JP2003111105A - Monitor and monitoring method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To monitor TS being delivered from each system at a low cost without requiring any man power. SOLUTION: TS packets delivered from respective TS packet senders 2 and 3 are fetched in at TS interface sections 11 and 12 and counted in units of packet by means of counters 13 and 14. Counts of respective systems are then compared by means of a comparator 15 and a decision is made whether the same TS, i.e., a TS to be delivered, has been delivered between the systems or not. Monitor information including that decision results and representing the delivery conditions of each system is then stored in a memory 18. When a decision is made that the TS to be delivered has not yet delivered between the systems, a buzzer drive section 21 drives a buzzer 22 to issue an alarm.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to, for example, a digital broadcast signal transmission system having a duplex structure, and particularly to a TS (Tra) transmitted from each of a first system and a second system.
The present invention relates to a monitoring device and a monitoring method for monitoring an nsport stream).

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in broadcasting transmission facilities, it has been common to have a dual structure of a first system and a second system for countermeasures against equipment failures and maintenance.

In recent years, digital broadcasting has been started, and even in the broadcasting transmission facility of this digital broadcasting, a dual structure of a first system and a second system has been adopted for the purpose of equipment failure countermeasures and maintenance.

Here, in the broadcasting transmission facility for digital broadcasting, since it is necessary to monitor the transmission status of the TS of each system, a monitoring device is provided for each system.

[0005]

By the way, in the above monitoring apparatus, in order to monitor the transmission status of the TS, the schedule indicating the TS transmission contents, the bit rate corresponding to the number of packets, the transmission PID (Packet ID) and the like are monitored. It is necessary to preset the detailed data of the TS required for the above.
For this reason, the monitoring person has to perform the monitoring after setting the detailed data of the TS required for the monitoring, which is troublesome for the monitoring and is likely to cause an operation error. Also, when the schedule was changed, it was necessary to reset the data each time, and the operation was difficult.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a monitoring apparatus and a monitoring method that can monitor digital broadcast signals transmitted in each system without manpower and at low cost.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a monitoring device according to the present invention is constructed as follows. (1) A monitoring device that monitors digital signals that are allocated to transmission blocks in the first system and the second system, and a digital signal acquisition unit that acquires each digital signal of the first system and the second system. Comparing means for comparing the digital signal of the first system and the second digital signal acquired by the digital signal acquiring means, and information storing means for storing predetermined monitoring information including the comparison result by the comparing means. It was prepared. In addition, MPEG (Movin
TS (Transport Stream) specified by g Picture Experts Group)
The same configuration is applied to the case of monitoring.

According to the configuration (1), the TSs actually sent from the respective systems are taken in, and the TSs of the respective systems are compared, so that the same TS between the systems, that is, the TS to be sent.
Is transmitted, and the monitoring information including the determination result and indicating the transmission status of the TS of each system is accumulated.

Therefore, the TS required for monitoring each system
It is possible to manage the TS abnormality occurrence status for each system with a single device common to each system based on the accumulated monitoring information, without the need to set detailed data of the above. The labor and cost can be greatly reduced.

(2) Further, when the comparison result by the comparison means indicates a disagreement, an alarm output means for notifying the fact of the disagreement to the outside as an alarm is provided.

According to (2), the fact that an abnormality has occurred in the TS to be transmitted can be notified to the outside, so that it is possible to promptly take a countermeasure such as a recovery operation.

(3) Further, when the comparison result by the comparison means indicates a mismatch, an alarm output means for notifying the outside of this mismatch as an alarm and an alarm output state by the alarm output means are provided by the comparison means. Alarm output control means for controlling execution / stop of alarm output to the alarm output means based on the comparison result is provided.

According to (3), when the abnormality of the TS of each system is recovered, the alarm output is automatically stopped. Therefore, for example, when the abnormality of TS is temporary and returns to normal after that, it is possible to quickly recover without waiting for the recovery operation of the monitor.

(4) Further, it is characterized by further comprising a display unit and a display control unit for displaying the predetermined monitoring information accumulated in the information accumulating unit on the display unit.

According to (4), the monitor can always monitor the transmission status of the TS of each system by looking at the monitor information displayed on the display.

(5) The comparison means holds the first and second packet holding functions for holding the first and second TS packets, respectively, and the packets held by the first packet holding function. And the newly input first system TS
Using the first filtering processing function for executing digital filtering processing using the packet of the first packet, the packet held by the first packet holding function, and the newly input packet of the TS of the first system. The digital filtering process is executed by using the first filtering process function for executing the digital filtering process, the packet held by the second packet holding function, and the newly input second TS packet. It is characterized by having a second filtering processing function and a comparing function for comparing respective outputs of the first and second filtering processing functions.

According to (5), when distortion occurs in the TS packet of each system, the distortion component can be removed by performing digital filtering processing using the TS packet that is already held. Therefore, more stable TS monitoring can be performed.

[0018]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an intra-station system in which the TS monitoring apparatus according to the present invention is used.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a TS monitor,
TS interface units (TSI / F) 11, 12, counters 13, 14, comparator 15, timer 16, memories 17, 18, display controller 19, display 20,
Buzzer drive unit 21, buzzer 22, and buzzer controller 23
It has and.

The TS interface unit 11 takes in the TS packets sent from the TS packet sending device 2 provided in the first system. In addition, the TS interface unit 12
A TS packet sent from the TS packet sending device 3 provided in the second system is taken in.

The counter 13 is a TS interface unit 1.
The number of TS packets fetched by 1 is counted, and predetermined output information including the counter value is output to the comparator 15. The counter 14 counts the number of TS packets fetched by the TS interface unit 12, and outputs predetermined output information including the counter value to the comparator 15.

The comparator 15 compares the outputs of the counters 13 and 14 at the time intervals set in the timer 16, reads the information corresponding to the comparison result from the memory 17, and stores the memory 18 and the buzzer drive unit 21. And buzzer controller 2
Output to 3. Here, an example of the stored contents of the memory 17 is shown in FIG.

The memory 18 stores predetermined monitoring information including the comparison result of the comparator 15. Then, the predetermined monitoring information stored in the memory 18 is stored in the display controller 19
Is read out and displayed on the display 20. Here, an example of the display content of the display 20 is shown in FIG. In addition,
In FIG. 3, # 1 indicates the first system and # 2 indicates the second system.

When the output of the comparator 15 indicates "abnormal", the buzzer driving section 21 drives the buzzer 22 and issues an alarm to the outside.

The buzzer controller 23 controls the buzzer drive unit 21 to stop the buzzer 22 when the comparator 15 reports that the alarm is normal while the buzzer 22 is issuing an alarm.

Next, the processing operation in the above configuration will be described. First, the TS packet transmitters 2 and 3 independently generate the same TS packet. These T
The S packet is standardized by the MPEG2 encoding system.

In the TS monitor 1, the TS packet from the TS packet transmitter 2 is input to the TS interface unit 11, the TS packet from the TS packet transmitter 3 is input to the TS interface unit 12,
The counters 13 and 14 count the outputs of the TS interface units 11 and 12 by a predetermined number of bytes.

The results counted by each of the counters 13 and 14 are compared by the comparator 15, and the information indicating the comparison result, that is, the storage information of the memory 17 corresponding to the comparison result is stored in the memory 18 and the buzzer. Drive unit 2
1 and the buzzer controller 23 are notified. In addition, memory 1
The monitor information stored in 8 is displayed on the display 20 by the display controller 19.

The buzzer driving section 21 judges that an abnormality has occurred and drives the buzzer 22 to generate an alarm externally when a prescribed difference from the information from the comparator 15 is exceeded, for example, 100 packets or more.

On the other hand, the buzzer control unit 23 monitors the state of the buzzer drive unit 21, and when the comparator 15 notifies that it is normal while the alarm is being generated, the buzzer drive unit 21 is activated. Stop control is performed for.

As described above, according to the above embodiment, each T
The TS packets sent from the S packet sending devices 2 and 3 are taken into the TS interface units 11 and 12, respectively, and are counted by the counters 13 and 14 on a packet-by-packet basis. By the comparison, it is determined whether the same TS, that is, the TS to be transmitted, is transmitted between the systems, and the monitoring information including the determination result and indicating the transmission status of the TS of each system is stored in the memory. 18 is stored.

Therefore, the TS required for monitoring each system
It is possible to manage the TS abnormality occurrence status for each system by one TS monitoring device 1 for each system based on the monitoring information accumulated in the memory 18 without performing detailed data setting of As a result, the labor and cost for operation can be significantly reduced, and the TS monitoring device 1 having improved reliability can be provided because human intervention is not required. Also, T
It is possible to easily add a connection to an existing system by exchanging the S interface units 11 and 12 and only wiring cables.

According to the above embodiment, the comparator 15
When the comparison result by means of an abnormality indicates an abnormality, the buzzer 22 issues an alarm to the outside, so that it is possible to notify the outside that an abnormality has occurred in the TS to be transmitted, and thereby promptly take corrective action such as a recovery operation. It is possible to take it.

Further, according to the above-described embodiment, in the buzzer controller 23, when the alarm from the buzzer 22 is generated and the comparator 15 notifies that the alarm is normal, the buzzer 22 outputs the alarm. Since the alarm output is stopped, for example, when the abnormality of TS is temporary and returns to normal after that, it is possible to quickly recover without waiting for the recovery operation of the monitor.

In the above embodiment, an example in which the number of TS packets is compared in the comparator 15 has been described. However, for example, by extracting the PID of the TS packet, making a comparison for each PID, and determining an alarm, It enables detailed monitoring. Also, the TS packets themselves may be compared.

Further, the comparator 15 stores the first and second packet holding functions for respectively holding the first and second TS packets, and the packets held by the first packet holding function. A first filtering processing function for executing digital filtering processing using a newly input first TS packet, a packet held by the first packet holding function, and a newly input first packet processing function. A first filtering processing function for executing digital filtering processing using a 1-system TS packet;
A packet held by the second packet holding function,
A second filtering processing function for executing digital filtering processing using a newly input second TS packet and a comparison function for comparing outputs of the first and second filtering processing functions are further provided. It may be provided.

With this configuration, when the TS packet of each system is distorted, the distortion component can be removed by performing the digital filtering process using the TS packet that is already held. As a result, more stable TS monitoring can be performed. Further, the digital filtering process may be performed by holding the count results of the counters 13 and 14.

Further, in the above embodiment, the example of monitoring the TS packet has been described, but in addition to this, the digital control signal or the like may be monitored.

Further, in the above embodiment, an example in which the predetermined monitoring information stored in the memory 18 is displayed on the display device 20 has been described. However, for example, the predetermined monitoring information stored in the memory 18 is output to a book by a printer. Or send it to the center via the communication line, and the center of the T
The sending status of the S packet may be monitored.

Although the hardware configuration has been described in the above embodiment, it may be implemented by a software configuration as shown in FIG.

That is, reference numeral 100 is a TS monitor, which connects the display 20 and the buzzer 22. In addition,
The TS interface units 11 and 12, the counter 13,
14, comparator 15, timer 16, memories 17, 18, display controller 19, buzzer drive unit 21 and buzzer controller 23
The processing by is implemented by software processing of the TS monitoring device 100.

First, when the TS monitoring device 100 starts the control process shown in FIG. 5, the T monitoring device 100 starts the T process of each of the first system and the second system.
S packet is acquired (step ST5a), and T of each system is acquired.
The number of S packets is counted (step ST5b).

Subsequently, the TS monitoring device 100 compares the counter values of each system and determines whether they match (step ST5c). Here, if the counter values match, the TS monitoring device 100 stores the predetermined monitoring information including the fact that it is normal in the memory (step ST5).
d).

On the other hand, if the counter values do not match, the TS monitoring device 100 determines whether the difference in the counter values between the systems exceeds a predetermined value (step ST5e).
Here, if the predetermined value is not exceeded, the above step S
The process moves to T5d.

On the other hand, if it exceeds the predetermined value, T
The S monitoring device 100 drives the buzzer 22 to output an alarm (step ST5f), and subsequently stores predetermined monitoring information including an abnormality in the memory (step ST5f).
5g).

As described above, the present invention can be implemented by the other embodiments described above. In particular, since each process can be realized by software, the configuration is simplified and it is possible to contribute to miniaturization.

In addition, the configuration of the TS monitor, the type of signal to be handled, the control procedure for making an alarm determination, and the contents thereof can be modified in various ways without departing from the scope of the present invention.

[0049]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide a monitoring device and a monitoring method that can monitor a digital broadcast signal transmitted in each system without requiring manpower and at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a TS monitoring device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of abnormality determination contents stored in a memory shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of display contents of the display shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a TS monitoring device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing operation according to the other embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1,100 ... TS monitoring device, 2, 3 ... TS packet transmission device 11, 12 ... TS interface unit (TSI / F), 13, 14 ... Counter, 15 ... comparator, 16 ... timer, 17, 18 ... Memory, 19 ... Display controller, 20 ... indicator, 21 ... Buzzer drive, 22 ... Buzzer, 23 ... Buzzer controller.

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. A monitoring device for monitoring digital signals assigned to transmission blocks in a first system and a second system, wherein the digital signals are respectively digital signals obtained in the first system and the second system. Acquisition means, comparison means for comparing the first digital signal and the second digital signal acquired by the digital signal acquisition means, and information storage for accumulating predetermined monitoring information including the comparison result by the comparison means And a monitoring device. 2. The first system and the second system mutually use MPEG (Mo
Ving Picture Experts Grou
TS (TransportStream) defined by p)
m) is a monitoring device for monitoring the TS packets of the first system and the second system, and a TS packet of the first system acquired by the TS acquisition unit. 2. A monitoring device comprising: a comparing means for comparing two TS packets with each other; and an information storing means for storing predetermined monitoring information including a comparison result by the comparing means. 3. The monitoring device according to claim 1, further comprising alarm output means for notifying an outside of this inconsistency as an alarm when the comparison result by the comparing means indicates a disagreement. . 4. When the comparison result by the comparison means indicates a mismatch, an alarm output means for notifying the outside of this mismatch as an alarm, and an alarm output state by the alarm output means are used by the comparison means. An alarm output control means for controlling execution / stop of an alarm output to the alarm output means based on a comparison result.
Or the monitoring device according to 2. 5. The display device further comprises a display device and a display control device for displaying the predetermined monitoring information stored in the information storage device on the display device.
The monitoring device described. 6. The comparing means comprises Ts of the first system and the second system.
The monitoring device according to claim 2, wherein the number of S packets is compared. 7. The comparison means includes Ts of the first system and the second system.
The monitoring device according to claim 2, wherein the data in the S packet is compared. 8. The comparison means includes first and second packet holding functions for holding first and second TS packets, respectively, and a packet held by the first packet holding function. , A first filtering processing function for performing digital filtering processing using a newly input first TS packet, and a packet held by the first packet holding function,
A first filtering processing function for executing digital filtering processing using a newly input first TS packet and a packet held by a second packet holding function;
A second filtering processing function for performing digital filtering processing using a newly input second TS packet and a comparison function for comparing the outputs of the first and second filtering processing functions are provided. 3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:
The monitoring device described. 9. A monitoring method for monitoring digital signals allocated to transmission blocks in a first system and a second system, wherein the first system acquires each digital signal of the first system and the second system. Step, a second step of comparing the digital signal of the first system and the digital signal of the second system acquired by the first step, and predetermined monitoring information including the comparison result of the second step. And a third step of accumulating the data. 10. The first system and the second system mutually use MPEG (M
moving Picture Experts Gro
TS (Transport Str) defined by up)
and a first step of acquiring each TS packet of the first system and the second system, and a TS packet of the first system acquired by the first step. A monitoring method comprising: a second step of comparing with a second TS packet; and a third step of accumulating predetermined monitoring information including a comparison result by the second step.