JP2002118643A - Answering telephone - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an answering telephone capable of allowing the capacity of a backup flash memory to be cut down to reduce the cost. SOLUTION: A circuit interface 11 connected to a communication circuit receives voice data. A compressor 12 samples the voice data at high frequencies and codes the data at a low compression ratio to store high-sound-quality compressed voice data in a DRAM memory 13. The compressor 12 samples the voice data at low frequencies and codes the data at a high compression ratio to store low-sound-quality compressed voice data in a backup flash memory 14. In regeneration, an expander 15 expands the high-sound-quality compressed voice data read from the DRAM memory 13 and applies the data to the speaker 15 to generate voice from a speaker 16.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic telephone answering machine having a backup flash memory provided so that data is not lost even when the power of the apparatus is shut down due to a power failure or the like. The present invention relates to a telephone answering machine in which the rate is changed and data having a high compression rate is stored as backup data in a flash memory.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional answering machine, the capacity of a flash memory for backing up a business message is increased and the cost is increased. The message backup function is a function to prevent data from being lost even when the power is turned off due to a power failure or the like. A conventional answering machine having such a message message backup function is configured as shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram. This figure 4
, The audio data 1a received by the line interface 1 is subjected to high-frequency sampling and encoding with a low compression ratio by the compressor 2, and the compressed data 2a of high sound quality is stored in the flash memory unit 3. At this time, the flash memory unit 3 functions as a normal storage memory and a backup memory, and is a large-capacity memory.

At the time of reproduction, the compressed high-quality sound data 2a stored in the flash memory unit 3 is read out from the flash memory unit 3 and the high-quality compressed data 3a is read.
a is input to the decompressor 4. The decompressor 4 decompresses the high-quality compressed data 3a and supplies it to the speaker 5 as audio data 4a. The speaker 5 is driven to output sound. As an approximation technique, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open
JP-A-233047 discloses that when recording from a tape to a memory after recovery from a power failure, the memory capacity is insufficient.
It is disclosed that recording is performed by lowering the sampling frequency to reduce the amount of data.

[0005]

However, in such a conventional answering machine, even if the power of the device is shut down due to a power outage or the like as described above, it is used as a backup for preventing the message from disappearing. Although the flash memory unit 3 is used, the flash memory unit 3 also serves to store data of a business message in addition to the backup. For this reason, when the message is long, a flash memory unit having a large storage capacity must be used. In addition, the flash memory has a higher unit price per capacity than the DRAM, and therefore has a problem that the cost increases as a backup for a power failure.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and provides an answering machine which can reduce the memory capacity of a flash memory required for backup and reduce costs. The purpose is to:

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, an answering machine of the present invention is connected to a communication line and receives a voice data received by the line interface. High-quality compressed audio data sampled at high frequency and low-compression encoded and audio data received at the above line interface are sampled at low frequency and low-quality compression is applied at low compression rate. A compressor that outputs audio data; a DRAM memory unit that stores the high-quality compressed audio data compressed by the compressor for normal storage; and low-quality compressed audio data that is compressed by the compressor. Flash memory unit for storing the audio data for backup, and the high-quality compressed audio data stored in the DRAM memory unit during reproduction. Elongated, and characterized in that the at the time of reproduction of the low-quality compressed audio data includes a decompressor for supplying to the loudspeaker respectively decompressing the low-quality compressed audio data stored in the flash memory unit.

Therefore, audio data received by the line interface is input to a compressor, sampled at a high frequency, and high-quality compressed audio data which has been subjected to low-compression encoding is stored in a DRAM memory unit. The low-quality compressed audio data sampled with the high compression rate and low encoding rate is stored in the flash memory for backup, and the high-quality compressed audio data stored in the DRAM memory during playback is sent to the decompressor. Input, decompress, supply to the speaker, drive the speaker, and input the low-quality compressed audio data saved in the flash memory section to the decompressor for reproduction in case of power failure or other emergency. , And supply it to the speaker and drive the speaker,
The memory capacity of the flash memory required for the backup can be reduced, and the cost can be reduced.

[0009]

Next, an embodiment of an answering machine according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a first embodiment of an answering machine according to the present invention. The line interface 11 in FIG. 1 is connected to a communication line and receives audio data. The audio data received by the line interface 11 is input to the compressor 12 and supplied to the speaker 16.

[0010] The compressor 12 samples and encodes the input audio data, and stores it in the DRAM memory unit 13 and the flash memory unit 14. In the first embodiment, the compressor 12 performs sampling at a high frequency and encoding at a low compression rate, and performs sampling at a low frequency and encoding at a high compression rate. Among them, the former high-frequency compressed audio data of high sound quality which is sampled at a high frequency and has a low compression ratio is stored in the DRAM memory unit 13. In addition, the latter low-frequency sampling and coded low-quality compressed audio data having a high compression ratio are stored in the flash memory unit 14.

The DRAM memory unit 13 is a normal storage memory, and the flash memory unit 14 is a backup memory.
Compressed audio data is stored. At the time of reproduction, DRAM
The high-quality compressed audio data stored in the memory unit 13 is read out, the data compressed by the decompressor 15 is expanded, and the audio is output from the speaker 16. At the time of a power failure, the low-quality compressed audio data stored in the flash memory unit 14 is read out, the data compressed by the decompressor 15 is decompressed, and sound is output from the speaker 16.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment configured as described above will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 additionally shows data on the output side of each unit in the block diagram shown in FIG. 1 to explain the operation of the first embodiment. As shown in FIG. The audio data 11a received by the
Is input to In the compressor 12, audio data 12a
Are sampled and encoded, and stored in the DRAM memory unit 13 and the flash memory unit 14.

At this time, the DR used for normal storage is used.
The AM memory 13 stores high-quality compressed audio data 12a that has been sampled at a high frequency and coded at a low compression rate, and the backup flash memory 14 has a low-frequency sampling and compression. Compressed audio data 12b of relatively low sound quality that has been encoded at a high rate
To accumulate. As described above, by reducing the data amount by lowering the sampling frequency, the capacity of the backup flash memory unit 14 can be reduced.
Thus, the DRAM memory unit 13 is a large-capacity memory, but the backup flash memory unit 14 can be a small-capacity memory. In this case, the data for backup is data in case of a power failure or the like, so that the backup function can be performed even if the sound quality is low.

At the time of reproduction, high-quality compressed audio data stored in the DRAM memory unit 13 is read out,
The read high-quality compressed audio data 13 a is input to the decompressor 15. As a result, the high-quality compressed audio data 13a compressed by the expander 15 is expanded, applied to the speaker 16 as the audio data 15a, and the sound is output from the speaker 16.

When the low-quality compressed audio data stored in the flash memory section 14 is reproduced at the time of a power failure or the like, the low-quality compressed audio data 14a stored in the flash memory section 14 is read out and expanded. Fifteen
The audio data is applied to the speaker 16 after being expanded by the expander 15, and the audio is output from the speaker 16.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a specific example of the embodiment according to the present invention. The basic constituent members in FIG. 3 are the same as those in the first embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, and the same parts as those in FIGS. 1 and 2 are denoted by the same reference numerals. In FIG. 3, consider storing a message for 15 minutes. Normally used DRAM
When storing compressed audio data of 32 kbps with high sound quality in the memory unit 13, a capacity of 28.8 Mbits is required. Therefore, a 32 Mbit memory is sufficient for normal use.

Further, the flash memory unit 14 as a backup memory needs a capacity of 1.8 Mbits when storing 2 kbps data. Therefore, a memory of 2 Mbits is sufficient. Therefore, in this specific example, the capacity of the flash memory unit 14 required for backup can be reduced to 1/16 of the conventional answering machine.

[0018]

As described above, according to the present invention, low-frequency compressed audio data sampled at a low frequency and coded at a high compression rate is stored in the backup flash memory unit. Therefore, the capacity of the flash memory unit can be reduced, and thus the cost can be reduced by reducing the capacity of the flash memory whose unit price is higher than that of the DRAM.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the answering machine according to the first embodiment of the present invention, in which output data of each component is added.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing numerical values of specific memory capacities of a DRAM memory unit and a flash memory unit in the first embodiment of the answering machine according to the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional answering machine.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference numeral 11: Line interface, 11a, 15b: Audio data, 12: Compressor, 12a, 13a: High-quality compressed audio data, 12b, 14a: Low-quality compressed audio data, 13: DRAM memory unit, 14 flash memory section, 15 expander, 16 speaker.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A line interface connected to a communication line for receiving audio data, and high-quality compressed audio data obtained by sampling audio data received by the line interface at a high frequency and performing low-compression encoding. A compressor that samples audio data received at the line interface at a low frequency and outputs low-sound-quality compressed audio data that has been encoded at a high compression rate; and the high-sound quality compressed by the compressor. A DRAM memory unit for storing compressed audio data for normal storage, a flash memory unit for storing low-quality compressed audio data compressed by the compressor as a backup, and a DRAM memory unit for storing in the DRAM memory unit during reproduction. When the high-quality compressed audio data is expanded and the low-quality compressed audio data is reproduced, the flash memory is reproduced. Telephone answering device, characterized in that it comprises a stretcher supplied to the speaker respectively decompressing the low-quality compressed audio data stored in the re, the. 2. The answering machine according to claim 1, wherein said DRAM memory unit has a memory capacity of 32 Mbits. 3. The answering machine according to claim 1, wherein said flash memory unit has a 2 Mbit memory capacity.