JP2003204536A - Contents distribution system and method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a viewer to easily view only a desired scene in contents that are distributed in a stream form. <P>SOLUTION: A contents distribution server 10 includes an index information creating apparatus 20 for creating index information including index key data denoting an optional scene of contents and a start position of the scene in the contents, and a viewer terminal 12 has a view scene controller 26 for generating management information including view key data denoting the desired scene and a reproduction time and transmits the information to the server 10. The server 10 has a distribution controller 18 for distributing contents on the basis of view management information sent from the viewer and the index information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention can efficiently distribute / view a moving picture / music desired by a viewer in a moving picture / music distribution / viewing system utilizing a communication infrastructure such as the Internet or a telephone line. The present invention relates to a content distribution system and method for reducing the load on the communication infrastructure and reducing the burden on the viewer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, with the spread of the Internet, W
While compressing and coding live video from a video distribution server system or a video camera that stream-compresses the compressed and encoded video content stored on a WW site or the like via a communication infrastructure such as the Internet or a telephone line in real time. Video distribution server systems for streaming distribution have been put to practical use. In such a system, when a viewer of a terminal (personal computer, personal digital assistant, etc.) that reproduces (views) video content attempts to view only the necessary scenes from the video content, the conventional method is as follows. A different method was taken.

The first method is a method of reproducing a moving image content in order from the beginning and searching for a necessary scene.

The second method is to operate the seek bar of the moving picture reproducing software (player etc.) operating on the terminal on the viewing side,
This is a method of searching for a necessary scene.

The third method is a method of designating a bookmark in advance in a moving picture reproducing software of a terminal and jumping to the marked portion at the time of reproduction to retrieve a desired scene.

However, either method requires a lot of time and cost (search fee, connection fee, etc. in the case of pay content) to search for a desired portion, which unnecessarily increases the burden on the viewer. This burden increases in proportion to the size of the moving image content and the total number of scenes to be watched. In particular, in the third method, it is necessary to play the entire content once to add a bookmark. Therefore, this method is an effective means when the content is downloaded and viewed a plurality of times, but it is an unrealistic means when the content is streamed only once. Furthermore, in any of the above three methods, since it is necessary to perform video distribution in a scene other than the scene that the viewer really needs, the load on the video distribution server and the communication infrastructure tends to be unnecessarily increased. It should be noted that this problem is not limited to the moving image content but similarly occurs in the music content.

[0007]

As described above, in a system for constructing a service for delivering contents by utilizing the conventional communication infrastructure such as the Internet and telephone lines, among the target contents, the viewer needs the contents. When searching and playing only the part to be searched, the burden (time and cost) on the viewer side increases in proportion to the size of the entire content and the number of parts to be searched, and the server and communication infrastructure for distributing the content On the contrary, there was a problem that the load was unnecessarily increased.

An object of the present invention is to add index information (information representing each part of the content) to the content on the content distribution side, so that the viewing side refers to the index information before reproducing the content, (EN) Provided are a content distribution system and method for performing distribution control and viewing control that allow only viewing, reducing the trouble and cost on the viewing side, and suppressing the unnecessary load on the distribution server and communication infrastructure. That is.

[0009]

A content distribution system and method according to the present invention describe index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of content on the content distribution side and position information of the scene within the content,
Management information including scene information indicating a desired scene on the viewer side is described, and the content is distributed based on the management information and index information sent from the viewer side to the content distribution side.

Another content distribution system and method according to the present invention describes index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of live content on the content distribution side and includes scene information indicating a desired scene on the viewer side. The management information is described, and the content is distributed based on the management information and the index information sent from the viewer side to the content distribution side.

According to the present invention, in the system on the moving picture distribution side, by adding the index information (information representing a scene) to the moving picture data, the viewer side refers to the index information before reproducing the moving picture, and a necessary scene is displayed. Video content distribution that controls video distribution and viewing control to enable viewing only, reduces the effort and cost on the viewing side, and suppresses unnecessary load on the distribution server and communication infrastructure. Systems and methods can be provided.

[0012]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of a content distribution system according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

First Embodiment In recent years, the performance and functions of mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones have been improved, starting with laptop computers, and services for downloading and streaming playback of broadband video contents on the Internet ( (Paid / Free) is beginning to be offered. However, actually accessing these many broadband moving image contents may result in enormous communication (call) charges and connection charges depending on the case. On the other hand, there are many cases in which it is not possible to see the video that the service user really wants. That is, as the content bandwidth increases, the cost satisfaction of the user with respect to the content tends to decrease. Also, in the system that constitutes the service, much of the processing is spent on the delivery of data that is not important to the user (valueless), which wastes a lot of resources (bandwidth and processing capacity). It will be. Apart from the problem of the content itself, this may be a problem with the content viewing interface.

In general, the information that the user really wants to know and the scene that he wants to see are often limited to some extent. For example, in sports, score / attack scenes of baseball, soccer, etc., scenes of specific player appearances / activities, news articles of desired genres, weather forecasts, residential area forecasts, live concerts. Then
There are many rich scenes (scenes of true value) in various fields such as favorite artists and song scenes, climax in movies and acting of favorite actors. The present invention is to provide such a scene to a user efficiently and effectively.

In the following, as an example, in a moving image distribution system using a communication infrastructure such as the Internet or a telephone line, the above rich scene can be efficiently used.
And, a delivery and viewing control method for effectively providing to the user will be described.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the structure of a content distribution system according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

This system is a moving image distribution server system 1.
0 and a moving picture reproducing terminal 12, both of which are connected by a communication line 14 such as the Internet, a telephone line, and a private line. The moving image distribution server system 10 includes the secondary storage device 1.
6, a video distribution control device 18 for streaming the video content stored in 6 through the communication line 14, an index information creation device 20 for extracting information (index information) about various scenes from the video content and inserting it into the video content, A video viewing management device 22 that manages viewing management information for controlling viewing and performs viewing control.
Have. The video playback terminal 12 receives the video stream supplied via the communication line 14, plays back a video reception control device 24, selects a scene to watch, and sends a scene to the video distribution server system 10 to control the viewing scene. Device 26
Have.

The moving picture distribution control device 18 has a distribution control section 30 for controlling the start and stop of stream distribution of moving picture content, and a distribution section 32 for actually distributing the content to the communication line 14. The index information creation device 20 has an extraction unit 34 that extracts scene information from moving image content, and an insertion unit 36 that inserts information designated from the outside as index information into the content. Video viewing management device 2
Reference numeral 2 denotes a management information operating unit 40 that refers to the viewing management information and the index information and communicates with the viewing control unit 38 that issues an instruction to the distribution control unit 30 and the viewing scene control device 26 to register or delete the viewing management information. To have. Video reception control device 24
Has a reception control unit 42 that controls the start and stop of stream reception, and a reproduction unit 44 that reproduces the received moving image stream. The viewing scene control device 26 represents a viewing scene selection unit 46 for selecting a desired scene, and a viewing control communication unit 48 that transfers information of the selected viewing scene to the management information operation unit 40 and requests viewing control. .

Various formats of the moving image content are conceivable, but here it is assumed that the moving image content is composed of data encoded by various compression encoding systems represented by MPEG of the international standard.

FIG. 2 shows a format example of index information and viewing management information. FIG. 10A shows an example of a format of index information, in which the index information is a content identifier that is an identifier of moving image content, a start position that is position information for starting distribution, and index key data that is data representing a scene. Consists of. The original content identifier is stored in the content identifier. Position information (for example, reproduction time or moving image frame number) of the scene extracted from the content or the scene designated as an index is stored in the start position. The index key data stores data representing the extracted or designated scene. There may be a plurality of combinations of the start position and the index key data. FIG. 2B shows an example of the format of the viewing management information, where the viewing management information is a content identifier that is a moving image content identifier, viewing key data that is data representing a viewing scene, and playback time that is playback time at the time of viewing. Consists of. In the viewing management information, the content identifier stores the identifier of the moving image content to be viewed. Data representing a scene to be viewed is stored in the viewing key data. The playback time specifies the viewing time of the scene to be viewed.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment will be described. First, the outline of the processing will be described.

In the moving image distribution server system 10, index information is added to a specific scene of moving image content. Index information is added to all moving image contents. When the user (viewer) of the video playback terminal 12 tries to view only an arbitrary scene in those video contents, the viewing scene control device 26 creates viewing management information, and the information is used as the video viewing management device 22. Send to. The moving picture viewing management device 22 compares the sent viewing management information with the index information, and issues a distribution request to the moving picture distribution control device 18 only when the key data included in the both match. The video distribution control device 18
The distribution is performed from a predetermined start position included in the index information, and the moving image reception control device 24 of the moving image reproduction terminal 12 receives and reproduces the moving image.

The process of creating index information and viewing management information will be described with reference to FIG. In the same figure (a), a goal of 1200 seconds and 5300 seconds from the start, which is added to the video content of "soccer", is 3000.
There is a corner kick in seconds and a free kick scene in 5000 seconds ”. There are the following two methods of creating such index information, and one is a method of analyzing the original moving image content itself and automatically extracting key data. The other is a method of manually inputting key data from the outside by an operator or the like. For example, in the former, there is a method of recognizing a telop character in a moving image content by an image recognition technique and extracting text information, or a method of recognizing a keyword by voice recognition of voice data and extracting text information. On the other hand, in the latter case, information such as points, corner kicks, free kicks, etc. is inserted manually according to the soccer scene, or names are inserted in scenes where the actor is active in movies etc. There are ways.

FIG. 3B shows an example of viewing management information "I want to watch the goal scene for 20 seconds" added to the moving image content "soccer". In creating the viewing management information, for example, there is a method of displaying a list of index key data of the target moving image content on the playback terminal and selecting one of them as viewing key data. In addition, as another method, there is a method in which a viewer inputs an arbitrary keyword and creates viewing key data (which is a general search method on the Internet or the like). However, in this case, there is a possibility that there is no index key data that matches the viewing key data, in which case the scene to be viewed cannot be found and will not be played back.

Next, details of the processing of the first embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Index information is created in advance in the video delivery server system 10 for the video content to be accessed from the video playback terminal 12. The extraction unit 34 and the insertion unit 36 are used for the creation as described above. On the other hand, the user of the video playback terminal 12 selects the viewing scene selection unit 4 in order to specify a desired scene for the video content to which the index information has already been added.
6 creates viewing management information. The viewing management information is created by the method described above. Then, the viewing control communication unit 48 transmits the viewing management information created here to the management information operating unit 40 on the distribution server side, and issues a viewing control request. The reception control unit 42 waits until it receives the video distribution start notification. The management information operating unit 40 stores and manages the received viewing management information for each moving image reproduction terminal 12. The viewing control unit 38 analyzes the viewing management information and acquires the index information of the designated moving image content. Then, the contents of the viewing key data of the viewing management information and the index key data of the acquired index information are sequentially compared. When the viewing key data and the index key data match, the viewing control unit 38 acquires the start position of the matching index key data. All the index key data of the index information and the viewing key data are compared.

After that, the distribution control unit 30 controls the moving picture reproducing terminal 1
Notify 2 to start distribution. When the terminal 12 receives the notification, the reception control unit 42 activates the moving image reproduction application, waits for reception, and sends a moving image reproduction start to the distribution control unit 30.
The distribution control unit 30 distributes a moving image from the start position designated by the distribution unit 32. On the other hand, in the video playback terminal 12, the reception control unit 42, which has been on standby, starts receiving the video and the playback unit 44 plays back the video. The video is distributed until the reproduction time specified in the viewing management information has elapsed. When the reproduction time has elapsed, the viewing control unit 38 requests the distribution control unit 30 to stop the distribution, and the distribution unit 32 stops the distribution. After the distribution is stopped, the moving picture distribution is performed again from the next start position.
This operation is performed for all start positions. Even before the reproduction time has elapsed, the distribution may be stopped based on a stop request from the user of the video reproduction terminal 12, or the distribution request may be stopped midway without distribution from all start positions. May be.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the flow until the particular scene is viewed. Here, a specific example of the viewing management information shown in FIG. 3 will be described as an example. The index information of FIG. 3A is created in advance for the moving image content “soccer”. In step S12, the moving image reproduction terminal 12 selects the moving image content "soccer", in step S14 the viewing management information shown in FIG. 3B is created, and in step S16, the viewing management information is set to the moving image viewing management device 22. Hand over to. In step S18, the viewing control unit 38 acquires the index information (FIG. 3A) corresponding to the moving image content included in the received viewing management information.

In step S20, the viewing control unit 38 compares the viewing key data (here, "GOAL") with the index key data in the index information. If they match, the start position (here, 1200 seconds) of the index key data is acquired in step S22. In step S24, it is determined whether or not all the index key data has been checked.
Return to. If they do not match, step S24 is immediately executed.

In step S26, the distribution control unit 30 notifies the moving picture reproducing terminal 12 of the start of distribution. When the terminal 12 receives the notification, the reception control unit 42 activates the video reproduction application, waits for reception, and sends a video reproduction start to the distribution control unit 30 in step S28. In step S30, the delivery control unit 30 delivers the moving image from the designated start position. In step S32, it is determined whether or not the reproduction time has elapsed, and if it has elapsed, the distribution is stopped in step S34. The distribution may be stopped before the reproduction time has elapsed or by a stop request from the terminal. In step S36, it is determined whether or not the scene at the final start position has been delivered. If there are still scenes to be delivered, the process returns to step S30 and the content is delivered from the next start position. When all the scenes to be distributed have been distributed, the viewing management information is deleted in step S38, and the operation ends. As a result, after 1200 seconds and 53
The "GOAL" scene after 00 seconds will be delivered for 20 seconds.

As described above, according to the first embodiment, in the moving image distribution system for streaming the moving image contents stored in advance in the secondary storage device 16 and the like, the key data representing the scene of the moving image contents and the key data By adding a start position to each content in advance and designating the content that the viewer wants to view, the key data to be viewed, and the time to be viewed as viewing management information, the scene to be viewed can be viewed in the specified content. It will be possible to watch only for the time that you did. This allows the viewer to view the scene he or she wants to watch more reliably and in a timely manner. Further, it has the effect of reducing the distribution and reception of scenes unnecessary for the viewer, and consequently reduces the load on the communication line 14 on the distribution system side and also reduces the burden on the viewer side (manipulation and cost of operation). You can These features are
In particular, it is effective in a system that provides a moving image stream distribution service for a fee depending on the amount of communication data and communication time. However, the content is not limited to a moving image and may be music content. The playback time may not be specified in the viewing management information, and may be played until a stop instruction is issued from the terminal during viewing. In addition, by describing not only the start position of the scene but also the end position in the index information added to the content, the reproduction time may not be specified in the viewing management information, and the reproduction may be performed from the start position to the end position.
Further, the designation of the content may include not only the content identifiers that completely match, but also the partially matching content.

Another embodiment of the content distribution system according to the present invention will be described below. In the description of the other embodiments, the same parts as those in the first embodiment are designated by the same reference numerals, and detailed description thereof will be omitted.

Second Embodiment FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the structure of a content distribution system according to the second embodiment. In the first embodiment, the secondary storage device 1
Although the system for streaming the moving image content stored in advance in 6 is targeted, the second embodiment targets the so-called live moving image content for streaming while compressing and encoding the image from the camera in real time. . The main difference between the second embodiment and the first embodiment is that real-time compression encoding of an original moving image and index information is created in real time in accordance therewith while comparing with viewing management information. It is in. Therefore, the video playback terminal 12 is the same as that of the first embodiment. Instead of the moving picture distribution server system 10 of the first example, a live moving picture distribution server system 110 is provided in the second embodiment. In the moving image distribution server system 10, the moving image content is stored in the secondary storage device 16, but in the live moving image distribution server system 110, the moving image content is not stored.
It is transmitted from the video camera 112. The output of the video camera 112 is compression-encoded by the compression encoding unit 116 in the real-time moving image distribution control device 114.

FIG. 7 shows a format example of the index information and viewing management information of the second embodiment. FIG. 7A is an example of a format of index information, which includes a content identifier that is an identifier of moving image content and index key data that is data representing a scene. Figure 7
(B) is a format example of viewing management information, which includes a content identifier that is a moving image content identifier and viewing key data that is data representing a viewing scene.

The detailed processing flow of the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

In the live moving image distribution server system 110, real-time moving images from the video camera 112 etc. are compressed and encoded in real time, and at the same time index information is created in real time. On the other hand, the video playback terminal 1
The second user creates the viewing management information by the viewing scene selection unit 46, and the management information operation unit 40 by the viewing control communication unit 48.
Send to. The management information operating unit 40 stores and manages the received viewing management information for each moving image reproduction terminal 12. And
The viewing control unit 38 analyzes the viewing management information, acquires the index key data of the specified moving image content, and compares the viewing key data included in the viewing management information with this index key data. When the two data match, the viewing control unit 38 sends a distribution start notification to the viewing control communication unit 48. The viewing control communication unit 48 sends a playback start notification to the viewing control unit 38 and requests the reception control unit 42 to start reception. The reception control unit 42 waits until it receives the moving image data. On the other hand, the viewing control unit 38 that has received the reproduction start notification
The distribution control unit 30 is notified of the start of distribution, and the distribution control unit 3
0 distributes the data under real-time compression encoding by the distribution unit 32. The distribution here is continued until the user of the user of the video playback terminal 12 executes the playback stop by the reception control unit 42. When the reproduction is stopped, the reproduction unit 44
Stops the reproduction, and the viewing control communication unit 48 requests the viewing control unit 38 to stop the distribution. Then, the viewing control unit 38
Requests the distribution control unit 30 to stop the distribution and stops the distribution.

In the processing of the second embodiment, for example, the following moving picture stream can be viewed. In the live video distribution server system 110, live content "G *** vs. S ***" of live baseball broadcast is compression-coded in real time, and the batter's uniform numbers "55", "24" and favors to be viewed as index keys are displayed. Team score scene "P
It is assumed that the distribution service is being performed while inserting "OINT" and the like at appropriate times. Consider a case in which the user of the moving image reproduction terminal 12 creates viewing management information in which, before viewing, a uniform number or a score scene as shown in FIG. 9A is selected as viewing key data.

When the baseball game progresses and the player with the uniform number 55 becomes the next batter, index information as shown in FIG. 9B is generated. At this time, since the index key data “55” and the viewing key data “55” match, distribution is started by the distribution server, and the moving picture is reproduced on the user's moving picture reproducing terminal 12. This is similarly processed in the turn at bat and the score scene of the player with the uniform number 24. However,
If it has already been reproduced, the reproduction is continued without doing anything. Even in a long-time baseball relay, by controlling in this way, it becomes possible for the user to see only the scene specified by the viewing key data on the terminal.

As described above, according to the second embodiment, the first embodiment can be applied to a moving picture distribution system in which moving picture contents are streamed while being created in real time.
The same operation and effect as those of the embodiment can be obtained.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but can be implemented with various modifications. For example, the present invention can also be implemented as a computer-readable recording medium recording a program for causing a computer to execute a predetermined means.

[0040]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible for the viewer side to watch only the necessary portion, the labor and cost of the viewer side are reduced, and the waste to the distributor side and the communication infrastructure is reduced. It is possible to provide a content distribution system and method for suppressing various loads.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a first embodiment of a content distribution system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing formats of index information and viewing management information according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a specific example of index information and viewing management information according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a sequence diagram showing the operation of the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a second embodiment of a content distribution system according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing formats of index information and viewing management information according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram showing the operation of the second embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a specific example of viewing management information and index information according to the second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... Video distribution server system 12 ... Video playback terminal 14 ... communication line 20 ... Indexing device 26 ... Viewing scene control device

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    F-term (reference) 5B075 KK07 KK37 ND16 NK02 PP03                       PP13 PP22 PQ02 PQ46 UU40                 5C052 AA01 AB03 AC08 CC01 CC06                       CC11                 5C053 FA28 FA29 GB06 HA29 KA04                       KA24 LA06 LA14                 5C064 BA01 BA07 BB07 BC06 BC18                       BC23 BD02 BD07 BD08

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. In a content distribution system capable of streaming content, a means for storing as index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of the content and position information of the scene within the content, and desired by a viewer. A content distribution system comprising: means for receiving management information including scene information indicating a scene, and controlling content distribution based on the management information and index information. 2. The content distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the management information also includes viewing time information, and the control means distributes according to the viewing time information. 3. In a content distribution system capable of streaming live content, means for creating index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of content, and management information including scene information indicating a scene desired by a viewer. And a means for controlling content distribution based on the management information and the index information. 4. The content distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the control means stops the distribution in response to a stop command from a viewer. 5. The content distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the index information also includes content identification information, and the management information also includes content identification information. 6. A content distribution method capable of streaming content, which is stored as index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of the content and position information of the scene within the content, and received from a viewer. A content distribution method for distributing a content based on management information including scene information indicating a desired scene and the index information. 7. The content distribution step determines whether or not there is scene information that matches the scene information included in the management information in the index information of the content, acquires position information of the matched scene information, and acquires the acquired position. The content distribution method according to claim 6, wherein the content is distributed based on the information. 8. A content distribution method capable of streaming live content, wherein, together with production of content, index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of the content is created, and scene information indicating a desired scene received from a viewer. A content distribution method for distributing a content based on management information including the index information and the index information. 9. The content distribution method according to claim 8, wherein the content distribution step distributes the content when the index information of the content matches the scene information included in the management information. 10. The content distribution side describes index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of the content and position information within the content of the scene, and management including scene information indicating a desired scene on the viewer side. A content distribution method in which information is described, management information is sent from the viewer side to the content distribution side, and the content distribution side distributes the content to the viewer side based on the management information and the index information. 11. The content distribution side describes index information including scene information indicating an arbitrary scene of live content, the viewer side describes management information including scene information indicating a desired scene, and from the viewer side A content distribution method in which management information is sent to the content distribution side, and the content distribution side distributes the content to the viewer side based on the management information and the index information.