JP2004297828A - Broadcast receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize EPG (Electronic Program Guide) services adaptive to the change of program information in real time, having expansibility and rich in expressive power. <P>SOLUTION: The broadcast receiver is provided with: a program constitution information receiving means for receiving program constitution information containing program contents and its identification information; a program control information receiving means for monitoring program control information composed of the identification information of the program at all the time and for receiving a change in the identification information in real time; and a merge means for updating contents of the program constitution information on the basis of the received program control information. The program control information which reduces the size and also has real-time features in updating, to be periodically broadcasted such as SI is combined with a data broadcast application that is composed of moving pictures, still pictures, sounds and the like, to be sent only in a predetermined time zone because of its large size, thereby realizing the multimedia EPG services rich in the expressive power and real-time property. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a broadcast receiving device that receives a multimedia EPG application by digital broadcasting or the like.

   2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, this type of broadcast receiving apparatus can receive a periodically transmitted SI (Service Information) signal and display a program table by an embedded application using the SI (Service Information) signal. In addition, it is possible to transmit a program guide application using still images, sounds, and moving images by data broadcasting based on XML or the like, and to display a rich program guide on the receiving device.

  However, although the program guide displayed using the SI signal can respond to the change of the program information in real time, there is a problem that it is not expandable because the display is performed using the embedded application, and the expressiveness is limited. Was. In addition, a program guide displayed by data broadcasting has rich expandability due to its expandability, but has a problem that it is not possible to respond to changes in program information in real time.

  The present invention is intended to solve such a problem, and an object thereof is to realize an EPG (Electronic Program Guide) service capable of responding to a change in program information in real time and having expandability and rich expressiveness. It is an object of the present invention to provide a broadcast receiving apparatus capable of performing the above.

  The broadcast receiving apparatus according to the present invention includes a program information receiving unit that receives program information including the contents of a program and identification information of the program, and receives program control information that includes identification information of the program transmitted in real time by broadcast waves. And a merging unit for updating the program scheduling information received by the program scheduling information receiving unit based on the program control information received by the program control information receiving unit. According to this configuration, program information is acquired from a program information providing company or a broadcast wave, a multimedia EPG application is generated from the program information and transmitted to the broadcast receiving apparatus, and the multimedia EPG application and the program control information are transmitted to the broadcast receiving apparatus. By merging the above, it is possible to receive a multimedia EPG service which can cope with a program change and supports a plurality of media.

  Further, in the broadcast receiving apparatus according to the present invention, the program scheduling information or the program control information may include network information for identifying a network on which the program is broadcast, channel information for identifying a channel within the network, and identifying a program within a channel. It is characterized by including program identification information and program start time duration information indicating the broadcast time of the program. With this configuration, the multimedia EPG application can be updated with a smaller amount of data than the multimedia EPG application.

  The broadcast receiving apparatus according to the present invention further includes: a program table generating and displaying means for generating and displaying a program table from the program control information; and a program selected by a viewer from among the programs displayed on the program table generating and displaying means. Display control means for determining which information should be presented. With this configuration, the program guide generation and display means and the display control means can be realized as an embedded application on the broadcast receiving apparatus, so that a unique display can be performed for each receiver maker.

  The broadcast receiving apparatus according to the present invention is configured by program control information having a relatively small size for periodically broadcasting such as SI, real-time update, and moving images, still images, and audio. By combining data broadcasting applications that are transmitted only during a predetermined time zone, a multimedia EPG service with rich expressiveness and rich real-time properties can be realized.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a broadcasting system including a transmission system and a receiver as a broadcast receiving device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The transmission system 110 includes a program information obtaining unit 101 that obtains program information from an external program information providing company 108 or a broadcast wave 109, and a program that encodes the obtained program information by a specified encoding method. It comprises a composition information encoding means 102 and a transmission means 103 for transmitting encoded data. The receiver 112 is provided with a program information receiving means 104 for receiving program information transmitted from the transmission system 110, a program information display means 107 for displaying the program information, and updating in real time by extraordinary news or extension of sports broadcasting. Program control information receiving means 105 for receiving program control information from broadcast waves and the like describing the contents of the program to be executed and the program start time and duration, and merging means 106 for updating the contents of the program scheduling information from the contents of the program control information And a storage device 113 for storing program scheduling information and program control information.

  Next, an operation in which the transmission system 110 transmits program scheduling information will be described. The programming information acquisition means 101 acquires programming information from the programming information providing company 108, the broadcast wave 109, or the like. The programming information providing company 108 can also provide information on other networks (for example, when the present invention is applied to BS digital broadcasting, other networks include analog broadcasting, CATV, and CS digital broadcasting). The programming information provided by the programming information providing company 108 includes not only texts but also various types of monomedia data such as moving images, still images, and audio, and multimedia EPG applications that realize various expressions using these. Consists of a template. The template of the multimedia EPG application holds information necessary for the later-described program scheduling information encoding unit 102 to create the multimedia EPG application. Examples of program scheduling information obtained from the broadcast wave 109 include all-station SI of BS digital broadcasting and each-station SI. The program information acquired by the program information acquiring means 101 is passed to the program information encoding means 102. The programming information encoding means 102 automatically generates a multimedia EPG application from the received multimedia EPG application template, the monomedia data, and the programming information acquired from the broadcast wave 109. The created multimedia EPG application is passed to the transmission means 103. For example, in the case of BS digital broadcasting, it is encoded into BML. The transmission means 103 sends out the coded data based on the protocol of the network. For example, in the case of a BS digital broadcast, it is transmitted as an independent data broadcast program. In the case of the Internet, this is realized by registering encoded data in a Web server.

  Next, an operation when the receiver 112 receives the encoded multimedia EPG application transmitted from the transmission device 110 will be described. When acquiring the encoded multimedia EPG application transmitted from the transmitting device 110 as the program information, the program information receiving means 104 decodes the encoded multimedia EPG application and stores the multimedia EPG application in the storage device 113. The method of obtaining the encoded multimedia EPG application depends on the transmission protocol. For example, in the case of BS digital broadcasting, it is realized by receiving a stand-alone data broadcast program. In the case of the Internet or the like, the program scheduling information receiving means 104 is realized by periodically accessing a Web server in which multimedia EPG application data is stored and downloading the data. Generally, the data acquired by the program information receiving means 104 includes a still image, a moving image, a sound, and the like, so that the data amount is large. Therefore, the data is acquired several times a day at a predetermined time, and the It is stored in the storage device 113. For example, BS digital broadcasting is realized by broadcasting a stand-alone data broadcast program that broadcasts a multimedia EPG application several times a day. In the case of the Internet or the like, the program scheduling information receiving unit 104 accesses a Web server storing multimedia EPG application data several times a day.

  On the other hand, the data amount of the program control information received by the program control information receiving means 105 from the broadcast wave 111 or the like is smaller than that of the above-described multimedia EPG application and is data corresponding to a real-time change of the broadcast program. Information about the latest program is always sent periodically. An SI signal or the like in BS digital broadcasting corresponds to this. For this reason, the program control information receiving means 105 constantly monitors the program control information sent periodically, and if the program control information has been updated, acquires the program control information and stores it in the storage device 113.

  The merging means 106 compares the multimedia EPG application with the program control information, and if there is a difference, reflects the contents of the program control information on the multimedia EPG application. Thereby, the multimedia EPG application becomes the latest information. The program scheduling display means 107 is a means for displaying a multimedia EPG application. In BS digital broadcasting, the BML engine corresponds to this.

  The program scheduling information will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is an example of the program scheduling information. The program information includes program location information 201 and program description 202. The program location information 201 includes network information 203 for identifying a network on which the program flows, and channel information 204 indicating on which channel of the network the program is flowing. The network information 203 can describe program information of another medium. The program description 202 includes program identification information 207 for identifying a program in a channel, and program start time duration information 205 and a program content description 206 indicating when and how long the program is to be broadcast. A program flowing through a plurality of media such as terrestrial broadcasting, CATV, and satellite broadcasting is identified by the program location information 201 and the program identification information 207.

  The program content description 206 is multimedia information including a moving image, a still image, a sound, a text, and a script for explaining the program content. Examples of program information obtained from broadcast waves include all-station SI and each-station SI, and the program description 206 is text. The program content description 206 of the program information transmitted from the program information company 108 may be text or multimedia information. Next, an example of the data structure of the program content description 206 will be described. The data type 208 is the type of the data. The data name 209 is a data name when the data is called from the application. The data size 210 is the data length. The data body 211 stores data. In the example of FIG. 2, the program content description 206 includes audio data and still image data. The program content description 206 is a list of mono-media data constituting the program content.

  FIG. 3 shows an example of the program control information. The program control information assists the receiver 112 in executing the scheduled recording / viewing reservation, and includes the latest program location information 201 similar to the program scheduling information shown in FIG. 2, that is, network information 203 for identifying a network through which the program flows. , The channel information 204 indicating which channel of the network the program is flowing on, the program identification information 207 obtained by removing the program description 206 from the program description 202 in the program scheduling information, and the program start time duration information 205. You. In BS digital broadcasting, p / fEIT of SI corresponds to this. Therefore, the program information obtained by the program information obtaining means 101 of the transmission system 110 from the program information providing company 108 and the broadcast wave 109 includes the program control information. The program control information is constantly transmitted periodically from the broadcast wave 111 or the like, and is updated and transmitted in real time in response to a change in the program broadcast time.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of a template of a multimedia EPG application passed from the programming information provider 108. The template of the multimedia EPG application is composed of display information 401 indicating a display position and a display attribute of each monomedia data, and processing information 402 describing processing at the time of selecting a program table. The display information 401 describes a display position of a still image, a moving image, a text, and a program guide. With this information, a multimedia EPG screen display intended by the programming information providing company 108 can be realized. The processing information 402 includes program location information 201, program identification information 207, program start time duration information 205, and a mono media list 403 to be displayed and reproduced when a program is selected. The processing information 402 does not describe the program scheduling information acquired by the broadcast wave 109. The multimedia EPG application is generated by reflecting the contents of the program scheduling information acquired by the broadcast wave 109 in the processing information 402. In this example, the example of the template of the multimedia EPG application is illustrated in a table structure, but the template can be described in a language such as XML or BML.

  The template of the multimedia EPG application defines the display screen of the multimedia EPG application according to the display attribute. FIG. 5 is a screen example of the multimedia EPG application. The program table area 504 includes a still image area 501 for displaying information related to the program selected by the cursor in the program guide area 504, a moving image area 502, and a text area 503.

  Next, a method in which the program scheduling information encoding unit 102 creates a multimedia EPG application using a template of the multimedia EPG application will be described. The program information coding means 102 generates a multimedia EPG application by inserting the program location information 201 and the program description 202 of the program information into the processing information 402 of the template of the multimedia EPG application.

  FIG. 6 shows a procedure for creating a multimedia EPG application. The program information encoding means 102 compares the current program information with the current program information including the latest program control information passed from the program information acquiring means 101, and the program start duration information 205 and the like are different. It is checked whether there is (step 601). If there is a difference, the information described in the program control information is overwritten on the programming information, and the programming information is updated to the latest information (step 602). The generation of the program table 504 is realized by writing the program location information 201, the program identification information 207, and the program start time duration information 205 in the corresponding fields of the processing information 402 in a template (step 603). For still images, moving images, text, and audio, the data name 302 described in the program content description 206 is written into the monomedia list 403 of the processing information 402, so that when a program in the program table is selected with the cursor, A still image, a moving image, and a data name in which a text is embedded can be called, and audio data can be reproduced (step 604). If there is no data in the program information (for example, data such as a still image, a moving image, and audio is not included in the program information obtained from all-station SI and each station SI), predetermined default data is written.

  The programming information coding means 102 takes a log of the processing performed in step 603, and creates multimedia EPG programming information location information based on the log. FIG. 7 shows the structure of the multimedia EPG programming information location information. The file name 701 is a file name of a file in which the program information of the program identified by the corresponding program location information 201 and the program identification information 207 is written when the above-described multimedia EPG application is created. In the above example, the file name of the file in which the processing information 402 is described. The position 702 describes where the file was written in the write destination file. The multimedia EPG programming information location information describes which part of the file constituting the multimedia EPG application describes the corresponding program information.

  The program scheduling information encoding means 102 converts the data such as still images, moving images, audio, text, etc. constituting the multimedia EPG application into files with data names as file names, and stores these files with the multimedia created as described above. The media EPG application and the multimedia EPG programming information location information are encoded by a predetermined method (for example, in the case of BS digital broadcasting, the encoding rule is defined by ARIB B-24) and passed to the transmission means 103. . The transmission means 103 transmits data. The program information obtaining means 101 constantly monitors whether or not the program control information has been updated. If the program control information has been changed, the program information is passed to the program information coding means 102, and the program information coding means 102 Using the program information received from the program information obtaining means 101 and the latest program control information, a multimedia EPG application is created and encoded by the above-described multimedia EPG application creating procedure, and transmitted to the transmission means 103. And sending the data, it is possible to immediately respond to a change in the program scheduling.

  Next, a method of merging the multimedia EPG application, which is the program scheduling information, and the program control information performed by the merging means 106 in the receiver 112 will be described with reference to FIG. The merging means 106 includes the multimedia EPG program information information location information received by the program information receiving means 104 and stored in the storage device 113, and the latest program control information received by the program control information receiving means 105 and stored in the storage device 113. Is checked to see if there is any change in the start time duration of the same program (step 801). If it exists, the start time duration of the program described in the corresponding file is rewritten by referring to the file name 701 and the write position 702 of the multimedia EPG program information information corresponding to the program (step 802). By performing this process for all programs described in the program control information, the multimedia EPG application is rewritten with the latest information. If a program that is not described in the latest program control information is present in the multimedia EPG programming information location information, it is regarded that the broadcast has been postponed, and is deleted from the program table of the multimedia EPG application. The method of deleting from the program guide depends on the multimedia EPG application description language.

  As described above, according to the first embodiment, when the multimedia EPG application is activated on the receiver 112, the latest program information is displayed on a screen as shown in FIG. When the button is clicked, the data file linked by the data name can be displayed or reproduced in an area defined for each data type. Therefore, program information is acquired from a program information providing company or a broadcast wave, a multimedia EPG application is generated from the information and transmitted to the receiver 112, and the multimedia EPG application and program control information are merged on the receiver 112 side. By doing so, it is possible to provide a multimedia EPG service capable of responding to a program change and corresponding to a plurality of media. Also, by acquiring program control information on the center side and updating the multimedia EPG application, a multimedia EPG application including the updated information can be provided to a receiver that cannot acquire program control information.

(Embodiment 2)
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an example of the receiver 112A according to the second embodiment. In the broadcast wave 111, the program control information is periodically transmitted, and the program control information receiving means 105 receives the program control information updated in real time. In the case of BS digital broadcasting, the program scheduling information is periodically transmitted together with the program control information, so that the program control information can be received at the same time. The program guide generation and display means 901 generates and displays a program guide from program control information. In the case of BS digital broadcasting, it is possible to generate and display a program table using program scheduling information sent together with program control information. Since the program guide generation and display means 901 is a built-in application on the receiver, a unique display can be performed for each receiver maker. The display control means 902 uses the link information sent from the transmission system 110 to notify the program information display means 107 of what information to present when the viewer selects a program in the program guide.

  The contents of the link information will be described with reference to FIG. The link information represents a file name list 1001 of the program specified by the network information 203, the channel information 204, and the program identification information 207, and the corresponding program information such as a still image, a moving image, a sound, and a text. The file name list is a list having data name 1002 and data type 1003 as elements.

  Next, the operation of the transmission system 110 according to the second embodiment will be described. In this example, the multimedia EPG application screen of FIG. 5 is used as an example. The program information obtaining means 101 obtains program information from the program information providing company 108 or the broadcast wave 109. The contents of the program information are the same as in the first embodiment. The programming information acquisition means 101 passes the programming information and the template application to the programming information encoding means 102. In the template application, only a process for displaying various data at a display position as shown in FIG. 5 to realize the application in FIG. 5 is described.

  FIG. 11 shows an example of a template of a multimedia EPG application passed from the programming information providing company 108. Template Application The template of the multimedia EPG application is composed of display information 401 indicating the display position and display attribute of each piece of monomedia data, and processing information 402A describing processing at the time of selecting a program table. When a file name and a file type (still image, moving image, audio, text, etc.) are specified in the processing information 402A, the content of the specified file is displayed at a display position corresponding to the file type (in the case of audio, reproduction is performed). ) Is described. In this example, when the file type is audio data, audio is reproduced. The program information encoding means 102 automatically generates link information from the program information. The program scheduling information encoding means 102 converts the data such as still images, moving images, audio, text, etc. constituting the multimedia EPG application into files with data names as file names. The information is encoded by a predetermined method (for example, in the case of BS digital broadcasting, the encoding rule is defined by ARIB B-24), and this is passed to the transmission means 103. The transmission means 103 transmits data.

  Next, the operation of the receiver 112A that has received a template application, link information, and a mono-media file (still image, moving image, audio, text, etc.) constituting the multimedia EPG application will be described with reference to FIG. Upon receiving the template application, the link information, and the monomedia files (such as still images, moving images, audio, and text) that constitute the multimedia EPG application, the program scheduling information receiving unit 104 stores them in the storage device 113 (step 1201). ). The program information display means 107 detects that the template application is stored in the storage device 113 and executes the template application. The template application only specifies the display positions of the still image, the moving image, the text, and the program guide, and at the time of startup, only the frames indicating these display positions are displayed (step 1202). Next, the display control unit 902 detects that there is link information in the storage device 113 and reads it. As a result, the display control unit 902 holds the correspondence between the program and the mono-media file related to the program (step 1203).

  The program control information receiving means 105 acquires the program control information from the broadcast wave 111 and stores it in the storage device 113 (step 1204). The program guide generation and display means 901 generates a program guide from the program control information stored in the storage device 113 (step 1205). The program guide generation and display unit 901 issues a program table display position request to the template application activated by the program scheduling information display unit 107 in order to execute the display of the program guide (step 1206). The template application on the program information display means 107 specifies the display position of the program guide and requests the program guide generation and display means 901 to display the program guide (step 1107). The program guide generation and display means 901 displays the generated program guide at the designated position (step 1208).

  Next, an operation when the viewer selects a program from the displayed program table will be described. The program guide generation and display means 901 transfers network information, channel information, and program identification information for identifying the program specified by the viewer to the display control means 902 (step 1209). The display control unit 902 acquires a file name list corresponding to the passed network information, channel information, and program identification information using the held link information. The display control unit 902 passes the acquired file name list to the template application running on the program information display unit 107, and issues a display request for the contents of the file using the data names and data types in the file name list. (Step 1210). The template application activated by the program information display means 107 specifies which file stored in the storage device 113 is to be displayed and reproduced from the data name, and uses the data name and data type as arguments. The display script 1101 is executed. Thus, the template application displays and reproduces the specified data. This operation is repeatedly performed for the data name and data type described in the file name list (step 1211).

  As described above, according to the second embodiment, program information including still images and moving images is obtained from the program information providing company 108 and the broadcast wave 109, and is transmitted to the receiver 112A together with the template application. On the receiver 112A side, by linking a program table generated from program control information obtained from the broadcast wave 111 or the like with a template application, it is possible to respond to program changes and provide a multimedia EPG service corresponding to a plurality of media. can do. Also, in the second embodiment, since the whole program is not laid out by the multimedia EPG application, but the program guide is generated and displayed by the built-in application of the receiver, the receiver maker needs to provide the multimedia EPG application with the multimedia EPG application. You can devise your own way of showing.

  As described above, the broadcast receiving apparatus according to the present invention has an effect of realizing a multimedia EPG service with rich expressiveness and real time, and receives a multimedia EPG application by digital broadcasting or the like. It is useful for broadcast receiving devices and the like.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a broadcast system including a transmission system and a receiver according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing an example of program scheduling information according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of program control information according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a template of a multimedia EPG application according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a multimedia EPG service screen according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a multimedia EPG application automatic generation process in the transmission system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing an example of multimedia EPG program information information location information according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. Flow chart showing merge processing in the receiver according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a receiver according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. Schematic diagram showing an example of link information according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a template of a multimedia EPG application passed from a program information providing company according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. Sequence diagram describing a procedure for linking a program table generated based on program control information acquired from broadcast waves on the receiver side with an EPG application according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention

Explanation of reference numerals

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Program information acquisition means 102 Program information encoding means 103 Transmission means 104 Program information receiving means 105 Program control information receiving means 106 Merge means 107 Program information display means 108 Program information providing company 109 Broadcast wave 110 Transmission system 111 Broadcast waves 112, 112A Receiver 113 Storage device 201 Program location information 202 Program description 203 Network information 204 Channel information 205 Program start time duration information 206 Program content description 207 Program identification information 208 Data type 209 Data name 210 Data size 211 Data body 401 Display information 402, 402A Processing information 403 Mono media list 501 Still image area 502 Moving image area 503 Text area 504 Program table area 701 File name 702 Write Position 901 program table generating display means 902 display control unit 1001 file name list 1002 data name 1003 data type 1101 Display Script

Claims (3)

  Program information receiving means for receiving program information including the contents of the program and its identification information, program control information receiving means for receiving program control information including the identification information of the program transmitted in real time by broadcast waves, A broadcast receiving apparatus comprising: a merging unit that updates the program scheduling information received by the program scheduling information receiving unit based on the program control information received by the program control information receiving unit.   The program scheduling information or the program control information includes network information for identifying a network on which a program is broadcast, channel information for identifying a channel in the network, program identification information for identifying a program in a channel, and broadcast time of the program. The broadcast receiving apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising program start time duration information indicated.   A program table generating and displaying means for generating and displaying a program table from the program control information; and information to be presented to a program selected by a viewer from the programs displayed on the program table generating and displaying means. The broadcast receiving apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a display control unit configured to determine the state of the broadcast.

Images