JP2003228538A - Image delivery system, program for implementing function of the system, and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To increase the possibility of content delivery business by familiarizing consumers more with video image delivery. <P>SOLUTION: A server device 21 holds middleware 22 for high efficiency data compression, a server (program) 23, and broadcast content data 24. A user who sends a video mail uses a portable terminal 20a to shoot an image and input character information to be displayed as a telop, and transmits them as the video mail to the server device 21. The server device effects data compression and transmission depending on a FOMA-compliant terminal 20b or an i-mode terminal 20c (both brands of NTT DoCoMo, Inc.). The video image contents 24 including character information such as news, a sports program and local information can be delivered to the portable terminals. <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 image distribution system, and more particularly to an image distribution system capable of moving image distribution corresponding to a band and specifications in currently popular mobile terminal devices.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The technical innovations of mobile phones and the like that function as information terminal devices are remarkable, and nowadays, a system capable of browsing a home page is prevailing corresponding to the Internet. For example, NTT Docomo's i-mode or KDDI's AU brand ezmovie
Etc. are used in the market, and the fusion of mobile terminals and the Internet has already become a scene in the daily life of users.

In addition, Java is used as a mobile terminal device such as a mobile phone.
Major carriers provide systems that carry (R) and download programs to operate autonomously. With the mobile terminal device having such a function, the target content can be downloaded as if the content was downloaded via the browser on the Internet. For example, the NTT Docomo i-appli operates on a mobile terminal device equipped with Java (R), and the program can periodically obtain information from the server without the user having to access the server each time. The i-appli program can be obtained by selecting it from the i-mode menu list.

More recently, high-speed performance of data communication has been significantly improved due to improvement in model specifications and expansion of usable bandwidth, and a service capable of downloading moving image content has been provided as a next-generation mobile communication service. There is. For example, FOMA, a third-generation mobile communication service brand by NTT Docomo, has achieved up to 64 kbit / s for packet communication and 384 kbit / s for downlink, and 64 kbit / s for circuit switching. is doing.

According to the high-speed data communication system as described above, since the data download is completed promptly,
Music distribution and video distribution services are listed as suitable services using this system. Moreover, not only is all the data downloaded to the mobile information terminal and then played back on the mobile information terminal, but it is also possible to perform streaming playback in which the data is played back simultaneously while downloading.

[0006]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As described above, Ja
In the va (R) -compatible mobile phone terminal, MPEG4 which is an international standard system of the DCT system moving image compression technology is used. The MPEG4 is devised for mobile communication such as a mobile phone, but even with the MPEG4, the calculation process is complicated, and therefore, there is a problem that the load of the CPU becomes large. In the mobile phone terminal, the power consumption and the performance of the CPU are in a trade-off relationship, and if the performance of the CPU is required, the power consumption cannot be increased.

If a compression technique having a high compression rate and a high image quality characteristic can be used as compared with the conventional compression technique, for example, the band (9600b) of the current mobile phone terminal can be used.
ps) and terminal specifications, efficient and high-quality distribution of moving image data becomes possible. Of course, if the terminal specifications become higher in the future, smoother and higher quality moving image distribution will be possible.

The present invention has been made in view of the above situation, and enables high-quality and high-efficiency moving image distribution corresponding to the band and specifications in the currently popular mobile terminal devices. An object of the present invention is to provide an image distribution system that can bring moving image distribution closer to consumers and expand the possibility of a content distribution business, a program that realizes the functions of the system, and a recording medium. .

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a server holding a content file, and a portable information terminal device capable of downloading desired content data by accessing the server, In an image distribution system for distributing a content file from the server to the portable information terminal, the server includes a Java (R) program that is an application program created in a Java (R) language and a predetermined compression method. And a content file compressed by using the Internet connection function, the mobile information terminal apparatus has an Internet connection function and a Java (R) program execution function. Connect to the server and Java
(R) program is downloaded, the downloaded Java (R) program is executed to further download the content file from the server, and the Java (R) program starts reproduction of the content file. It is what

The invention of claim 2 has a server holding a content file, and an information terminal device capable of downloading desired content data by accessing the server, and from the server to the information terminal. In the image distribution system for distributing a content file to the server, the server downloads a WebOS having a function of distributing image data based on a request from a browser on a website and a Java (R) object. Server side Java (R)
The information terminal device connects to the server and holds a html file that is a Web page in which an applet is described and a content file that is compressed using a predetermined compression method. The present invention is characterized in that an applet and a content file are downloaded, and the downloaded applet is executed to decode the content file and display it on the display means of the information terminal device.

According to a third aspect of the invention, in the invention of the second aspect, the information terminal device which is going to download the content file connects to the server and sends an html request signal, and the server sends the html request signal. In response to the request signal, the corresponding applet and Java (R) object are transmitted, the information terminal device executes the downloaded applet, and the content file included in the Java (R) object is decoded and displayed. It is characterized by doing.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the third aspect of the present invention, the Java (R) object encapsulates a decoding logic, a content file compressed by the predetermined compression method, and an authentication key. It is characterized by being.

According to a fifth aspect of the invention, in any one of the first to fourth aspects of the invention, the server is made to hold middleware for performing data compression by the predetermined compression method, and a third generation mobile communication service is provided. Image data or image and character data is uploaded to the server from a portable terminal device compatible with the communication method compatible with the above, and the server compresses the uploaded data by the middleware and retains it as the content file. The content file can be downloaded from the server to a portable information terminal having an Internet connection function.

According to a sixth aspect of the invention, in the fifth aspect of the invention, the image delivery system can provide a personal video mail delivery service and a download type content delivery service.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in the sixth aspect, news content, sports program content, and local information content are set as the content files distributed by the content distribution service.

The invention of claim 8 is characterized in that, in the invention of claim 6 or 7, when the content file downloaded to the portable information terminal is displayed, image information and character information by a telop can be displayed simultaneously. It was done.

A ninth aspect of the present invention is the invention according to any one of the first to eighth aspects, wherein the predetermined compression method is 2 ×.
An algorithm including a process in which four pixels are compression-coded for each block as a block, the compression-coded data is filtered using a correlation filter, and the filtered data is compressed into a variable-length code by Huffman coding. It is characterized by being.

A tenth aspect of the present invention is a program for realizing the function of the image distribution system according to any one of the first to ninth aspects.

The invention according to claim 11 is a recording medium on which the program according to claim 10 is recorded.

[0020]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention is an algorithm for realizing high-efficiency and high-quality data compression as compared with conventional compression techniques (hereinafter, in the present specification, the high-efficiency and high-compression ratio By using ACT compression as data compression and a file generated by ACT compression as an ACT compression file), it is possible to download content data of moving images held in a server system by a mobile phone or a PC terminal device. Is.

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining a first embodiment of an image distribution system according to the present invention, and is for explaining an operation example of downloading a content file held by a server 2 to a mobile phone 1. Is. Mobile phone 1
In addition to the basic functions of the telephone (voice call function and telephone directory function), the Internet connection function as described above and the Java (R) program execution function are provided.
That is, for example, in the example of NTT Docomo, the Internet connection function by i mode and J
It is assumed to have an execution function of an application program (hereinafter referred to as Java (R) program) created in the Java (R) language. In addition, the server 2 has Ja
A va (R) program 2a and a content file (ACT compressed file) 2b compressed by ACT compression according to the present invention are held.

First, the mobile phone 1 connects to the server 2 by the Internet connection function (step S1),
Download the Java (R) program (step S2). For mobile phone 1, download Java
(R) By executing the program (step S
3), the ACT compressed file is downloaded from the server 2 (step S4). When all files are downloaded to mobile phone 1, Java continues.
(R) ACT downloaded by the program
Start playing the compressed file.

If the above steps S1 and S2 are executed once, the Java (R) program is stored in the mobile phone 1, so that from the next processing, steps S1 and S2 will be performed.
The process of 2 is unnecessary. However, for example, Jav
If the a (R) application can perform data communication only with the server that downloaded the Java (R) application, the ACT stored in another server
When attempting to download the compressed data, it is necessary to perform the processes of steps S1 and S2 on the server.

For example, in the case of the NTT Docomo system, the connection from the mobile phone to the server is performed via the NTT Docomo i-mode center. That is, the mobile phone connects to the i-mode center via the NTT Docomo packet network, and connects from the i-mode center to the site of the target server via the Internet network. When connected to the site, the response is passed to the i-mode center via the Internet network and received by the mobile phone via the packet network.
For example, depending on the carrier, the data size that can be downloaded at one time in step S4 is determined to be, for example, 10 kbytes, so that it is downloaded for each frame.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining another embodiment of the image distribution system according to the present invention. In the present embodiment, a server such as a PC is used to access a server via the Internet from a terminal device such as a wireless LAN, and the server
This is a system that requests a file, downloads an applet and a moving image file from a server, and executes the applet so that the downloaded moving image data can be decoded (decompressed) on the terminal side and displayed.

PC 13 for creating a compressed file of this embodiment
Is an ACT chip 1 mounted on the PCI board 13a, which receives an NTSC video signal captured by the camera 14.
This video signal is compressed by 3b and the moving image file 13
c is created and uploaded to the server 11 (video file 1
1c).

The server 11 operates on a WWW server and operates on a website based on a request from a browser or the like, and an HTM.
WebOS (Apache in this case) that is software that has the function of distributing L files and image images
And a sublet that functions as a server-side Java is held (11a). Apache is a server that accepts access by inputting a URL or clicking a button on a form in a Web browser
function as an http server). Sublet is a server-side program created in Java (R), and is a JVM (Java) running on the server.
(R) A program that runs on Virtual Machine. Also, the server 11 is an html file 1 which is a Web page in which an applet is described.
Holds 1b.

The sublet is for executing the process of downloading the Java (R) object. Although other mounting methods that do not use sublets can be applied here, the mounting method that uses sublets is the easiest. Also, by using the sublet, it is possible to implement a high level security function.

That is, the sublet is not an essential element for operation, but is necessary for security. For example, when there is no sublet, for example, by accessing the corresponding URL address with a browser, a jar file (Java (R) Ar) including a decoder is
It is possible to obtain a CIVE file) and an ACT compressed file. In this case, a pirated player can be easily created, which causes a problem that the ACT compressed file stored in the server is leaked. The present embodiment includes a mechanism that addresses the above-mentioned problems.

The PC terminal 12 is connected to the server 11,
By downloading the applet and the moving image file and executing the downloaded applet, the moving image data is decrypted (decompressed) and displayed on the display means.

The operation procedure of this embodiment will be described below with reference to FIG. As described above, the NTS imaged by the camera 14 by the compressed file creation PC 13
The C video signal is received, the data is compressed by the ACT chip 13b arranged on the PCI board 13a, temporarily stored in the memory as the compressed file 13c, and then uploaded to the server 11 (the moving image file 11
c).

The PC terminal 12 which is going to download the compressed moving picture file 11c is connected to the server 11 via a transmission line such as a wireless LAN and sends an html request signal (step S11). Server 11
The corresponding applet is sent in response to the ml request signal (step S12). This applet contains ACT
The body of the decoder is not included.

Then, the Java (R) object including the moving image data is transmitted (step S13). A decoding logic, an ACT compression file (moving image data), and an authentication key are encapsulated in this object. Then, the PC terminal 12 can execute the downloaded applet to decode and display the ACT compressed file. Also, applets should require a simple authentication procedure with an authentication key when running.

The downloading of the ACT compressed file and the decoding / display of the ACT compressed file can be realized either in parallel or serially, but in the present embodiment, they are mounted serially. That is, P
The C terminal 12 downloads all the ACT compressed files and then decodes and displays the files.

3 to 5 are diagrams for explaining the system outline of a business model using the image distribution system according to the present invention. This embodiment enables transmission of a moving image to the i-mode from the above-mentioned NTT Docomo FOMA communication system by adopting the ACT moving image compression technology. For example, as the service content provided by this business model, It is possible to realize a personal video mail delivery service and a download type content delivery service.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the outline of the video mail delivery system, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an image image of the video mail. The server device 21 has an AC
T-mode middleware 22 and server (program) 2
3, the content file 24 is held. The user who sends the video mail is the FOMA / TV phone compatible device 20.
In a, an image is taken, character information displayed as a telop is input, and it is transmitted to the server device 21 as a video mail.

The destination terminal of the video mail is the above-mentioned FOM.
If the mobile terminal device 20b is compatible with A, the server device 2
In No. 3, data is compressed by the MPEG4 system corresponding to FOMA and held. The mobile terminal device 20b appropriately accesses the server device 21, downloads the compressed file, decodes it, and displays it on the screen. In this case, the FOMA compatible mobile terminal device basically has M
A PEG4 compatible chip is mounted in advance.

When the delivery destination of the video mail is the i-mode compatible mobile terminal device 20c, the server device compresses and holds the video mail by the ACT compression method, and the mobile terminal device 20c accesses the server device 21. Then, the compressed file is downloaded. In this case, data transfer to the i-mode mobile terminal device can be enabled by the communication process as in the first embodiment described above.

As shown in FIG. 4, the video mail received by the mobile terminal device 20 can display the telop 30 based on the character information together with the moving image display device 29.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the outline of the download type content distribution system. This system delivers broadcast content for mobile terminal devices (mobile) by combining video and text display (telop), and does not add audio information, but content delivery using image data. is there.
Examples of distributed content include news with video,
Sports programs and local information can be set, but not limited to these, various broadcast contents can be set.

The portable terminal device 20d has a function of executing Java (R) and ACT as described in the above-mentioned embodiment, and the broadcast content 24 (that is, news content, sports program content) held by the server device 21. , And local information content) to the mobile terminal device 20d. Also here, the content data can be distributed by the processing as shown in the first embodiment. The display image data is
Similar to the above video mail delivery image, it can be displayed by a moving image and a text telop.

Although not shown, the video mail delivery service and the broadcast content delivery service as described above can also be applied to the system form using the wireless LAN communication system as shown in the second embodiment. it can.

The ACT chip applied to the present invention performs compression / expansion processing by a completely different technical idea from the conventional DCT compression technology, and requires complicated discrete conversion processing steps in the DCT method. Instead, it uses a relatively simple set of logic to find, characterize, and efficiently code non-redundant information. This ACT compression removes both block-to-block redundancy and frame-to-frame redundancy, and can significantly reduce the data required to represent a video signal, thus reducing bit loss, such as in mobile phones. Enables natural video data transmission even on a rate transmission line, and D
Since it does not require a large amount of calculation unlike CT, it enables real-time compression / expansion processing.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the ACT algorithm applied to the real-time video transmission apparatus of the present invention. The steps of compressing (encoding) a digital signal in ACT are as follows. First,
Block coding is performed on each block (pixel matrix) of the input RGB digital signal (step S21). At this time, 2 lines × 4 pixels are set as one block, and compression coding is performed in the block based on the reference values of two colors.

In the above block coding, it is assumed that there is a finite amount of non-redundancy, that is, two elements designated as color A and color B in one block. In block coding, the digital input data has a digital luminance value and a bitmap that numerically indicates either color A or B. 2
It is divided into color pixels. The size of these information elements depends on the required color accuracy and the number of pixels in the matrix.

The attributes of each pixel are encoded in a digital word represented by a height or digital length of a given format. These digital words contain the difference from the pixels corresponding to the previous frame and the previous block. The bitmap has a variable length because it encodes a variable-length word length that specifies the map pattern in accordance with the occurrence probability of a specific map pattern.

Block coding in FIG. 6 (step S
After 21), the block data for each block and each frame is sent to the memory, delayed by one frame and exists as the immediately preceding frame, and then the temporal filter (correlation filter) which is a time variable impulse response filter. Is filtered using (step S2
2). The temporal filter reduces noise that causes blur of the edge portion of the image data and suppresses the edge effect.

Next, entropy coding by Huffman coding is performed (step S23). Here, inter-frame comparison is performed to eliminate redundancy between frames, and to eliminate all redundancy within frames and blocks, Huffman code tables are used to compress to variable length codes.

Decompression of compressed data is basically realized by performing the compression step in reverse. That is, compressed data is input, entropy decoding for obtaining run length is performed (step S24), and block decoding for obtaining luminance and / or color difference data is performed (step S24).
25), generate pixels to reconstruct a digital signal frame for reconversion to an analog signal (step S2).
6).

In the ACT compression technique as described above, block coding is performed with 2 lines × 4 pixels as one block.
Also, a very simple algorithm based on Huffman coding can realize high-quality video compression. According to ACT, since high frequency components are not removed unlike DCT, various color changes can be reproduced in detail, and an image with sharp edges can be provided without tiled images when reproduced. Also 640 pixels x 480 pixels x
It is possible to realize compression / expansion of 30 frames / second, image deterioration upon compression is extremely small, and unlike the conventional DCT, an instantaneous image of a moving image does not flow, and one frame can be treated as a still image. As described above, since the compressed image data is very small, it can be applied to all communication media and has excellent performance in application commercialization.

As described above, in ACT, since the algorithm is simple and the amount of calculation of compression / expansion is small, the number of gates of the encoding (compression) IC chip is about 2 for DCT.
ACT requires about 30,000 gates instead of 500,000 gates, and one-chip CPU (8 bits) enables compression / expansion.

[0052]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, by using the compression technique having a high compression rate and high reliability as compared with the conventional compression technique, the present portable telephone terminal It enables efficient and high-quality distribution of moving image data even in the band (9600 bps) and terminal specifications, which makes it possible to bring moving image distribution closer to consumers, increasing the potential for content distribution business. Image distribution system that can be expanded
It is possible to provide a program and a recording medium that realize the functions of the system.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining a first embodiment of an image distribution system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining another embodiment of the image distribution system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an outline of a video mail delivery system.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an image image of a video mail.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining an outline of a download type content distribution system.

FIG. 6 is an ACT applied to the image distribution system of the present invention.
It is a figure for explaining an algorithm.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Mobile phone, 2, 11 ... Server, 2a ... Java
(R) program, 2b ... content file (ACT
Compressed file), 12 ... PC terminal, 13 ... PC, 13a
... PCI board, 13b ... ACT chip, 13c ... Movie file, 14 ... Camera, 20, 20b, 20c, 20
d ... portable terminal device, 20a ... FOMA / TV phone compatible device, 21 ... server device, 22 ... middleware, 23 ... server (program), 24 ... content file, 29
... moving image display device, 30 ... telop.

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. A server having a content file, and a portable information terminal device capable of downloading desired content data by accessing the server, the content being transmitted from the server to the portable information terminal. In the image delivery system for delivering files, the server is a Java (R) language application program created in the Java (R) language.
(R) The program and the content file compressed using a predetermined compression method are held, and the portable information terminal device has an Internet connection function and Java.
(R) program execution function, the portable information terminal device connects to the server by the Internet connection function to download a Java (R) program, and executes the downloaded Java (R) program. Furthermore, the image distribution system characterized in that the content file is downloaded from the server and the reproduction of the content file is started by the Java (R) program. 2. A server holding a content file, and an information terminal device capable of downloading desired content data by accessing the server, the content file being sent from the server to the information terminal. In the image distribution system for distribution, the server is a WebO having a function of distributing image data based on a request from a browser on a Web site.
S, a sublet that functions as a server-side Java (R) for downloading Java (R) objects, an html file that is a Web page that describes an applet, and a compressed file using a predetermined compression method Holding the content file, the information terminal device connects to the server, downloads the applet and the content file, and executes the downloaded applet to decode the content file so that the information terminal device An image delivery system characterized in that it is displayed on a display means that it has. 3. The image distribution system according to claim 2, wherein the information terminal device that is going to download the content file connects to the server and sends an html request signal, and the server requests the html. In response to the signal, the corresponding applet and Java (R) object are sent out, the information terminal device executes the downloaded applet, and the content file included in the Java (R) object is decoded and displayed. An image distribution system characterized by the above. 4. The image distribution system according to claim 3, wherein the Java (R) object is an encapsulation of a decoding logic, a content file compressed by the predetermined compression method, and an authentication key. An image distribution system characterized in that 5. The image distribution system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the server holds middleware for performing data compression according to the predetermined compression method, and a third generation mobile communication service is provided. Image data, or image and character data is uploaded to the server from a mobile terminal device compatible with a compatible communication system, and the server compresses the uploaded data by the middleware and holds the content file as the content file. An image distribution system capable of downloading the content file from the server to a portable information terminal having an Internet connection function. 6. The image delivery system according to claim 5, wherein the image delivery system can provide a personal video mail delivery service and a download type content delivery service. 7. The image delivery system according to claim 6, wherein news content, sports program content, and local information content are set as content files delivered by the content delivery service. 8. The image distribution system according to claim 6 or 7, wherein when the content file downloaded to the portable information terminal is displayed, the image information and the character information by the telop can be displayed at the same time. Image distribution system. 9. The image distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined compression method is 2
It has an algorithm including a process of compression-encoding each block by 4 × 4 pixels as a block, filtering the compression-encoded data using a correlation filter, and compressing the filtered data into a variable-length code by Huffman encoding. An image distribution system characterized by being a thing. 10. A program for realizing the function of the image distribution system according to claim 1. Description: 11. A recording medium on which the program according to claim 10 is recorded.