JP2003219297A - Electronic program guide display apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To adopt an idea that the number and contents of short-time programs can be easily recognized by indicating the short-time programs only with frames in the case that an area for indicating a program guide is insufficient. <P>SOLUTION: One frame is assigned to each of programs to which a program name indication area is not given. Alternatively, the frames of the programs whose program name cannot be described and the inside of the frames are displayed differently depending on the attribute of the programs. Alternatively, one frame is used for representing one or a plurality of programs, and when the frame is selected, the program information of all the programs belonging to the selected frame is displayed. Alternatively, one frame is used to represent a plurality of programs, and when the frame is selected, the program information of all the programs belonging to the selected frame is periodically displayed one by one. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic program guide display device for accumulating program information data from the outside, creating a program guide from the accumulated program information data, and displaying it to a user.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, systems for transmitting program information data together with television programs have been increasing due to the progress of digital transmission technology, such as terrestrial data broadcasting and digital CS / BS broadcasting. It is being released one after another. In such a device, it is an appealing point that a program can be selected from an electronic program guide and a recording reservation of the program can be easily set.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned device, the area for displaying the program table is physically limited, and the program name is displayed for the programs having a short duration such as news or weather forecast for 5 minutes. I can't. Therefore, the existence of the program is indicated only by the frame indicating the existence of the program. In such a display, even if the programs with a short duration are consecutive, all the programs are displayed on behalf of one frame, which makes it difficult to understand the number of short programs.

[0004]

In order to solve the above problems, the electronic program guide display / display apparatus according to the present invention allocates one frame to each program to which no area for displaying the program name is given. Also, the frame of the program in which the program name cannot be described and the inside of the frame are displayed differently depending on the attribute of the program. Also,,
One frame represents one or a plurality of programs, and when the frame is selected, the program information of all programs belonging to the frame is displayed. In addition, one frame represents a plurality of programs, and when the frame is selected, the program information of all programs belonging to the frame is periodically displayed one by one.

[0005]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION (Embodiment 1) An electronic program guide display apparatus according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1, 2, 3, and 4. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the program receiving apparatus according to the first embodiment. In FIG. 1, 101 is a signal receiving unit, 102 is a program information acquisition unit, 103 is a program guide creation unit, 104 is a display unit, 105 is a display control unit, 106 is an input unit, 107 is a display information combining unit, and 108 program information. It is a storage unit.

Next, the operation of the electronic program guide display device according to this embodiment will be described. FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing. The signal receiving unit 101 receives the transmitted program information data (S201). The program information data is transmitted by a VBI signal on terrestrial radio waves, packet transmission by CS or BS broadcasting, TCP / IP on the Internet, or the like. The program information acquisition unit 102 acquires program information from the data received by the signal reception unit 101, using a demodulation method suitable for each transmission method (S202). The acquired program information is stored in the program information storage unit 108 (S203).

The program guide creation unit 103 is a program information storage unit 10.
A program table is created from the program information stored in 8. When the program information is transmitted only for the program for the current day, the broadcasting station is represented by the horizontal axis and the time axis is represented by the vertical axis. When the program information exists on a plurality of days, the vertical axis indicates time, but the horizontal axis indicates either day or both broadcasting stations. When the horizontal axis is day, the input unit 106 provides means for displaying a program for several days of one broadcasting station two-dimensionally and selecting the broadcasting station. When the horizontal axis is a broadcasting station, the input unit 106 provides means for displaying programs of all broadcasting stations on a certain day in a two-dimensional manner and selecting a day.
A display example of the program program guide in this case is shown in FIG.

Since a display area that can display the program names of all programs rarely exists, a program with a short program duration does not display the program name, but shows the existence of the program only by the frame of the program. It will be. Even when a program with a short duration continues, the program table creation unit 103 creates a program table so that frames are assigned to all the short programs (S204).

The display information synthesizing unit 107 is a program table creating unit 10.
Other information to be displayed at the same time as the program table created by 3 is collected to create display information. If there is little information that can be displayed on the display unit 104, only a part of the program guide is incorporated into the display information (S205). Finally, the display controller 10
5 displays the information combined by the display information combining unit on the display unit 104 (S206). In FIG. 3, all programs have the same width, but if there is no area that can be displayed so that all programs have the same width, display them in half the width as shown in FIG. Can also be considered.

(Second Embodiment) An electronic program guide display device according to a second embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing. In the steps with the same numbers as in FIG. 2, the same processing as in FIG. 2 is performed. The procedure for receiving the transmitted program information data, acquiring the program information, and storing the program information is the same as that in the first embodiment. When a program guide is created, if there is not enough area to describe all program names, the method of displaying a program in which no program name can be described is different from that of the first embodiment. It is the same as in Embodiment 1 that each program in which the program name cannot be described is represented by one frame, but it is different in that the frame of the program and the inside of the frame are displayed differently for each program attribute (S507). FIG. 6 shows an example in which the program table is created by changing the background for each genre of the program as the attribute. In addition, the performers of the program can change the color.

(Third Embodiment) An electronic program guide display device according to a third embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS. 7, 8 and 9. FIG. 7 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing. In the steps with the same numbers as in FIG. 2, the same processing as in FIG. 2 is performed. In the third embodiment, a program without an area for describing a program name is displayed in one frame, and when the frame is selected, the program information of a plurality of programs belonging to the frame is simultaneously displayed. Different from The procedure for receiving the transmitted program information data, acquiring the program information, and storing the program information is the same as that in the first embodiment. The program guide creation unit 103 represents a program in which a program name cannot be described by one frame and creates a program guide (S708). After displaying the created program guide on the display (S
206) If there is no user input (S709) and a frame in which a plurality of programs are collected is selected (S710), a program guide is created to display the program information of all the programs belonging to the selected frame. (S711). Thereafter, as in the first embodiment, the program guide is combined with other information to display the program guide 104.
Is displayed on the screen (S712, S713). FIG. 8 shows an example of a program table in which a plurality of programs are collectively displayed in one frame, and FIG. 9 shows an example of displaying program information as a result of the selection of the program. Although FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 are examples of the program guide in which a plurality of programs are collectively displayed in one frame, one program is displayed in one frame, and one program belonging to the frame when the frame is selected. You may display the program information of one program.

(Embodiment 4) Hereinafter, an electronic program guide display device according to Embodiment 4 will be described with reference to FIGS. 10, 11 and 12.
Will be described with reference to. FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing. In steps having the same numbers as in FIG. 7, the same processing as in FIG. 7 is performed. The fourth embodiment is different from the third embodiment in that, when a frame in which a plurality of programs are collected is selected, the information of the programs to which the frame belongs is sequentially arranged one by one. The procedure for receiving the transmitted program information data, acquiring the program information, storing the program information, and creating and displaying the program guide is the same as in the third embodiment. After the program guide is displayed, when the frame in which a plurality of programs are put together is selected, the program information of the first program is displayed first. This example is shown in FIG. 11 (S1015). After that, when the program information of the next program is sequentially displayed and the program information of the last program is displayed, the program information of the last program is continuously displayed as it is. This example is shown in FIG. 12 (S1015). Further, after the program information of the last program is displayed, it can be easily changed to display the first program.

[0013]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to easily determine the number of programs even if the program name cannot be described.
In addition, the attribute of the program can be easily discriminated even in the program in which the program name cannot be described. Further, when a plurality of programs whose program names cannot be described are consecutive and a frame cannot be given to them, the program information of all the programs can be easily displayed. Furthermore, when a plurality of programs whose program names cannot be described are consecutive and a frame cannot be given to them, the program information of all the programs can be easily displayed one by one.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electronic program guide display device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a processing flow of the electronic program guide display device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a display example of the electronic program guide display device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing another display example of the electronic program guide display device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a processing flow of an electronic program guide display device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a display example of an electronic program guide display device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a processing flow of an electronic program guide display device according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a display example of an electronic program guide display device according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a display example of an electronic program guide display device according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a processing flow of an electronic program guide display device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a display example of an electronic program guide display device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a display example of an electronic program guide display device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 signal receiver 102 Program information acquisition unit 103 Program guide creation section 104 display 105 display control unit 106 Input section 107 display information synthesis unit 108 Program information storage section

Continued front page    (72) Inventor Atsushi Horioka             1006 Kadoma, Kadoma-shi, Osaka Matsushita Electric             Sangyo Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Mitsuru Kashihara             1006 Kadoma, Kadoma-shi, Osaka Matsushita Electric             Sangyo Co., Ltd. F-term (reference) 5C025 BA27 CA09 CB09 DA01

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An electronic program guide display device for extracting program information from received program information data to create and displaying an electronic program guide, if there is no area for describing the program names of all programs, the program names are displayed. An electronic program guide display device, characterized in that each program not described is represented by a single frame, and the number of programs whose program name is not described can be easily determined. 2. The program guide display device according to claim 1, wherein a program frame in which a program name is not described, a frame within the program, or both of them is displayed differently depending on the attribute of the program. Program guide display device. 3. An electronic program guide display device for extracting program information from received program information data to create and displaying an electronic program guide, if there is no area for describing the program names of all programs, the program names are An electronic program guide display device, wherein a program not described is represented by a frame, and when the frame is selected, the program information of a plurality of programs belonging to the frame is simultaneously displayed. 4. The program guide display device according to claim 3, when a frame in which a plurality of programs in which a program name is not described is collected is selected, the program information of a plurality of programs belonging to the frame is periodically transmitted one by one. An electronic program guide display device characterized by being displayed on.