JP2005244660A - System, device and method for program information display - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a program information display system, a program information display device and a program information display method capable of omitting an operation of displaying the date of previous display every time in reserving a program on a program guide continuously to a previous reserving operation on the program guide, reducing operation steps, and improving visibility by efficiently utilizing program display, symbols and genre expression even if a short program has a small display region on the program guide. <P>SOLUTION: A receiving means receives a broadcast signal of a program. An acquiring means takes electronic program guide information including at least channels, starting date/time, finishing date/time and names of programs from the outside. An operating means issues an instruction of displaying the electronic program guide information on a display unit. An electronic program guide information control means displays the electronic program guide information as a mode of a program table in the display instruction of the operating means, and displays in a mode of retaining only the date/time from among the display state displayed last time. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a program information display system, a program information display device, and a program information display method for displaying program information in television broadcasting.

  In recent years, BS digital broadcasting has been started, and in this BS digital broadcasting, a television broadcast signal is received by a recording device, and electronic program guide (hereinafter referred to as EPG) information multiplexed on the broadcast signal is extracted. This is used for program reservation. The EPG information includes a scheduled broadcast date, a time zone, a channel, a program name, detailed information about the program, and the like for each program.

Such display examples of EPG are described in, for example, Patent Documents 1 and 2.
In Patent Document 1, in view of the problem that it is difficult for elderly people to display EPG information on a monitor when the EPG information is displayed on a monitor, it is difficult to read, compared to the standard EPG information display format. It is described that EPG information is displayed in a special EPG information display format in which at least a symbol portion in EPG information is enlarged or at least a symbol is newly added.

In addition, in Patent Document 2, regarding EPG display of digital terrestrial broadcasting started while expanding the broadcasting area, unlike the case of BS digital broadcasting, EPG display data is transmitted for each broadcasting station. In order to obtain EPG information of all channels, an information acquisition tuner is provided in addition to a user tuner that receives a broadcast channel of terrestrial digital broadcast program data, and the channels received by the information acquisition tuner are sequentially switched. It describes that EPG data transmitted for each broadcasting station is acquired and EPGs of all broadcasting stations are displayed.
JP 2000-358200 A (paragraphs [0003], [0059], FIGS. 2 and 5) JP 2003-163849 A (paragraphs [0067]-[0070], FIG. 9)

  In the prior arts such as the above-mentioned Patent Documents 1 and 2, a program is displayed by arranging channels and times in two dimensions vertically and horizontally. In general, (1) programs on the current day when the receiving device and the recording device are turned on are displayed. Also, (2) one program is displayed in one frame, and the cursor is placed on a program for each frame and selected at the time of reservation.

  In this case, there were the following problems.

For (1),
-When you want to resume the last series of reservations, after displaying the program guide, you must scroll the display or switch pages one by one until the target date.

・ When you want to check or modify the last reservation, you must scroll the display or switch pages one by one until the previous reservation date after displaying the program guide.

For (2),
・ If the program time is short, the characters will be crushed or ugly due to the thickness of the frame.

If the background color in the program frame indicates a genre and the program time is short, the background color itself becomes ugly due to the thickness of the frame.

  Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and when making a reservation on the program guide following the previous reservation work on the program guide, an operation for displaying the date displayed last time one by one. This reduces the number of operation steps, and improves the visibility by effectively using the program name display and symbols and genre expressions even when the program area has a short broadcast time and the display area is narrow. It is an object of the present invention to provide a program information display system, a program information display device, and a program information display method that can be realized.

A first program information display system according to the present invention includes:
A server capable of storing electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, a start date and time, an end date and time, and a program name, and sending the electronic program guide information to a network;
Receiving means for receiving a television broadcast signal of a program transmitted from a broadcasting station;
Obtaining means for accessing the server via a network and obtaining the electronic program guide information;
Operation means for giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired by the acquisition means on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command of the operation means, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format that retains the date and time among the previously displayed display states. Information display control means.

A second program information display system according to the present invention includes:
A broadcasting station that transmits a television broadcast signal in which electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, a start date and time, an end date and time, and a program name is multiplexed;
Receiving means for receiving a television broadcast signal of a program transmitted from the broadcasting station;
Obtaining means for obtaining electronic program guide information from the television broadcast signal received by the receiving means;
Operation means for giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired by the acquisition means on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command of the operation means, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format that retains the date and time among the previously displayed display states. Information display control means.

A first program information display device according to the present invention includes:
Receiving means for receiving a broadcast signal of a program;
Acquisition means for taking in electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, a start date and time, an end date and time, and a program name;
Operation means for giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired by the acquisition means on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command of the operation means, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format that retains the date and time among the previously displayed display states. Information display control means.

  According to the first program information display device, the trouble of confirming the immediately preceding reservation and continuing the reservation is reduced.

The second program information display device of the present invention is the first program information display device,
The electronic program guide information display means displays the electronic program guide information in the display state of the current date and time if the previous display date and time is past than the current time.

  According to the second program information display device, if the previously displayed date and time is past than the current time, the program table of the current date and time is displayed, so that a useless (that is, reservation is not possible) past program table is displayed. To lose. Less time is required to confirm the last reservation and to continue the reservation.

According to a third program information display device of the present invention, in the first program information display device,
When displaying the electronic program guide information, the electronic program guide information display means displays in the past display state that was displayed last time.

According to a fourth program information display device of the present invention, in any one of the first to third program information display devices,
The program information display device further includes a nonvolatile memory for storing the previous electronic program guide information even when the power is turned off.

  According to the fourth program information display device, the state of the previous electronic program guide information can be remembered even when the power is turned off.

According to a fifth program information display device of the present invention, in any one of the first to fourth program information display devices,
The electronic program guide information display means is capable of selecting in advance whether to display the electronic program guide information of the current date and time or to display the electronic program guide information in the previous display state. .

  According to the fifth program information display device, the user can adjust the display mode of the electronic program guide information to his / her preference.

According to a sixth program information display device of the present invention, in any one of the first to fifth program information display devices,
An operating means for giving a command to move to the current date and time is provided, and a program at the current date and time is displayed immediately without display scrolling or display page switching.

  According to the sixth program information display device, when the [present] button is pressed while the program guide is displayed, the program guide of the current date and time is displayed. The [Current] button may be a button on the remote control, or a button or option displayed on the screen of the display unit.

According to a seventh program information display device of the present invention, in any one of the first to sixth program information display devices,
The electronic program guide information display means adds a mark or a notch to the head of each program of the electronic program guide information to be displayed.

  According to the seventh program information display device, it is possible to make the program name and background color easy to understand even for a short program by not placing a line between the programs.

An eighth program information display device of the present invention is the sixth program information display device,
The mark indicates a program attribute.

  According to the eighth program information display device, the head and attributes of the program can be recognized simultaneously. The program attribute is, for example, a genre.

According to a ninth program information display device of the present invention, in any one of the first to eighth program information display devices,
The obtaining means obtains electronic program guide information by accessing an external server via a network.

A tenth program information display device of the present invention is any one of the first to ninth program information display devices,
The acquisition unit acquires electronic program guide information from a broadcast signal received by the reception unit.

The program information display method according to the present invention includes:
A receiving step of receiving a broadcast signal of the program;
An acquisition step for capturing electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, start date / time, end date / time, and program name from outside,
An operation step of giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired in the acquisition step on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command in the operation step, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format in which only the date and time is retained among the previously displayed display states. And an information display control step.

  According to this program information display method, the trouble of confirming the immediately preceding reservation and continuing the reservation is reduced.

  According to the present invention, following reservation work on the previous program guide, when making a reservation on the program guide, the display state displayed at the end of the previous time can be read, and the previous display is displayed one by one. You can save the operation step and reduce the operation steps.

  In addition, even if the display area is narrow and the display area is narrow on the program guide, the program name display, symbols, and genre expressions can be placed at the beginning of the program and used effectively as program separators. Improvements can be made.

  Embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a program information display system and a program information display apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In the present embodiment, an example of a recording system and a recording apparatus will be described as a program information display system and a program information display apparatus.

  In FIG. 1, a recording system includes a recording apparatus 1, a broadcast receiving antenna 2, a remote control transmitter (hereinafter referred to as a remote controller) 3 using infrared rays or the like as an operation means, a DVD capable of supplying a video signal from the outside, and the like. A television in which external video equipment 4, a display 5 as a display means such as a liquid crystal display panel, a modem 6 for connecting to an external network such as the Internet, a network 7 such as the Internet, and electronic program guide information are multiplexed. A broadcast station 8 that transmits a broadcast signal and electronic program guide information of a broadcast program broadcast from the broadcast station 8 are accumulated, and the electronic program guide information is connected to the network 7 and transmitted to the recording apparatus 1 via the network 7. And a server 9 capable of transmitting the message.

  The server 9 includes a program database DB, and obtains EPG data related to the program from the broadcast station 8 constantly or periodically and accumulates it. In the figure, only one broadcasting station is shown, but there are actually a plurality of broadcasting stations that transmit different broadcasting programs, and the antenna 2 has a plurality of broadcasting stations from the plurality of broadcasting stations. The television broadcast signal is received and supplied to the tuner unit 11 which is a receiving means in the recording apparatus 1.

  The recording device 1 receives a television broadcast signal from an external antenna 2 and receives a demodulator, a tuner unit 11, a video signal from the tuner unit 11 is recorded on a recording medium 13, and the recorded video signal is reproduced. Recording / playback unit 12, remote control receiving unit 14 that receives a remote control signal such as infrared rays from the remote control 3 as an operation means, and timer information for the recording / playback unit 12 and time information necessary for timer operation at the time of execution A timer unit 15 capable of measuring a recording time associated with occurrence of a timer operation and a timer operation, a video input unit 16 capable of inputting a video signal from an external video device 4 such as a DVD, and a tuner unit 11 Video signals from the video recording and playback video signals from the recording / playback unit 12 are output to an external display 5 such as a liquid crystal display, or EP A video output unit 17 that performs graphic processing for outputting data to the display 5 in the form of a program guide, a network connection unit 18 that has an Ethernet (R) terminal and is connected to an external modem 6 via a network, and the above recording apparatus A CPU 19 as a control means for connecting to each unit via a bus line 22 and performing necessary control for each unit of the apparatus, a ROM 20 connected to the CPU 19 and functioning as a program memory, and a RAM 21 connected to the CPU 19 and functioning as a data memory And EPROM 23 as a non-volatile memory that stores the state of the program table displayed last time even when the recording apparatus is turned off.

  The modem 6 is connected to a network 7 such as the Internet, and a plurality of Web servers are connected to the network 7. Among the plurality of Web servers, a server storing program guide information (program guide information) and program reservation setting information (these two pieces of information are referred to as electronic program guide information, abbreviated as EPG data) to be called an EPG server. There are nine. The server 9 has a database DB, and stores program guide information and program reservation setting information broadcast by at least a television broadcasting station in a predetermined region in Japan. The EPG data describes the channel, start date / time, end date / time, program name, genre, etc. for each program in the program guide. The EPG data can be acquired by operating the network connection button on the remote controller 3 so that the CPU 19 can access the server 9 via the network connection unit 18 and the modem 6 via the network 7. The acquired EPG data is subjected to graphic processing by the video output unit 17 under the control of the CPU 19 and displayed on the display 5 in the form of a program guide.

  The antenna 2 is composed of a BS antenna, for example, and can receive BS digital broadcast signals. The tuner unit 11 includes a BS tuner that receives and demodulates a BS digital broadcast signal, and also includes an acquisition unit that separates and extracts EPG data multiplexed on the BS digital broadcast signal. The EPG data is also displayed on the display 5 in the form of a program display after graphic processing by the video output unit 17 under the control of the CPU 19.

  The remote controller 3 includes various operation buttons such as a channel selection button, a network connection button, a cursor button, a determination button, an initial setting button, a reservation button, a program guide button, a recording button, a playback button, and a stop button.

The modem 6 includes a splitter and an ADSL modem, a CATV modem, or the like. The recording medium 13 is composed of a hard disk (HDD), DVD-RAM or the like, and records program data itself, program guide information (program guide information) and program reservation setting information which are EPG data acquired from the outside. Used.

  The RAM 21 stores the display attributes (date and time, display format) of the program table displayed at the end of the previous time. It is to be noted that an EPROM as a non-volatile memory is used in place of the RAM 21, or an EPROM 23 is provided as a non-volatile memory connected to the CPU 19 to display the previous program table even when the recording apparatus is turned off. The state can also be stored.

  In the above configuration, the recording schedule can be reserved by pressing the program guide button of the remote controller 3 to display the electronic program guide, displaying it on the display 5 as a display unit, and directly selecting the desired program therefrom.

  As the display format of the electronic program guide, there are a list of all channels as shown in FIG. 2 and a list according to channels as shown in FIG.

  In the program list of the all-channel list shown in FIG. 2, the channels for each broadcasting station are arranged in the vertical direction, and the programs are arranged in the horizontal direction in the order corresponding to the broadcasting time in the broadcasting order. The items arranged in the vertical and horizontal directions may be reversed.

  Marks indicating notches (wedge marks) or program attributes (for example, genre) are attached as marks A between programs, that is, at the beginning of a program, rather than a dividing line for separating programs. By not putting a line between the programs, the program name and background color can be easily understood even for short programs. Also, the beginning of the program and the program attributes can be recognized simultaneously.

  In the program table of the list by channel shown in FIG. 3, the date and time of each day indicating the month and day are arranged in the vertical direction for each channel of a specific broadcasting station, and each program is arranged in the broadcasting direction in the horizontal direction. They are arranged in length according to the broadcast time.

  Hereinafter, taking the above two display formats as an example, (1) “initial setting” of the program guide display mode and (2) operations when the “program guide button” is pressed will be described.

(1) Initial setting of program guide display mode First, in the initial setting, the user can set the initial state of the program guide to be displayed when the “program guide button” is pressed.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of “initial setting”.
In FIG. 4, when the initial setting button is pressed,
First, the following message is displayed (step S1). That is,
“When to display the program guide, in what state will it be displayed?
(a) Display a list of all channels with the current date and time.
(b) Display in the last displayed state. ]
Is displayed.

Next, it is determined whether or not (b) is selected (step S2). That is,
Sets whether the program guide display mode is the last program guide mode or the all channel list mode. The last program guide mode is a mode in which the last program list is displayed in the last display state, and the all channel list mode is a mode in which the program guide at the current date and time is displayed in the all channel list format.

In step S2, when the user selects (b), the program guide display mode is set to the last program guide mode (step S3), and when the user selects (a), the program guide display mode is set to the all channel list mode. It is set (step S4).
Thereby, a program guide can be displayed in the state according to a user's liking.

(2) Operation when “program guide button” is pressed FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of “program guide display”.
In FIG. 5, when the “program guide button” is pressed,
First, it is determined whether or not the program guide display mode initialized in FIG. 4 is the last program guide mode (step S11).

If the program guide display mode is the last program guide mode in step S11, the last displayed state (date and time, display format) is read (step S12).
In step S13, the display date / time of the previous program guide and the current date / time are compared. That is, for the previous program guide, it is determined whether or not the previous display date and time is later than the current date and time.

  In step S13, if the previous display date / time is in the past, the program table of the current date / time is displayed in the previous display form (step S15). That is, past programs are not displayed.

If the previous display date / time is in the future in step S13, the program table is displayed in the previous date / time and display format (step S14).
On the other hand, if the program guide display mode initially set in FIG. 4 is the all channel list mode in step S11, the program guide of the current date and time is displayed in the all channel list format (step S16).

  As a result, users who frequently make recording reservations can initialize the last program guide mode so that the last displayed state (date and time, display format) is read even if a series of reservation operations are interrupted. Work can be resumed immediately. For a novice user who can only make recording reservations in the near future, initial setting to the all channel list display mode facilitates new reservation work.

  In the flowchart of “program guide display” in FIG. 5 in the first embodiment, as shown in steps S12, S14, and S15, the date and time of the last display, the display format (if the previous display date and time is past, the current The program table of the date and time is displayed in the previous display format).

  In the second embodiment, the last display state is retained only for the date and time. Therefore, when it is displayed this time, only the date and time are displayed, and the previous display format (all previously displayed channel list or channel-specific list) is not retained, so if there are two display formats, When displaying, the user may select the display format (all channel list or channel-specific list), or the display format may be always fixed to one (for example, fixed to all channel list). . The same applies to the case where there are three or more display formats.

  In the flowchart of “program guide display” in FIG. 5 in the first embodiment, as shown in steps S12, S14, and S15, the date and time of the last display, the display format (if the previous display date and time is past, the current The program table of the date and time is displayed in the previous display format).

  In the third embodiment, the last display state is retained for the start channel in addition to the date and time and the display format. Therefore, when displaying this time, the date and time, the display format, and the format that holds the start channel are displayed, so when displaying, the display format (list of all channels or list by channel) and the start channel were previously displayed. As a result, the display format is always displayed in the channel-specific list and the previously displayed specific channel.

In the first to third embodiments, it is possible to select whether the program guide display mode is the all channel list mode or the last program guide mode displayed last time (last) by performing the initial setting shown in FIG. It was assumed that the last program guide mode was selected. ,
In the fourth embodiment, the initial setting of the last program guide mode or the all channel list mode is eliminated, and the last program guide mode is fixed. This eliminates the need for the initial setting shown in FIG. 4, reduces the number of operation steps, and makes a reservation on the program guide following the previous reservation on the program guide. The operation to put out can be omitted.

  In any of the embodiments described above, an operation means for giving a command to move to the current date and time may be provided so that a program on the current date and time can be quickly displayed without display scrolling or display page switching. Thus, when the [Current] button is pressed while the program guide is displayed, the program guide for the current date and time can be displayed. The [Current] button may be a button on the remote control, or a button or option displayed on the screen of the display unit.

   INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention is useful for improving the operability of program reservation when used in a device that needs to display program information, such as a recording device or a broadcast receiver, and a system using the device.

The block diagram of the program information display system and program information display apparatus of Example 1 of this invention. The figure which shows the program schedule of all the channel lists. The figure which shows the program schedule of the list according to channel. "Initial settings" flowchart The flowchart of “program guide display”.

Explanation of symbols

1. Recording device (program information display device)
3. Remote control (operating means, selecting means)
5. Display (display part)
7 ... Network 8 ... Broadcasting station 9 ... Server 11 ... Tuner section (receiving means)
12 ... Recording / playback unit (recording unit)
13 ... Recording medium 17 ... Video output section (electronic program guide information display control means)
18. Network unit 19 ... CPU (acquisition means, reservation setting means, control means, etc.)
20 ... ROM (program memory)
21 ... RAM (data memory)
23 ... EPROM (non-volatile memory)
Agent Patent Attorney Susumu Ito

Claims (11)

A server capable of storing electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, a start date and time, an end date and time, and a program name, and sending the electronic program guide information to a network;
Receiving means for receiving a television broadcast signal of a program transmitted from a broadcasting station;
Obtaining means for accessing the server via a network and obtaining the electronic program guide information;
Operation means for giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired by the acquisition means on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command of the operation means, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format that retains the date and time among the previously displayed display states. Information display control means;
A program information display system comprising: A broadcasting station that transmits a television broadcast signal in which electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, a start date and time, an end date and time, and a program name is multiplexed;
Receiving means for receiving a television broadcast signal of a program transmitted from the broadcasting station;
Obtaining means for obtaining electronic program guide information from the television broadcast signal received by the receiving means;
Operation means for giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired by the acquisition means on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command of the operation means, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format that retains the date and time among the previously displayed display states. Information display control means;
A program information display system comprising: Receiving means for receiving a broadcast signal of a program;
Acquisition means for taking in electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, a start date and time, an end date and time, and a program name;
Operation means for giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired by the acquisition means on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command of the operation means, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format that retains the date and time among the previously displayed display states. Information display control means;
A program information display device comprising:   4. The electronic program guide information display means, when displaying the electronic program guide information, if the previous display date and time is past than the current time, the electronic program guide information display means displays in the display state of the current date and time. Program information display device. 4. The program information display device according to claim 3, wherein when displaying the electronic program guide information, the electronic program guide information display means displays in the past display state that was displayed last time.   6. The non-volatile memory for storing the previous electronic program guide information even when the program information display device is turned off, further comprising: The program information display device described in 1.   The electronic program guide information display means is capable of selecting in advance whether to display the electronic program guide information of the current date and time or to display the electronic program guide information in the previous display state. The program information display apparatus according to any one of claims 3 to 6.   An operation means for giving a command to move to the current date and time is provided, and a program at the current date and time is displayed immediately without display scrolling or display page switching. The program information display device described.   9. The program information display apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the electronic program guide information display means adds a mark or a notch to the head of each program of the electronic program guide information to be displayed.   The program information display apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the mark indicates a program attribute. A receiving step of receiving a broadcast signal of the program;
An acquisition step for capturing electronic program guide information of a broadcast program including a channel, start date / time, end date / time, and program name from outside,
An operation step of giving a command to display the electronic program guide information acquired in the acquisition step on a display unit;
When displaying the electronic program guide information on the display unit under the display command in the operation step, the electronic program guide is displayed in the form of a program guide and displayed in a format in which only the date and time is retained among the previously displayed display states. An information display control step;
A program information display method comprising:

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