JP2006222839A - Commodity information retrieval device of data broadcasting, retrieval method, and retrieval program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily acquire commodity information including price information with respect to commodity information selected during viewing of a data broadcast program. <P>SOLUTION: A commodity information retrieval device includes a digital broadcast reception part for receiving a data broadcast program of digital broadcasting, a commodity information extraction means (steps S4 to S7) for extracting commodity information in the data broadcast program received by the digital broadcast reception part, a price information collection means (steps S8 to S10) for collecting price information relating to the commodity information through a network on the basis of the commodity information extracted by the commodity information extraction means, and a price information output means (step S15) for outputting the price information collected by the price information collection means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a data broadcast product information search apparatus, a search method, and a search program for collecting information related to product information introduced in a digital broadcast data broadcast program.

As a conventional product information search device, for example, information information such as TV broadcast video is displayed on an information registration device, the position and range on the screen are designated with a mouse or the like, and screen position // screen range information is obtained. The identification information of the mediation information such as the channel number and the broadcast time at that time is obtained from the TV tuner, input from the input means, or retrieved from the server to obtain related information, and these information is sent to the information retrieval device. The apparatus accumulates related information in a database, and in the same manner as the information registration apparatus, the information browsing apparatus obtains screen position / screen range information and mediation information identification information, and sends the obtained data to the information retrieval apparatus. The data sent by the search device is collated with the data record in the database, the related information in the matched data record is sent to the information browsing device, and the related information is displayed on this information browsing device. As the information browsing device is known (e.g., see Patent Document 1).
JP 2002-334092 A (first page, FIG. 1)

  However, in the conventional example described in Patent Document 1, information (such as a manufacturer name and a price) related to, for example, a costume displayed on a screen can be obtained by an information browsing device. However, it uses a registration method in which identification information such as the screen position / screen range for matching the product in the displayed video and the product information is uniquely associated, so it is registered in the information search device as product information. There is an unsolved problem that only the contents that have been made can be obtained.

  That is, for example, when a product handled at a store A is introduced in a digital broadcast data broadcast program, if information is obtained from the data broadcast program, only price information of the product a handled by the store A can be obtained. For example, even if a B store sells a product at a lower price, there is an unsolved problem that information on this B store cannot be obtained while viewing.

For this reason, in order to obtain information on the B store, it is necessary to make a note of the product a while viewing the data broadcasting program, and separately obtain information on other stores using a network information search site such as the Internet. There is an unsolved problem that this is troublesome.
Therefore, the present invention has been made paying attention to the unsolved problems of the above-described conventional example, and it is possible to easily acquire product information including price information for product information selected during viewing of a data broadcast program. It is an object of the present invention to provide a product information search device, a search method, and a search program for data broadcasting.

  A product information search apparatus for data broadcasting according to a first technical means for achieving the above object includes a digital broadcast receiving unit for receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, and a data broadcast program received by the digital broadcast receiving unit. Product information extracting means for extracting product information, price information collecting means for collecting price information on the corresponding product information via the network based on the product information extracted by the product information extracting means, and collecting by the price information collecting means And price information output means for outputting the price information.

  In the first technical means, when the user selects product information with, for example, a remote controller while receiving the data broadcast program at the digital broadcast receiving unit, the product information extracting means extracts the product information, and the price The information collection means collects price information related to the corresponding product information via the network based on the extracted product information, and the collected price information is displayed or printed by the price information output means, so the price related to the product information selected by the user Various kinds of information can be collected and displayed or printed, and a wide range of purchase prices can be easily obtained.

  According to a second technical means of the present invention, there is provided a product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting when the product information extracting means receives a data broadcast program at the digital broadcast receiver in the first technical means. Product information display unit for displaying product information according to description language data of a multimedia coding system for displaying product information of content, reference description language data storage unit for storing the description language data, and product information display unit The product information selection unit for selecting desired product information displayed on the screen, and when the product information is selected by the product information selection unit, the product information is stored in the description language data and the reference description language storage unit. And a product information extracting unit that extracts the text of product information from the difference portion by comparing with the description language data.

  In the second technical means, the product information is displayed on the product information display unit according to the description language data of the multimedia encoding system of the data broadcast program received by the product information display unit, and the description language data at this time is used as the reference description language. Data is stored in the standard description language data storage unit, and when desired product information is displayed, when the product information is selected by the product information selection unit, the description language data of the corresponding product information and the reference description language storage unit are stored. The product information text is extracted from the difference by comparing with the description language data. In other words, in data broadcasting programs that introduce mail-order products, the entire layout of the display screen is not changed, and only the product information is changed and displayed. Therefore, there is a high possibility that this difference corresponds to the product information. The product information can be easily extracted by comparing the reference standard language data.

  Further, the product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting according to the third technical means is characterized in that, in the first technical means, when the product information extracting means receives a data broadcast program at the digital broadcast receiving unit, A product information display unit for displaying product information in accordance with the description language data of the multimedia encoding method for displaying the product information, a reference description language data storage unit for storing the description language data, and the product information display unit. Product information selection unit for selecting desired product information displayed, and when product information is selected by the product information selection unit, it is stored in the description language data and reference description language storage unit of the corresponding product information When the product information is selected by the product information selection unit that compares the description language data and extracts the text of the product information from the difference portion, and when the product information is selected by the product information selection unit It is characterized by comprising an image data storage unit for storing the image data by analyzing the description language data.

In the third technical means, the product information extracting means extracts the product information test in the same manner as the second technical means, and further captures the image data of the product information and stores it in the image data storage unit. It becomes possible to search for product information similar to the product selected by the image search based on the image data stored in the image data storage unit.
Furthermore, the product information search apparatus for data broadcasting according to the fourth technical means is the second or third technical means based on the text of the product information extracted by the price information collecting means by the price information collecting means. It is characterized in that it is configured to perform a product search via a network and collect price information of the corresponding product.

In the fourth technical means, the price information of the corresponding product is collected by searching for the product via the network based on the text of the product information extracted by the product information extracting means. A wide range of price information can be collected from a large number of product information texts.
Still further, the product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting according to the fifth technical means is the price information collected by the price information collecting means by the price information output means in any one of the first to fourth technical means. It is characterized by outputting the list information which arranged.

In the fifth technical means, list information in which a large number of price information collected from the price information output means is arranged is output, so that the lowest price can be easily extracted by visually checking this list information. It becomes.
According to a sixth technical means of the present invention, there is provided a product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting in any one of the first to fourth technical means, wherein the price information output means includes the price information collected by the price information collecting means. Among them, the system is characterized in that it is configured to output list information that displays the lowest price information in a distinguishable manner from other price information.

In the sixth technical means, since the cheapest price information is displayed so as to be distinguishable from other price information, the cheapest price information can be searched quickly.
Further, the product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting according to the seventh technical means is the data technical product information retrieval apparatus according to any one of the first to fourth technical means, wherein the price information output means uses the price information collected by the price information collecting means. It is configured to output list information arranged in ascending order of price.

In the seventh technical means, the collected price information is output on the display unit as the list information in which the prices are arranged in ascending order, so that the lowest priced product information can be easily found.
Furthermore, the product information search apparatus for data broadcasting according to the eighth technical means is the third technical means, wherein the price information collecting means uses a network based on the image data stored in the image data storage unit. It is configured to collect product information including similar image data by performing an image search.

In the eighth technical means, the price information collecting means collects product information including image data similar to the selected product information by performing an image search based on the image data of the product information in addition to the price information. Price information can be acquired by expanding the range to products.
Still further, the product information search apparatus for data broadcasting according to the ninth technical means is the image data similar to the selected product information collected by the price information collecting means in the tenth technical means, wherein the price information output means. It is characterized by being configured to output product information including.

In the ninth technical means, product information including image data similar to the selected product information is output, so the selection range of products purchased by the user can be widened.
According to a tenth technical means of the present invention, the related information output means includes at least one of a display unit and a printing unit. It is characterized by being.

In the tenth technical means, since the related information output means includes at least one of the display unit and the printing unit, the price information and / or the similar product information can be displayed and / or printed. Similar product information can be easily viewed.
Furthermore, a data broadcast product information search method according to an eleventh technical means includes a step of receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, a step of extracting product information in the received data broadcast program, and the extracted product information. And a step of collecting price information of the corresponding product information via a network and a step of outputting the collected price information.
In the eleventh technical means, the same effect as the first technical means described above can be obtained.

Still further, a data broadcast product information search method according to a twelfth technical means includes a step of receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, and a multi-media for displaying product information of data broadcast content in the received data broadcast program. A step of displaying product information in accordance with the description language data of the media encoding method; a step of storing the description language data as reference description language data; and a step of selecting the desired desired product information being displayed; Comparing the product language description language data with the description language data stored in the reference description language storage unit and extracting the product information text from the difference, and a network based on the extracted product information text To collect price information of the corresponding product information via the and output the collected price information It is characterized in that it comprises a step.
In the twelfth technical means, the same effect as the second technical means described above can be obtained.

Still further, the data broadcast product information search program according to the thirteenth technical means includes a step of receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, a step of extracting product information in the received data broadcast program, and the extracted product information And the step of collecting the price information of the corresponding merchandise information via the network and the step of outputting the collected price information are executed by a computer.
In the thirteenth technical means, the same effects as those of the first and eleventh technical means described above can be obtained.

A data broadcast product information search program according to a fourteenth technical means includes a step of receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, and a multimedia for displaying product information of data broadcast content in the received data broadcast program. A step of displaying product information according to the description language data of the encoding method, a step of storing as reference description language data for storing the description language data, a step of selecting the desired product information being displayed, and Comparing the description language data of the product information with the description language data stored in the reference description language storage unit to extract the text of the product information from the difference, and the network based on the extracted text of the product information Collecting price information for the corresponding product information via this and outputting the collected price information It is characterized by executing the steps on a computer.
In the fourteenth technical means, the same effects as those of the second and twelfth technical means described above can be obtained.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram illustrating a product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a BS or CS digital broadcasting that transmits a digital broadcasting radio wave via a communication satellite 2. The digital broadcast radio wave transmitted from the digital broadcast station 1 is received by the digital broadcast receiver 3 via the broadcast satellite 2. The digital broadcast receiver 3 receives digital broadcast radio waves from the broadcast satellite 2 and displays a digital broadcast program of a desired channel on a display device 4 such as a liquid crystal display or a plasma display, and an information search site via the Internet 5. 6 is configured so that product information including price information can be collected.

As shown in FIG. 2, the digital broadcast receiving apparatus 3 includes a receiving antenna 11 that receives a digital broadcasting radio wave transmitted from the digital broadcasting station 1 via a broadcasting satellite 2, and the digital broadcasting received by the receiving antenna 11. Radio waves are supplied to the tuner unit 12.
The tuner unit 12 is set with data of a frequency corresponding to a digital broadcast channel number in order to select a normal broadcast channel. When the selected channel number is input from the control circuit 22 described later, Digital broadcast data having a frequency corresponding to the selected channel number is extracted. The digital broadcast data extracted by the tuner unit 12 is supplied to the demodulation unit 13 for demodulation processing, and the demodulated digital broadcast data is supplied to the error correction unit circuit 14 for Viterbi decoding and Reed-Solomon decoding. Then, error correction is performed and the data is output to the data separation / program selection unit 15 as a transport stream.

  The data separation / program selection unit 15 performs a TS synchronization process on the transport stream output from the error correction circuit 14 and demultiplexes the digital video signal, audio signal, channel selection information, and program information that are MPEG data. Are separated into data such as independent data including additional data and BML data, and the digital video signal and audio signal, which are separated MPEG data, are output to the video decoder 16 and the audio decoder 17, and the channel selection information and Data such as additional data composed of program information and BML data is stored in the storage unit 18 and output to the control circuit 21 described later.

The video decoder 16 and the audio decoder 17 individually decode the digital video signal and the audio signal, which are MPEG data output from the data separation / program selection unit 15, and convert them into an analog video signal and an audio signal. The signal and the audio signal are output to the display unit 4 and the speaker 21 through the interface 19.
The operations of the tuner unit 12, demodulation unit 13, error correction unit 14, data separation / program selection unit 15, and storage unit 18 are controlled by the control circuit 21. The control circuit 21 receives a remote control signal including a channel number selection signal, a volume adjustment signal, and the like received from the external remote control 23 by the remote control reception circuit 22 and selects the tuner unit 12 based on the channel number selection signal. The selected channel number is output, and the level of the audio signal for the speaker 20 is adjusted based on the volume adjustment signal.

  Here, the control circuit 21 executes at least a digital broadcast reception process for controlling operations of, for example, the tuner unit 12, the demodulation unit 13, the error correction unit 14, the data separation / program selection unit 15, and the storage unit 18, and FIG. A central processing unit (CPU) 21a that executes a product information search process for searching for product information shown in FIG. 4, a program for processing executed by the central processing unit 21a, and various characters, marks, icons, and the like that should be displayed when the program is updated The microcomputer 21M includes a ROM 21b for storing data and a RAM 21c for storing calculation process data and calculation result data of processing executed by the central processing unit 21a.

  The control circuit 21 stores a description language BML (Broadcast Markup Language) of a multimedia coding system for displaying product information of data broadcast contents in data broadcast received by digital broadcast reception processing, and an information search site. A storage unit 24 for storing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of a home page on which product information retrieved from is stored, or storing video data of a product captured from a received data broadcast, is connected to the Internet 5. A communication control unit 25 to be connected is connected.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the merchandise information search process executed by the central processing unit 21a is started as a timer interrupt process every predetermined time (for example, 100 msec) when a data broadcast that handles digital broadcast merchandise information is received. First, in step S1, it is determined whether or not a search result display state flag F, which will be described later, is set to "1". If it is set to "1", the process jumps to step S15, which will be described later, and "0" When it is reset to "", the process proceeds to step S2.

  In step S2, program content reception processing is performed to determine whether or not BML data, which is a description language of the multimedia encoding scheme of data broadcast content, is received. If BML data is not received, step S2 is performed as it is. When the process jumps to S4 and BML data is received, the process proceeds to step S3, where screen display information is generated according to the BML data, supplied to the display unit 4 and displayed, and the BML data is stored in the storage unit 18. Then, the process proceeds to step S4.

In step S4, it is determined whether or not the user has operated the remote controller 23 to select the selection button. If the selection button has not been selected, the timer interrupt process is terminated as it is and the program returns to the predetermined main program. When the button is selected, the process proceeds to step S5.
In this step S5, it is determined whether or not the product information is the first product information of the data broadcast content. If it is not the first product information, the process proceeds to step S6 to analyze BML data representing the product information selected by the user. The video data at this time is captured and stored in a predetermined storage area of the storage unit 24.

  Next, the process proceeds to step S7, where the BML data representing the previous product information stored in the storage unit 18 is compared with the BML data of the selected product information, and the difference between the two is determined from the BML data of the selected product information. By extracting the part, only the product information is extracted as text. That is, as will be described later, in a data broadcasting program that displays product information, generally, a large layout change is not performed in the program. When there is a change in the color information level of the button color or the like, it is possible to cope with the tag for specifying the color by setting so as not to extract the difference.

Next, the process proceeds to step S8, and one or more information search sites set in advance via the Internet 5 from the communication control unit 25 by HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) or the like based on the character information obtained by text-extracting the product information. And search for keywords.
Next, the process proceeds to step S9, where it is determined whether or not a keyword search result has been input. If no keyword search result has been input, the process waits until it is input, and if a keyword search result has been input, step S10. To create price display information consisting of site name, product information, price information, URL, etc. from keyword search results, and sort the created display information in ascending price order to generate price list display information Then, the generated list display information is written into the storage unit 18.

Next, the process proceeds to step S11, where one or more information search sites set in advance are accessed via the Internet 5 based on the image data of the product information selected by the user stored in the storage unit 24. Perform an image search.
Next, the process proceeds to step S12, where it is determined whether or not an image search result has been input. If no image original result has been input, the process waits until it is input. If an image search result has been input, the process proceeds to step S13. The product information, image data, price information, URL, etc. are extracted for each product from the image search result, and similar product display information is formed, and similar product list display information is generated and generated by collecting them. After the similar product list display information is stored in the storage unit 18, the process proceeds to step S14.

  In this step S14, the search display state flag F indicating whether or not the list information is being displayed is set to “1” indicating that it is in the display state, and then the process proceeds to step S15 to store the storage unit 18. The price list display information stored in is displayed on the display unit 4 for display, and then the process proceeds to step S16 to determine whether or not a display switching signal is input from the remote controller 23, and the display switching signal is input. If not, the process proceeds to step S17, where it is determined whether or not the button for ending the display of the list display information displayed on the display unit is selected on the remote controller 23, and the button for ending the display of the list display information is selected. If not, the timer interrupt process is terminated as it is to return to the predetermined main program, and when the button for terminating the display of the list display information is selected, step S1 The process proceeds to the search display state flag F, is reset to "0" representing the state of not displaying the list information to end the timer interrupt processing, returns to the predetermined main program.

If the determination result in step S16 is that a display switching signal has been input, the process proceeds to step S19, where the other list display information not currently displayed is output and displayed on the display unit 4. Then, the timer interrupt process is terminated and the process returns to the predetermined main program.
On the other hand, when the determination result in step S5 is the first product information, the process proceeds to step S20, and guidance is provided that the search process of the information search site for the product information is performed when the next product information is displayed. The information is output to the display unit 4, and then the process proceeds to step S21 to determine whether or not the next product information is displayed. When the next product information is not displayed, the timer interruption process is terminated and the predetermined product information is displayed. When the next product information is displayed, the process proceeds to step S22.

In this step S22, the BML data representing the second product information is analyzed and compared with the BML data representing the first product information stored in the storage unit 24. By extracting the difference portion, the selected product information alone is extracted as text, and the process proceeds to step S7.
In the processing of FIG. 3, the processing of step S2 to step S3 and the tuner unit 12, demodulation unit 13, error correction unit 14, data separation / program selection unit 15, video decoder 16, audio decoder 17, storage unit 18 interface 19, A digital broadcast receiving unit is configured including the display unit 4, the speaker 20, and the control circuit 21, and the processes in steps S3 to S7 and S20 to S22 correspond to the product information extracting means, and the process in step S3 is the product information. Corresponding to the display unit and the reference storage language data storage unit, the process of step S4 and the remote controller 23 correspond to the product information selection unit, the process of step S7 corresponds to the product information extraction unit, and the process of step S6 is image data storage. The processing in steps S8 to S10 corresponds to the price information collecting means, and steps S15 and S1. And a processing S19: a display unit 4 corresponds to the price information output means.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described.
Now, when the power of the digital broadcast receiving device 3 is turned on, the digital broadcast receiving process is executed by the microcomputer 22M of the control circuit 21, and the tuner unit 12, the demodulating unit 13, the error correcting unit 14, and the digital broadcast receiving unit, The data separation / program selection unit 15 is controlled to perform digital broadcast reception processing.
At this time, when a normal digital broadcast channel that is not data broadcast is selected by the remote controller 23, the frequency of the tuner unit 2 is set to the frequency of the corresponding channel, the digital broadcast radio wave of the corresponding channel is selectively received, and the received signal Is supplied to the demodulator 13 and demodulated, and after the error correction circuit 15 performs error correction, the data is supplied to the data separation / program selection unit 15 as a transport stream.

  In this data separation / program selection unit 15, by performing TS synchronization processing and demultiplexing processing, compressed video signals and compressed audio signals, which are MPEG data included in the transport stream, and data such as independent data and code data are converted. In addition to separation, a predetermined broadcast channel is selected from a plurality of broadcast channels in a certain reception channel, data is supplied to the storage unit 18, and compressed image signals and compressed audio signals are supplied to the video decoder 16 and the audio decoder 17, respectively. Thus, it is decoded and converted into a normal analog video signal and an analog audio signal, and these are supplied to the display unit 4 and the speaker 20 via the interface 19, whereby the channel selection viewing state can be obtained.

  In this channel selection viewing state, when the user operates the remote controller 23 to purchase a product and selects a desired data broadcast channel for which mail order sales are being performed, a channel number selection signal output from the remote controller 23 is displayed on the remote control. By being input to the microcomputer 21M via the receiving unit 22, the central processing unit 21a executes channel selection processing, and the selected channel number to be selected for the tuner unit 12 is output. Select the digital broadcast wave of the corresponding data broadcast channel.

  For this reason, the digital broadcast reception signal output from the tuner unit 12 is demodulated by the demodulation unit 13, and then the Viterbi decoding and Reed-Solomon decoding are performed by the error correction unit 14 to correct the received signal error to form a transport stream. Independent data including BML data including product information is stored in the storage unit 18, which is supplied to the data separation / program selection unit 15.

When the digital broadcast receiving unit is ready to receive a data broadcast in this way, the product information search process of FIG. 3 is executed by the central processing unit 21a of the microcomputer 21M.
Therefore, in the initial state, the search display state flag F is reset to “0”, the process proceeds from step S1 to step S2, and when BML data is received for the first time, the process proceeds to step S3 and the screen is displayed according to the BML data. Display information is generated, and this screen display information is supplied from the storage unit 18 to the display unit 4 via the interface 19, whereby product information of a predetermined layout is displayed on the display unit 4.

  At this time, the BML data has a BML document format shown in FIG. In this BLM document, an XML declaration 31 specifying an XML (Extensible Markup Language) version and a character code is described in the first line, and a BML version declaration 32 specifying a BML version is described in the second line. A BML document main body 33 is described between the start tag <bml> and the end tag </ bml>.

In the main body 33 of the BML document, a title element (title) is described in a header element (head), and then a body element (body) describing a body part is described. In the body part described in the body element, for example, “Children's clothing: EBSD · 204E”, “Brand Akagami Kuro-chan” and “Sales price: 6980 yen” as the three <p> elements whose display positions are specified by the style attribute Is described.
Here, the <p> element has a different description for each piece of product information, but other descriptions are constant descriptions regardless of the product information.

  By analyzing this BML document, the display position of the <p> element, the display position of the image data of the product, and the display position of other necessary display information are determined, and display information is generated based on this. By outputting to the display unit 4, the product information 41 is displayed on the display unit 4 as shown in FIG. The product information 41 has a program title column 42 and three <P> element display columns 43 to 45 formed on the left side, an image data display column 46 for displaying product image data on the right side, and a sales company's display on the lower side. An introduction article display field 47 for displaying an introduction article is formed, and a program guide selection button 48, an order form selection button 49, a shopping cart list selection button 50, and an end button 51 are further formed on the lower side.

In this first product information display state, when the user does not intend to select the product information, the remote controller 23 is not operated, so that the product information is not selected and the timer interrupt process is terminated. Thus, the state where the product information 41 is displayed on the display unit 4 is maintained.
Thereafter, when BML data representing the second product information is received, the next product information is displayed on the display unit 4 according to the BML data, and the BML data is stored in the storage unit 18.

  In the BML document at this time, as shown in FIG. 5B, the three <p> elements are changed to “portable MD: MP20L”, “hohoi”, and “sales price: 23,980 yen”, respectively. The description is the same as that of the BML document in FIG. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 5A, the product information 41 displayed on the display unit 4 includes “portable MD: MP20L”, “hohoi”, and “sales price” in the <p> element display fields 43 to 45, respectively. : 23,980 yen "and the image data of the corresponding product is displayed in the image data display field 46, and the display is the same as that of the first product in FIG.

  When the second product information is displayed and the remote controller 23 is operated to input a product selection signal to the microcomputer 22M via the remote control receiver 22, the process from step S4 to step S5 in the process of FIG. Since it is not the first merchandise information, the process proceeds to step S6 where BML data is analyzed and image data is captured and stored in the storage unit 24.

Then, when the difference portion is extracted by comparing the BML data of the selected product information with the previous BML data stored in the storage unit 18, the “portable MD: MP20L” described in the three <p> elements is extracted. ”,“ Hohoi ”, and“ sales price: 23,980 yen ”, the product name, manufacturer, and sales price can be extracted as text.
As described above, the character information “portable MD: MP20L”, “hohoi”, and “sales price: 23,980 yen” are extracted by text extraction, so one or more information search sites are accessed and the character information is extracted. Of the information, product information is collected by executing a keyword search using the product name and manufacturer as keywords.

  Then, it waits until a keyword search result is input. When the keyword search result is input, price display information including a site name, a product name, a price, and a site URL is formed for each search result as shown in FIG. Then, the formed price display information is sorted in ascending order of price to generate the price list display information shown in FIG. 6, and the generated price list display information is stored in a predetermined storage area of the storage unit 18.

  Further, similar product information similar to the product information selected by the user by accessing one or more information search sites based on the image data of the product information stored in the storage unit 24 and executing an image search. For each collected similar product information, similar product display information including at least product name, product image data and price information is formed, and the similar product display information formed is sorted in ascending order of price to display a similar product list display. Information is generated, and the generated similar product display information is stored in a predetermined storage area of the storage unit 18.

After that, the search display state flag F is set to “1” and then the price list display information stored in the storage unit 18 is output to the display unit 4 via the interface 19, thereby displaying the display unit 4 in FIG. The price list display information shown is displayed.
For this reason, the user can immediately determine whether or not the product information to be purchased is sold at a low price at another store. When the price of product information by data broadcasting is the lowest, By selecting the list selection button 50 with the remote controller 23, the product can be purchased by setting the corresponding product information in the shopping cart list.

On the other hand, if the product information searched by keywords on the information search site is cheaper, purchase the product by accessing the information search site from the site URL and setting the product information in the shopping cart list of the information search site. can do.
In addition, if the desired purchase price cannot be satisfied even if the price list display information generated by the keyword search is visually confirmed, or if it is desired to confirm a different color or similar product, the display is switched by operating the remote controller 23. By inputting the signal to the microcomputer 22M, the process proceeds from step S16 in FIG. 3 to step S19, and the similar product list display information stored in the storage unit 18 is output to the display unit 4 via the interface 19. As a result, a list display information of similar products collected by image search is displayed on the display unit 4, product information to be purchased is selected from the similar product list display information, and an information search site is accessed based on the described URL. Then, the product can be purchased by setting the product information in the shopping basket list.

  Then, after the product is purchased, the search display process is terminated by selecting a list display information display end button assigned to a predetermined key of the remote controller 23, thereby inputting a list display information display end signal to the microcomputer 21M. Since the process proceeds from step S17 to step S18 in FIG. 17 and the search display state flag F is reset to “0”, the process proceeds from step S1 to step S2 when the timer interrupt process is executed next time. When the next BML data is received, the same merchandise information display process and merchandise information search process as described above can be repeated.

  In addition, when the user selects the product information first displayed in the data broadcast, since the BML data of other product information is not stored in the storage unit 24, the text cannot be extracted. When the product information is displayed, guidance information indicating that the product information search process is executed is displayed on the display unit 4, BML data of the next product information is received and displayed on the display unit 4. The process proceeds to S22, the new BML data and the first BML data are compared, text is extracted from the difference, and then the process proceeds to step S8 to execute the product information search process similar to the above.

  As described above, according to the above embodiment, when product information is introduced by data broadcasting, when product information that considers purchase is selected, BML data is compared and the difference is extracted automatically. The product name, distributor, and price information can be extracted as text, and one or more information search sites can be accessed using the extracted product name and distributor as keywords to perform a keyword search. The price information is collected, the collected price information is sorted in ascending order to generate price list display information, and this price list display information is displayed on the display unit 4 so that the user can instantly determine the lowest price product information. Can purchase desired goods.

  In addition, according to the above-described embodiment, image data of product information is captured and stored, one or more information search sites are accessed based on the stored image data, and an image search is performed. Since it is formed as similar product list display information and can be displayed on the display unit 4, it is possible to easily search for product information of different colors or to search for cheap products with similar products. The product selection range can be expanded.

  In addition, according to the above embodiment, when the data broadcast channel is designated, the BML data of the first product information is stored, and then the BML data is sequentially updated every time the BML data is received. Since the layout of the BML data is rarely changed, it is possible to reliably prevent erroneous text extraction due to the layout change and perform accurate text extraction. Furthermore, every time BML data is received, BML data stored in sequence is updated, so even if the layout is changed during the program, there is a possibility that text may be erroneously extracted at the time of the layout change. Can reliably prevent erroneous extraction of text.

  In the above embodiment, the product information introduced first is described when the product information search process is executed when the next product information is introduced. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The BML data of the previous data broadcast channel may be stored in the storage unit 24, and the text may be extracted by using the BML data and comparing it with the BML data of the first product information.

In the above embodiment, the case where the BML data stored in the storage unit 24 is sequentially updated every time the BML data is received has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the BML data of the first product information is not limited to this. May be stored, and updating of the stored BML data may be omitted.
Furthermore, although the case where image search is performed in addition to keyword search has been described in the above embodiment, image search or keyword search may be omitted.

Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the BS digital broadcasting station 1 has been described as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the digital broadcasting transmitted from the terrestrial digital broadcasting station, the optical fiber, or the like is used. The present invention can also be applied when receiving a broadcast signal.
Still further, access to the information search site is not limited to the Internet, and any other network can be applied.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the case where the price display information is generated by sorting the price display information in ascending order has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, the sorting is omitted, and instead the lowest price You may make it display by giving modifications, such as a color, font size, and a halftone, which differ from other goods display information with respect to the goods display information of a price.
Further, in the above-described embodiment, the case where the description language of the multimedia coding system is BML has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and is not limited to this, and is not limited to European DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) -HTML or US XDML ( Any standard language such as XML Document Navigation Language) can be applied.

1 is a system configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the digital broadcast receiver which can be applied to this invention. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the merchandise information search process procedure performed with the central processing unit of a digital broadcast receiver. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of a display based on the BML document of the first merchandise information. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example of a display based on the BML document of the 2nd merchandise information. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of price list display information.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... BS digital broadcasting station, 2 ... Broadcasting satellite, 3 ... Digital broadcasting receiver, 4 ... Display part, 5 ... Internet, 6 ... Information search site, 11 ... Reception antenna, 12 ... Tuner part, 13 ... Demodulation part, 14 ... error correction unit, 15 ... data separation / program selection unit, 16 ... video decoder, 17 ... audio decoder, 18 ... storage unit, 19 ... interface, 20 ... speaker, 21 ... control circuit, 21a ... central processing unit, 21b ... ROM, 21c ... RAM, 21M ... microcomputer, 22 ... remote control receiving unit, 23 ... remote control, 24 ... storage unit, 25 ... communication control unit

Claims (14)

  A digital broadcast receiving unit for receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, a product information extracting unit for extracting product information in the data broadcast program received by the digital broadcast receiving unit, and the product information extracted by the product information extracting unit A data broadcast comprising: price information collecting means for collecting price information relating to the corresponding product information based on a network; and price information output means for outputting price information collected by the price information collecting means Product information retrieval device.   The merchandise information extracting means displays merchandise information according to the description language data of a multimedia encoding method for displaying merchandise information of data broadcast content when the digital broadcast receiving unit receives a data broadcast program. A display unit, a reference description language data storage unit for storing the description language data, a product information selection unit for selecting desired product information displayed on the product information display unit, and product information in the product information selection unit A product information extraction unit that compares the description language data of the corresponding product information with the description language data stored in the reference description language storage unit and extracts the text of the product information from the difference portion The product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting according to claim 1, wherein:   The merchandise information extracting means displays merchandise information according to the description language data of a multimedia encoding method for displaying merchandise information of data broadcast content when the digital broadcast receiving unit receives a data broadcast program. A display unit, a reference description language data storage unit for storing the description language data, a product information selection unit for selecting desired product information displayed on the product information display unit, and product information in the product information selection unit A product information extraction unit that compares the description language data of the corresponding product information with the description language data stored in the reference description language storage unit and extracts the text of the product information from the difference portion, An image data storage unit that analyzes the description language data and stores image data when product information is selected by the product information selection unit; Product information retrieval apparatus of the data broadcast according to claim 1, wherein.   The price information collecting unit is configured to perform a product search via a network based on the text of the product information extracted by the product information extracting unit, and collect price information of the corresponding product. Item 4. A data broadcast product information search device according to Item 2 or 3.   5. The data according to claim 1, wherein the price information output unit is configured to output list information in which the price information collected by the price information collection unit is arranged. Broadcast product information retrieval device.   The price information output means is configured to output list information for displaying the price information of the lowest price among the price information collected by the price information collecting means so as to be distinguishable from other price information. The product information search device for data broadcasting according to any one of claims 1 to 4.   5. The price information output unit is configured to output list information in which price information collected by the price information collection unit is arranged in ascending order of price. Product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting described in 1.   The price information collecting means is configured to collect product information including similar image data by performing an image search via a network based on the image data stored in the image data storage unit. The product information retrieval apparatus for data broadcasting according to claim 3.   11. The data according to claim 10, wherein the price information output unit is configured to output product information including image data similar to the selected product information collected by the price information collection unit. Broadcast product information retrieval device.   The product information search device for data broadcasting according to any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the related information output means includes at least one of a display unit and a printing unit.   Receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, extracting product information in the received data broadcast program, collecting price information of the corresponding product information via the network based on the extracted product information, And a step of outputting the collected price information.   Receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program; displaying product information in accordance with description language data of a multimedia encoding method for displaying product information of data broadcast content in the received data broadcast program; and the description A step of storing language data as reference description language data, a step of selecting desired displayed product information, and a description language data of the selected product information and a reference description language storage unit; The step of extracting product information text from the difference portion by comparing with the description language data, the step of collecting price information of the corresponding product information via the network based on the extracted product information text, and the collected price information For outputting product information for data broadcasting, characterized by comprising:   Receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program, extracting product information in the received data broadcast program, collecting price information of the corresponding product information via the network based on the extracted product information, A product information retrieval program for data broadcasting, wherein the computer executes the step of outputting the collected price information.   Receiving a digital broadcast data broadcast program; displaying product information in accordance with description language data of a multimedia encoding method for displaying product information of data broadcast content in the received data broadcast program; and the description A step of storing language data as reference description language data, a step of selecting desired displayed product information, and a description language data of the selected product information and a reference description language storage unit; The step of extracting product information text from the difference portion by comparing with the description language data, the step of collecting price information of the corresponding product information via the network based on the extracted product information text, and the collected price information A quotient of data broadcasting, wherein the step of outputting is executed by a computer Information retrieval program.

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