time (step S6) and returns to step 3. On the other hand, if the user has watched for a certain time, the genre code is extracted from the viewed program information (step S4), and the viewed program genre table in the nonvolatile memory 13 is updated based on the genre code (step S5). For example, if the genre code of the viewing program is “soccer” and the value of “soccer” in the viewing program genre table is “4”, update it to “5” by adding “1” to this. become.

[0016] While viewing a program, the nonvolatile memory 1
Then, the genre code of the program with a high viewing frequency is extracted from the viewing program genre table stored in No.3. And
From the program information transmitted during the viewing of the program, program information (program name, channel number, start time, etc.) of a genre matching the genre code, that is, a genre with a high viewing frequency, is acquired. Memory 1
2 is stored. For example, if the genre with the highest value in the viewing program genre table is soccer, program information with a soccer genre code is acquired, and if time permits, program information for the next most frequently viewed genre is obtained. Will be acquired.

[0017] When the viewer instructs an automatic genre search, the program information stored in the memory 12 is read out, and an image display instruction of the program information is issued to the OSD circuit 10. The OSD circuit 10 outputs bitmap data based on the character information instructed by the CPU 3 to the adder 6, whereby a genre search screen is displayed on the display. For example, if a viewer watches a soccer program well, as shown in FIG.
The soccer program information is displayed on the automatic genre search screen. The genre search screen shown in FIG. 2B shows that the first genre is soccer, the second genre is baseball, and the third genre is golf. Shows the program information of soccer, which is the first genre. If the viewer indicates baseball from this display state, the display is switched to baseball program information display.

As described above, if the viewer frequently views soccer, baseball, or the like, program information having a genre code of soccer, baseball, or the like is included in the program information transmitted during viewing of the program. That is, when the viewer gives a genre search instruction, soccer or baseball program information is automatically displayed. The genre specified by the viewer when performing a genre search is usually a genre that the viewer is interested in, and it is unlikely that a genre search is performed by specifying a genre that the viewer is not interested in. Then, what kind of genre the viewer is interested in can be grasped by information on what kind of genre the program that the viewer is actually viewing belongs. Therefore, it can be considered that viewers who often watch soccer and baseball broadcasts often try to perform a genre search on soccer and baseball when performing a genre search. When displayed, the search often matches the viewer's search intent, and in such a case, key operations up to the genre search screen can be largely omitted. Further, since the broadcast receiving device 20 acquires the program information while viewing the program, the search result can be immediately displayed on the screen when the viewer gives a genre search instruction.

In this embodiment, since the non-volatile memory 13 is used as storage means for storing information indicating the viewing frequency of the genre, even if the outlet of the broadcast receiving apparatus is disconnected or a power failure occurs, Information indicating the viewing frequency of the genre is not lost. Also,
In this embodiment, the case where the user watches CS digital broadcasting has been described as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention can be applied to the case of viewing CATV broadcasting and the like.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, in the genre search, the program information of the genre that the viewer has often watched is displayed. Operation can be omitted in many cases. In addition, since the broadcast receiving apparatus acquires the program information during viewing of the program, when the viewer gives a genre search instruction, the search result can be immediately displayed on the screen.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a digital broadcast receiving apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2A is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an automatic genre search screen according to the embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2B is an explanatory diagram showing another example.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a process of acquiring a genre code of a currently viewed program and storing information indicating the viewing frequency in a nonvolatile memory.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Tuner 2 Demultiplexer (DEMUX) 3 CPU 4 Video processing circuit 5 Audio processing circuit 10 OSD circuit 12 Memory 13 Non-volatile memory

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04H 1/00 H04H 1/00 N H04N 5/44 H04N 5/44 Z 7/025 17/00 M 7 / 03 7/08 A 7/035 // H04N 17/00 F term (reference) 5C025 AA28 BA25 BA27 BA28 BA30 CA09 CB09 CB10 DA01 DA04 DA05 5C061 BB03 CC05 5C063 AA02 AB03 AB07 AB11 AC01 AC05 AC10 CA23 DA07 DA13 EB33 5K061 BB00 BB06 BB10 DD00 DD11 DD12 FF11 JJ06

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A frequency information generating means for obtaining a genre code of a viewed program and generating information indicating a viewing frequency of the genre, and a genre viewing frequency from program information transmitted during viewing of the program. A program information acquisition unit for acquiring program information of a genre having a high viewing frequency based on information; and a search for displaying program information acquired by the program information acquisition unit when a genre search instruction is issued by a viewer. A digital broadcast receiving apparatus comprising: a result display unit.