JP2002010212A - Device and method for sending material - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device and system for sending a material, which can avoid causing check miss and improves work efficiency of preview processing without a complicated operation. SOLUTION: Reproduction Speed Table(RST) is provided in mother preview processing program (on-air preview processing program) for designating the maximum reproduction speed in response to the length of material so as to operate the material preview or the on-air preview without exceeding the maximum reproduction speed that the RST designates, therefore it doesn't need to stop a high speed reproduction for a while to check the contents of the material as before, so that it can avoid causing check miss and also improve work efficiency without the complicated operation.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a material sending apparatus and a material sending method for automatically reducing and playing back a material having a short material length when performing a material preview.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a non-linear recording / reproducing means such as a video server has been provided, and the attributes (material code, material name, material length, etc.) of the material (video / audio data) recorded in the non-linear recording / reproducing means are stored in a database. Register and manage
2. Description of the Related Art There is known a material sending apparatus for sending a material from a non-linear recording / reproducing means with reference to a material attribute registered and managed in this database. In a CM bank system, which is a device of this type, CM (commercial) materials are recorded (filed) in a video server based on control commands from a plurality of operation terminals, and a transmission list (CM transmission time) registered in a database is stored. , A material attribute indicating the material to be sent, etc.)
, The CM material stored in the video server is transmitted on demand.

[0003]

By the way, in the conventional material sending apparatus, there is no noise or the like superimposed on the material to be sent.
The preview processing is performed to check whether the contents to be transmitted are free from defects, such as whether the contents are not continuously transmitted or another material is specified by mistake.
In the preview processing, usually, the material is often reproduced at a high speed such as 4 times speed in order to shorten the processing time and increase the work efficiency.

However, a material having a short material length (hereinafter referred to as a material)
When a short material is called at a high speed, the playback time becomes extremely short. As a result, it is difficult to accurately confirm the content, and there is a problem that a confirmation error is induced. Therefore, in the preview process, every time the content of the short material is checked, the high-speed playback is temporarily interrupted, and the playback speed is reduced to check the content.
There is a problem that the operation is complicated and the work efficiency is reduced. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a material sending apparatus and a material sending method capable of preventing a confirmation error from being induced and improving the work efficiency of a preview process without performing a complicated operation. It is intended to provide.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a reproducing speed specifying means for specifying an upper limit reproducing speed according to a material length of a material to be reproduced, When a playback speed higher than the upper limit playback speed specified by the speed designator is set, a playback device that plays back the material at the upper limit playback speed is provided.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, a reproducing speed specifying step of specifying an upper limit reproducing speed in accordance with a material length of a material to be reproduced, and a reproduction exceeding the upper limit reproducing speed specified by the reproducing speed specifying step. And reproducing a material at the upper limit reproduction speed when the speed is set.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a selecting means for selecting a material whose contents are to be checked from among the recorded materials, a setting means for setting a reproduction speed, and a function of a material length of the material selected by the selecting means. A reproduction speed designating means for designating the upper limit reproduction speed, and a reproduction for reproducing at the upper limit reproduction speed when the reproduction speed set by the setting means exceeds the upper limit reproduction speed designated by the reproduction speed designating means. Means.

[0010] In the invention according to claim 4, a selection step of selecting a material whose contents are to be confirmed from the recorded materials, a setting step of setting a reproduction speed, and a material length of the material selected in the selection step are set. A playback speed designation step of designating a corresponding upper limit playback speed, and a playback speed set in the setting step,
A reproduction step of performing reproduction at the upper limit reproduction speed when the reproduction speed exceeds the upper limit reproduction speed specified in the reproduction speed specification step.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, an attribute representing a playback speed suitable for preview processing for confirming the content of a material is assigned to each material in advance, and each material whose content is to be confirmed with reference to the attribute is referred to. And a preview unit for automatically setting the reproduction speed of the program and executing the preview processing.

According to the present invention, an attribute representing a reproduction speed suitable for preview processing for confirming the contents of the material is given to each material in advance, and each material whose contents are to be confirmed with reference to this attribute is referred to. And a preview step of automatically setting the reproduction speed of the program and executing the preview processing.

In the first invention, when a reproduction speed exceeding the upper limit reproduction speed according to the material length of the material to be reproduced is set, the material is reproduced at the upper limit reproduction speed. As a result, it is not necessary to interrupt the high-speed playback once every time the content of the short material is checked and reduce the playback speed to check the content. Work efficiency can be improved.

In the second invention, an attribute representing a playback speed suitable for preview processing for confirming the content of a material is assigned to each material in advance, and the content of each material whose content is to be confirmed with reference to this attribute is referred to. Since the reproduction speed is automatically set, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of a confirmation error in the preview processing, and to improve the working efficiency by eliminating complicated operations.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A material transmitting apparatus according to the present invention is applied to a program transmitting system or a CM bank system provided as broadcasting station equipment. Hereinafter, a CM bank system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described as an example with reference to the drawings.

(1) Configuration FIGS. 1 and 2 are block diagrams showing the overall configuration of a CM bank system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The CM bank system shown in these figures has a data gateway 10
1, database server 102, filing terminal 10
3 and a preview data terminal 104, and a transmission data control system (active system, standby system) 201,
02 and a sending monitoring terminal 203, a cassette changer control unit 301, a cassette changer 302, and SMS gateways 303 and 30.
4, IDC 305, 306, AV server 307, 308
And a transmission system including a material machine (VTR) 309. These systems are connected to a network NT such as Ethernet (registered trademark) through nodes ND1 to ND9 formed of hubs or routers. ing.

The data gateway 101 receives the material data and the playlist generated by the higher-level data management system 400 via the network NT and registers them in the database server 102. Further, the data gateway 101 returns an update registration result and a transmission result list (described later) supplied from the database server 102 to the upper data management system 400.

The material data is an AV server 30 described later.
7, 308, which is data for identifying the content of the material, and includes, for example, a material code, a material name, and a sponsor name. The playlist is, for example, a data table in which CM frames (or CM materials) to be transmitted in one day (or one week) are arranged in order of transmission time. The playlist includes time information such as a frame start time and a material length, in addition to attribute information for individually identifying a CM frame and a material forming the CM frame.

Further, in the data gateway 101,
In addition to managing applications that keep track of the launch status of various application software running in this system, performing date synchronization management that synchronizes the date and time of the entire system, and collectively managing various errors and warnings that occur in the system Aggregate and report the content to the corresponding terminal.

In the database server 102, the data gateway 101 and the filing terminal 1 described later are used.
03 and the preview terminal 104, various processing results transmitted from the transmission control systems 201 and 202 or the transmission monitoring terminal 203, which will be described later, are registered in the database, while the material data, the playlist, and the like updated in accordance with the registration are registered. Send the transmission result list to the upper data management system 4
The data is transferred to the data gateway 101 for return to the 00 side.

The filing terminal 103, based on the material data registered in the database server 102, describes a material to be recorded in both systems or one of the AV servers 307 and 308 (active or standby), which will be described later. SMS
It instructs the gateways 303 and 304 (active and standby) and notifies the database server 102 of the material recording result corresponding to the instruction. In addition, filing terminal 103
Now, according to the playlist registered in the database server 102, the unification process of recording and editing the materials recorded in the AV servers 307 and 308 in a predetermined format on a VTR tape in a predetermined format to create a transmission backup tape is described. Execute.

The preview terminal 104 performs a mother preview process and an on-air preview process. The mother preview processing realizes a material preview function (described later) for checking the video and audio of the material recorded on the AV servers 307 and 308 for each material on a monitor. On the other hand, the on-air preview process is performed in the database server 1
02 in the broadcast order according to the playlist registered in AV
This is a process of checking the video and audio of the material recorded in the servers 307 and 308 on a monitor, and realizes an on-air preview function (described later).

In the mother preview processing and the on-air preview processing executed by the preview terminal 104,
A reproduction speed setting table RST for specifying an upper limit reproduction speed according to the length of the material length is provided.
The material preview and the on-air preview are performed at a speed that does not exceed the upper limit playback speed specified by. FIG. 3 shows an example of the reproduction speed setting table RST. In this example, when the material length is “5 seconds or less”, the reproduction speed is 1 ×, when “6 to 10 seconds”, the reproduction speed is 2 ×, and
In the case of "second to 15 seconds", the reproduction speed is set as the upper limit, and in the case of "16 seconds or more", the reproduction speed is set as the upper limit. The intention of the reproduction speed setting table RST will be described later.

The filing terminal 103 and the preview terminal 104 are configured to be customizable. For example, the filing terminal 103 can execute each processing of the preview terminal 104, or the filing terminal 103 can be customized. Can be executed.

The sending control systems 201 and 202 refer to the playlists registered in the database server 102, respectively, and send the corresponding materials from the AV servers 307 and 308 (active / standby) so that the SMS gateway 30 can send the corresponding materials.
3, 304 (to be described later). Transmission monitoring terminal 20
3 performs playlist management processing and on-air monitoring processing. In the playlist management process, a playlist registered in the database server 102 is displayed on a screen and its contents are edited. In the on-air monitoring processing, the execution state of material transmission is monitored, a transmission control instruction accompanying a change in program scheduling, and a recovery instruction of transmission control when a trouble occurs.

The cassette changer control unit 301 (see FIG. 2) makes a backup copy of the material recorded on the AV servers 307 and 308 (active and spare) onto a cassette tape using the VTR of the cassette changer 302,
AV servers 307 and 308 (current and spare) as necessary when the material recorded on the cassette tape is backed up
SMS gateways 303 and 30 to reproduce and output to
4 (described later). In the cassette changer control unit 301, when the filing terminal 103 executes the unification processing, the SMS gateway 30
The unified output reproduced by the AV servers 307 and 308 in response to the instruction from the user 3 and 304 is recorded on the VTR using the cassette changer 302. In addition, unification does not need to use the VTR in the cassette changer 302, and the external VTR
May be executed by using the command.

The cassette changer 302 includes a plurality of shelves for accommodating cassette tapes, transport means for unloading cassette tapes from the shelves, or transporting cassette tapes to the shelves, and cassette tapes set by the transport means. Recording / reproducing means for recording / reproducing.

The SMS (server management system) gateways 303 and 304 are provided for the transmission control systems 201 and 20.
2. Filing terminal 103 and preview terminal 10
Arbitration of recording / reproducing requests from a plurality of higher-level servers / terminals such as the lower-level A
Recording / reproducing instruction (input / output instruction) to V servers 307 and 308
give. That is, the SMS gateways 303 and 30
Reference numeral 4 denotes a database which stores whether or not a higher-order server / terminal has made a reservation (such as an open command) for a lower-level device (including a channel and input / output of a switcher) for use. , The recording / reproducing request from the host server / terminal is arbitrated to generate a specific recording / reproducing instruction (input / output instruction).

IDCs (intelligent device controllers) 305 and 306 respond to recording / reproducing requests input from the upper SMS gateways 303 and 304 in real time by the lower AV servers 307 and 308.
Is controlled. In other words, the IDC 305, IDC 305,
An instruction is output to the AV servers 307 and 308 by the operation of a timer or an external manual switch in the 306 as a trigger and executed. Note that the IDCs 305 and 306
A recording / reproduction instruction (input / output instruction) is given via the MS gateways 303 and 304, and the host control system 50
It is configured so that the transmission play control can be performed locally from 0.

The AV servers 307 and 308 are
According to the instructions of the master switcher 600 in the next stage, the material to be reproduced by the material machine 309 is recorded, or the recorded material is reproduced and output as the active system output or the standby system output.
To send to. The master switcher 600 selects one of the two outputs and sets it as a transmission output. Master switcher 6
The output selection of 00 is configured to be controllable according to a command from the host control system 500 / terminal.

In the CM bank system having such a configuration, a "filing function", a "material preview function", a "playlist registration function", and an "on-air preview function" are executed by various application software executed on each server / client terminal. , A “unified tape creation function” and a “sending function” are realized. Hereinafter, these main functions will be outlined.

Filing Function The database server 102 temporarily registers material data from the higher-level data management system 400 via the data gateway 101. When a filing operation is performed by the filing terminal 103, the material data of the temporarily registered material data is registered. Of these, the material data of the material actually recorded in the AV servers 307 and 308 is updated and registered in the database server 102.

When such a filing operation is executed by the filing terminal 103, the database server 102
And instructs the SMS gateways 303 and 304 to reproduce the material corresponding to the material data updated and registered in the AV server 307 and 308 by the material machine 309.
As a result, in the SMS gateways 303 and 304,
For the IDCs 305 and 306, the AV servers 307 and 3
An instruction is issued to record the reproduction output of the material machine 309 to both or one of the systems 08 (active and spare).
The material data updated and registered on the database in accordance with the filing operation is added to the material data temporarily registered in the database server 102 as a filing result, and is returned to the upper data management system 400 via the data gateway 101. .

Material preview function Checking the materials recorded in the AV servers 307 and 308
This is performed in the mother preview process executed by the preview terminal 104. In the mother preview process, material data registered in the database server 102 is displayed on the screen, material data to be checked is selected from the material data, and a material preview is performed to check material contents, image quality, and sound quality. This function is also provided in the filing function. When the preview terminal 104 executes the material preview, it instructs the SMS gateways 303 and 304 to reproduce the material corresponding to the selected material data.
As a result, the SMS gateways 303 and 304
For the DCs 305 and 306, the AV servers 307 and 308
(Active, spare) to instruct the corresponding material to be reproduced.

Playlist Registration Function The playlist generated by the host data management system 400 is automatically registered in the database server 102 via the data gateway 101. When the playlist is output from the upper data management system 400 to a recording medium such as a floppy (registered trademark) disk, the transmission monitoring terminal 203 executes the playlist management processing program, and reads the playlist from the recording medium. To the database server 102. The playlist registered in the database server 102 is transmitted to the transmission monitoring terminal 2.
In a format that can be directly input and edited by the playlist management processing program executed in 03. As described above, the playlist management process refers to a process of displaying a playlist registered in the database server 102 on a screen or editing the content thereof.

On-air preview function The preview terminal 104 executes the on-air preview process to execute the on-air preview process, and according to the playlist registered in the database server 102, the AV servers 307 and 30.
The video and audio contents of the material recorded in 8 can be confirmed in broadcast order. When performing the on-air preview process, either the active or standby AV server 307, 30
Specify whether to use 8.

That is, when performing on-air preview processing at a plurality of terminals, for example, if access is concentrated on the active AV server 307, the processing efficiency decreases due to an increase in load. Therefore, mirroring for storing the same material is performed on the active AV server 307 and the standby AV server 308, and when performing on-air preview processing at a plurality of terminals, either the active or standby AV server is used. Of the AV servers 307 and 308 can be designated to avoid access concentration.

When the on-air preview process is executed by the preview terminal 104, the material along the playlist is
It instructs the SMS gateway 303 (304) to play back from the designated system-side AV server. Thereby, S
The MS gateway 303 (304) has the IDC 305
AV server 307 on the system side specified via (306)
(308) is controlled to reproduce.

Unification Tape Creation Function The filing terminal 103 executes the unification processing program to execute AV programs 307 and 30 according to the playlist registered in the database server 102.
8 can be recorded and edited on a VTR tape in a predetermined format in the order of broadcasting to create a unified tape for transmission backup.

That is, the unified tape is a material in which the materials are recorded in the order to be sent to the tape loaded in the VTR in accordance with the play list. The tape is played back on an external VTR to continue sending. When the unification processing program is executed by the filing terminal 103, the SMS gateway 303 (304) is configured to reproduce and output the material along the playlist from the designated system-side AV server to an external VTR such as the cassette changer 302. At the same time, it instructs the cassette changer control unit 301 to perform VTR recording.

Transmission Control Function Transmission control is performed independently for the active system and the standby system, and material transmission from the active AV server 307 is performed by the transmission control system 20.
2, the transmission control system 203 handles the material transmission from the standby AV server 308. Transmission control systems 202 and 20
Reference numeral 3 denotes AV servers 307 and 308 (active, standby, etc.) for automatically reading the playlists of the current day and the next day from among the playlists registered in the database server 102, and recording the corresponding materials by referring to the playlists. ) From the SMS gateways 303 and 30 respectively.
Instruct 4

Each of the transmission control systems 202 and 203 creates its own transmission result list and transmits the generated transmission result list to the host data management system 400 via the data gateway 101. At this time, the data gateway 101 creates one transmission result list using the data of the system actually transmitted from the transmission result lists of both systems.

(2) Operation Next, the operation of the preview processing executed in the embodiment having the above configuration will be described with reference to FIG. Preview terminal 104 (or filing terminal 103)
In, when the mother preview processing program (or the on-air preview processing program) is started,
Proceeding to step S1 shown in FIG. 5, the terminal operator selects a material to be previewed.

That is, in the case of the on-air preview process, a playlist to be rehearsed is selected from a plurality of playlists registered in the database server 102, and a rehearsal start point is designated in the selected playlist. On the other hand, in the case of the mother preview processing, the material data registered in the database server 102 is displayed on the screen, and the material data whose contents are to be confirmed is selected from the material data.

When the material to be previewed is selected, the process proceeds to step S2, in which the terminal operator sets the reproduction speed, and instructs the execution of the preview in step S3. Then, the mother preview processing program (or the on-air preview processing program) executes step S
The process proceeds to 4 to recognize the material to be reproduced and the length of the material. Next, in step S5, the upper limit reproduction speed corresponding to the material to be reproduced recognized in step S4 is set in the reproduction speed setting table RST (see FIG. 3).
Read from Then, in step S6, it is determined whether or not the playback speed set in step S2 exceeds the upper limit playback speed read from the playback speed setting table RST.

Here, for example, in the above step S2, when a quadruple speed reproduction speed is set and a short material whose material length is 5 seconds or less is to be previewed, the set reproduction speed is set to the reproduction speed setting table RST ( 3), the determination result in step S6 is “YES”, the process proceeds to step S7, and the upper limit playback speed “1” read from the playback speed setting table RST is set to “1”. Play short material at "double speed". This eliminates the need to temporarily interrupt high-speed playback and reduce the playback speed to check the content each time the content of the short material is checked, as in the related art, thereby preventing the occurrence of a check error and performing a complicated operation. This makes it possible to improve the work efficiency of the preview processing without any processing.

On the other hand, for example, in step S2, when a playback speed of 4 times speed is set and the material length is to be previewed for 16 seconds or longer, the set playback speed is set in the playback speed setting table RST. Since it does not exceed the upper limit reproduction speed read out from step S6, the determination result in step S6 is "NO", the process proceeds to step S8, and the material is reproduced at the set reproduction speed (4 times speed).

Thereafter, the mother preview processing program (or the on-air preview processing program) advances the processing to step S9 to determine whether or not there is a material to be reproduced next.
S ", the process proceeds to step S10, and the next material is set as a playback control target, and then the above-described step S4 and subsequent steps are repeated. On the other hand, if there is no material to be played next,
The result of the determination in step S9 is "NO", and the preview process ends.

As described above, according to the present embodiment,
The mother preview processing program (or the on-air preview processing program) is provided with a reproduction speed setting table RST for specifying an upper limit reproduction speed according to the length of the material, and the material preview is performed at a speed not exceeding the upper limit reproduction speed specified by the table RST. And on-air preview, so that every time you check the contents of a short material, it is no longer necessary to pause high-speed playback and reduce the playback speed to check the contents, which prevents the occurrence of confirmation errors. In addition, it is possible to improve work efficiency without performing complicated operations.

In the above-described embodiment, when the playback speed specified by the terminal operator exceeds the upper limit playback speed read from the playback speed setting table RST according to the material length of the material to be played back. Instead, the data is reproduced at the upper limit reproduction speed. Alternatively, for example, data representing a reproduction speed suitable for preview is assigned as an attribute to each material in advance, and each material is referred to by referring to this attribute. If the playback speed when previewing is automatically set, the work efficiency of the preview processing can be further improved. As the attribute indicating the playback speed suitable for the preview, for example, material data for identifying the content of the material stored in the AV server 307 or 308 is used, or an attribute item indicating the playback speed suitable for the preview in the playlist. May be provided.

[0049]

According to the first and second aspects of the present invention, when a reproduction speed exceeding the upper limit reproduction speed according to the material length of the material to be reproduced is set, the material is reproduced at the upper limit reproduction speed. , So every time the contents of the short material are checked, the high-speed playback is temporarily interrupted, as in the past.
As a result, there is no need to check the content by lowering the playback speed,
Induction of a confirmation error in the preview process can be prevented, and complicated operation can be eliminated to improve work efficiency. According to the third and fourth aspects of the invention, when the set reproduction speed exceeds the upper limit reproduction speed corresponding to the material length of the material to be reproduced, the set reproduction speed is replaced with the upper limit reproduction speed. As the material is played, the high-speed playback is temporarily interrupted each time the contents of the short material are checked, as in the past.
As a result, there is no need to check the content by lowering the playback speed,
Induction of a confirmation error in the preview process can be prevented, and complicated operation can be eliminated to improve work efficiency. According to the fifth and sixth aspects of the present invention, an attribute representing a playback speed suitable for preview processing for confirming the content of a material is assigned to each material in advance, and the content to be confirmed with reference to this attribute is determined. To automatically set the playback speed of the material,
Induction of a confirmation error in the preview processing can be prevented, and the operation efficiency can be improved by eliminating complicated operations.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of an embodiment according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an embodiment according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a reproduction speed setting table RST.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a preview process.

[Explanation of symbols]

101: Data gateway, 102: Database server, 103: Filing terminal, 104: Preview terminal, 201, 202: Transmission control system, 203: Transmission monitoring terminal, 301: Cassette changer control unit, 302: Cassette changer, 303, 304 ... SMS gateway, 305, 306 IDC, 307, 308 AV server, 309 Material machine, 400 Host data management system, 500 Host control system, 600 Master switcher.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A playback speed designating means for designating an upper limit playback speed according to a material length of a material to be played, and a playback speed exceeding the upper limit playback speed designated by the playback speed designating means is set. A material transmitting device comprising: a reproducing unit configured to reproduce the material at the upper limit reproduction speed. 2. A reproduction speed designation step for designating an upper limit reproduction speed according to a material length of a material to be reproduced, and a reproduction speed exceeding the upper limit reproduction speed designated by the reproduction speed designation process is set. And a reproduction process of reproducing the material at the upper limit reproduction speed. 3. A selecting means for selecting a material whose contents are to be checked from among the recorded materials, a setting means for setting a reproducing speed, and specifying an upper limit reproducing speed according to the material length of the material selected by the selecting means. When the playback speed set by the setting unit exceeds the upper limit playback speed specified by the playback speed designation unit, the playback unit includes a playback unit that performs playback at the upper limit playback speed. Characteristic material sending device. 4. A selecting step of selecting a material whose content is to be checked from the recorded materials, a setting step of setting a reproducing speed, and designating an upper limit reproducing speed according to a material length of the material selected in the selecting step. A reproducing speed specifying step of performing the setting, and a reproducing step of performing reproduction at the upper limit reproducing speed when the reproducing speed set in the setting step exceeds an upper limit reproducing speed specified in the reproducing speed specifying step. Material sending method characterized by the above-mentioned. 5. An attribute representing a playback speed suitable for preview processing for confirming the content of a material is assigned to each material in advance, and the playback speed of each material whose content is to be confirmed by referring to this attribute is automatically set. A material sending apparatus comprising a preview unit for setting and executing the preview processing. 6. A process in which an attribute representing a playback speed suitable for preview processing for confirming the content of a material is previously assigned to each material, and the playback speed of each material whose content is to be confirmed with reference to the attribute is automatically determined. And a preview process of setting and executing the preview process.