JP2006319442A - Device, method, and program for program recommendation, and computer readable recording medium recording it - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a program recommendation device capable of presenting recommended program information always reflecting the user's preference even after a lapse of an operating time. <P>SOLUTION: The program recommendation device is provided with a recommended program information extractor 20 which extracts the recommended program information recommended to the user from a program information database 2, by using a keyword of the program information and preference information of a user's preference database 1; a recommendation order decision 31 for deciding the recommendation order of the recommended program information; a display information generator 8 for outputting the recommended program information in the decided recommendation order; an operating state information processor 7 for specifying the program information which is handled with external equipment connected to a device body 100a during the input of a signal, when the signal from the operation part 100b is inputted to the recommended program information extractor 20 as current program information; and a current program keyword acquisition 19 for extracting a keyword from the current program information. The recommendation order decision 31 rates up the recommendation order of the priority recommendation program information including the keyword of the current program. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a program recommendation device for recommending a program to a user (viewer) who is watching a television broadcast by using electronic program guide information (EPG: Electronic Program Guide) of the television broadcast program, for example. is there.

  In recent years, electronic program guide information (hereinafter referred to as EPG) has been used as guide information for guiding users (viewers, listeners) such as TV broadcast programs and radio broadcast programs. The EPG includes at least broadcast program attributes (for example, broadcast date and time, broadcast station, genre, title, commentary, etc.) as program information.

  Then, from this EPG data (program information group), using the preference information group indicating the user's preference, the program information indicating the attribute of the broadcast program according to the user's preference is extracted and corresponding to the program information. The program is recommended to the user.

  As such a program recommendation device for recommending a program to a user using EPG, for example, Patent Document 1 discloses a video device having a program recommendation function.

  In the above video equipment, keywords are extracted from the program information included in the acquired EPG, and the viewing frequency of the program viewed by the user is stored for the keywords of the program, so that each stored keyword The degree of coincidence with the user's preference for each program is calculated based on the viewing frequency (user's preference information), and recommended programs are presented in descending order of degree of coincidence. The keywords include title, performer name, word, and genre name.

  FIG. 18A shows a storage example of the keywords and the viewing frequency thereof, and FIG. 18B shows a display example of program information of programs extracted as recommended programs.

That is, the table shown in FIG. 18A shows a state where the keywords are stored together with the count number indicating the viewing frequency. FIG. 18B shows the program information extracted from the EPG data based on the table shown in FIG. 18A in the order of programs (order of viewing frequency) including more keywords with higher counts in the program information. The example of a display at the time of displaying as a recommended program guide is shown.
JP 7-135621 (released May 23, 1995)

  Incidentally, the number of keywords stored in the video device disclosed in Patent Document 1 increases as the usage time of the video device elapses, and the viewing frequency is accumulated for each of the keywords. In this case, since the keywords are extracted according to a predetermined rule (for example, only those whose parts of speech are nouns are extracted), it is possible that keywords that are not conscious (not preferred) by the user may be extracted.

  Here, the video equipment recommends a program using each extracted keyword and each viewing frequency, so that the relative count is higher than the keyword count that the user really likes. There is a possibility that a program that the user does not want to recommend at least is recommended.

  In particular, as the video equipment usage time elapses, many keywords that are not preferred by the user accumulate, so programs that the user does not want to recommend from a group of keywords with a relatively low viewing frequency count. As a result, a program reflecting the user's preference is not recommended. That is, as the usage time of the video equipment elapses, there is a problem that the program reflecting the user's preference is not recommended, that is, the recommendation accuracy of the program reflecting the preference is lowered for the user.

  In addition, when priority is given to a keyword with a higher viewing frequency count when it is used for program recommendation, a program including a keyword included in a program with a small number of broadcasts becomes difficult to be recommended, and the user has a strong interest in the program. If the user wants to watch the program, the problem that the user really wants to recommend the program may not be recommended.

  Furthermore, as a cause for the user to feel that the accuracy of the recommended program has decreased as time passes, the change of the user's own preference with the passage of time, the keywords accumulated by the use of multiple users, and the viewing frequency A change in the count can be considered.

  That is, the user's interests and preferences change after a certain amount of time. However, it is difficult to respond immediately to changes in user preferences.

  In addition, if the video equipment is used by a plurality of users, the preference is usually different for each user, and it is more difficult to cope with it whenever the user changes.

  From the above, in the method of recommending a program using a conventional video device, there is a problem that it is difficult to always reflect the user's preference as the program recommendation time elapses.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide recommended program information that always reflects the user's preference even after the usage time of the program recommendation device has elapsed. It is an object of the present invention to provide a program recommendation device, a program recommendation method, a program recommendation program, and a computer-readable recording medium on which the program recommendation program is recorded.

  In order to solve the above problems, a program recommendation device according to the present invention is connected to an external device that handles receivable program information, and recommends a program that reflects user preferences from the receivable program. In the program information group including a plurality of the program information, the program information of the program reflecting the user's preference is recommended using the keyword included in the program information and the preference information indicating the user's preference for each keyword. The recommended program information extracting means, which is extracted as program information, the recommended order determining means for determining the recommended order of the recommended program information extracted by the recommended program information extracting means based on an arbitrary recommendation criterion, and the recommended order determining means Recommended program information output means for outputting the recommended program information extracted by the recommended program information extraction means in the recommended order, and the recommended program information extraction means. An instruction signal input means for inputting an instruction signal for instructing the means to extract recommended program information; and when the instruction signal from the instruction signal input means is input to the recommended program information extraction means, the instruction signal is input. Current program information specifying means for specifying the program information handled by the external device as current program information, and keyword extracting means for extracting a keyword from the current program information specified by the current program information specifying means, The recommendation order determining means changes the recommendation standard using the recommended program information including the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting means as the priority recommended program information, and determines the recommendation order of the recommended program information based on the changed recommended standard. It is said.

  According to the above configuration, when the user sends an instruction to display a recommended program using the instruction signal input means, the recommended program information extraction means reflects the user's preference from the program information group by the instruction signal. The program information of the selected program is extracted as recommended program information, and the recommendation order determining means determines the recommendation order of the extracted recommended programs. Further, by the instruction signal, the current program information specifying means specifies which program is handled by the external device when the instruction signal is input in the apparatus body, that is, which is the current program, The keyword extracting means acquires the keyword of the current program from the program information of the current program in the program information group. Subsequently, the recommendation order determining means sets the recommended program information including the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting means among the extracted recommended program information as priority recommended program information, and changes the previously determined recommendation criteria. The recommendation order of the recommended program information is determined based on the changed recommendation criteria.

  Thereby, it is specified which program (current program) is handled by the external device until the time when the user sends the recommended program display instruction signal, and the keyword (current program keyword) for the program is acquired. It becomes possible. Thus, for the recommended program information that has already been extracted (preferred by the user) as recommended program information and the recommended order has been determined, the recommended program information including the same keyword as the current program keyword is used by using the current program keyword. Can be output as a recommended program to be preferentially output (hereinafter referred to as a preferential recommended program) by changing the recommendation order (for example, further increasing the recommendation order).

  Here, the program handled by the external device is, for example, a program in which the television is being tuned for viewing by the user. Therefore, it can be said that the program handled by the external device is a program that the user likes and is interested in. In addition, it can be said that the program focused on when the instruction signal is input is the program that best represents the latest preference of the current user.

  Therefore, for the recommended program information of the program including the same keyword as the keyword of the program (current program) handled by the external device when the instruction signal is input, the recommendation order is further increased so that the user can easily pay attention. This means that a program recommendation that better matches the user's preference is being performed.

  Furthermore, since the current program keyword that affects the recommended order when outputting recommended program information is always the point at which the user instructs the recommended program display, that is, the program currently focused on, this The recommended program information output according to the recommended order determined by such keywords is always the latest recommended program information of a program that matches the preference of the user who has instructed the recommended program display.

  As described above, since the program recommendation device having the above configuration always executes the program recommendation reflecting the user's preference at the time of program recommendation, even if the usage time of the program recommendation device has elapsed, the user It is possible to output recommended program information that always reflects the user's preference. Therefore, even when the usage time of the program recommendation device has elapsed, the user does not feel that the accuracy of program recommendation has been lowered.

  The program recommendation device of the present invention further includes an order switching instruction signal input means for inputting an instruction signal for instructing switching of a recommended order of recommended program information output to the recommended program information output means, and the order switching When the instruction signal from the instruction signal input unit is input, the recommendation criterion change that instructs the recommendation order determination unit to change the recommendation criterion used in the recommendation order determination unit to the recommendation criterion according to the instruction signal Instruction means.

  According to the above configuration, when the recommendation standard is selected by the user using the order switching instruction signal input means, the recommendation reference change instruction means is used by the recommendation order determination means when determining the recommendation order of the recommended program information. An instruction is sent to change the recommendation criteria to the recommendation criteria selected by the user.

  Thus, the recommendation order determining means determines the recommendation order of the recommended program information based on the recommendation criterion selected by the user, and the recommended program information output means outputs the recommended program information in the determined recommendation order. Become. That is, the recommended program information output means outputs the recommended program information in the recommended order determined by the recommendation criterion selected by the user.

  Accordingly, the user can select an arbitrary recommendation criterion, and the recommendation order determined by the selected recommendation criterion (for example, broadcast start order, viewing frequency order, current preference order based on current program keywords, etc.) It is possible to output recommended program information. As a result, it is possible to provide a program recommendation device that further improves convenience for the user to obtain recommended program information.

  Furthermore, the program recommendation device of the present invention includes a viewing frequency accumulation unit that accumulates, for each keyword, the number of times the user has viewed in the preference information group including the plurality of preference information, and the recommended program information extraction unit includes , A preference point calculating means for calculating a preference point based on the viewing frequency accumulated by the viewing frequency accumulating means, and a match degree for calculating a degree of coincidence with a user preference of the program using the preference point based on the viewing frequency A degree calculation unit, and recommended program information may be extracted based on a calculation result of the degree-of-match calculation unit.

  According to the above configuration, every time a user views a program, the viewing frequency storage unit accumulates the viewing frequency for each keyword. Based on this preference frequency, the preference point indicating the degree of preference for each keyword of the user is: Calculated by preference point calculation means. The degree-of-match calculation means uses this preference point to calculate the degree of match with the user's preference for each program.

  Thus, the recommendation order determining means determines the recommendation order based on the recommendation level, which is the matching degree that the recommendation order is higher in a program including more keywords that are the same as keywords included in a program that the user views more frequently.

  As a result, except for program information whose recommendation order varies as priority recommended program information, it is possible to perform program recommendation such that a program that has been viewed by the user more frequently is recommended as recommended program information. This makes it easier to recommend programs that better reflect user preferences.

  The program recommendation device of the present invention further includes condition setting means for a user to set conditions for using the preference points in order to calculate the degree of match by the degree of match calculation means, and the degree of match The calculation means may calculate the degree of match using only preference points that satisfy the conditions set by the user using the condition setting means.

  According to the above configuration, in order to calculate the degree of coincidence, it is possible to allow the user to select a condition for using the preference point. Therefore, among the preference information calculated from the preference information group, recommended program information can be selected. A condition for distinguishing an effective preference point to be added and a preference point not to be added in extraction, that is, a threshold value is variable for the user.

  For example, the threshold value is used only when the preference point of the keyword exceeds the set threshold value, and is used to calculate the degree of match for each program using only the effective preference point. Is.

  More specifically, it is recommended to narrow the range of programs that are frequently viewed by users (programs that include keywords with high preference point values), or the entire program that is being viewed (value of preference points). It is possible to allow the user to select whether or not to make a recommendation from a wide range of programs including a low keyword.

  Based on the above, if the user wants to recommend only programs in the field he likes in particular and if he wants to recommend a lot of programs including fields in areas he / she does not see much, The variable range of recommendation as in the configuration means that program recommendation that is convenient for the user can be performed in any case.

  In addition, this makes it possible to respond to the user's request for what kind of program he / she wants to recommend, and the user feels that the recommendation is highly accurate.

  As a result, it is possible to maintain the accuracy reflecting the user's preference.

  Further, the current program information specifying unit includes a usage status information acquisition unit that acquires the usage status of the external device and a program handled by the external device as usage status information, and the usage status information acquisition unit. Current program determination means for determining whether or not the program indicated by the usage status information is the current program based on the usage status information acquired by the program, and using the determination result by the current program determination means, the program information Current program information may be specified from the group.

  According to the above configuration, the program ID for uniquely identifying the program handled by the external device from the external device (for example, a television broadcast receiver) to which the apparatus main body is connected by the usage status information acquisition unit; The device operation type indicating how the external device handles it is acquired.

  As a result, for example, when an instruction signal for displaying a recommended program is sent, it is possible to obtain information such as “the TV broadcast receiver is in synchronization” and the target program, and the user is viewing This target program can be determined as the current program. Then, the current program information specifying means can use the determination result to specify the current program information from the program information group based on the program ID of the target program determined to be the current program.

  Further, the usage status information acquisition means acquires, as usage status information, time information when the external device has handled the program from the external device, and the current program determination means has an instruction signal by the instruction signal input means. Elapsed time calculating means for calculating the elapsed time from the difference between the time of input and the time information, a time condition holding means for holding a time that is a condition for determining as the current program, and the elapsed time Time comparison means for comparing the elapsed time calculated by the time calculation means with the time condition held by the time condition holding means, and based on the comparison result of the time comparison means, the elapsed time is the time condition Only when the condition is satisfied, the program indicated by the use status information may be determined to be the current program.

  In this case, the current program determination unit determines that the program indicated by the usage status information is the current program only when the elapsed time satisfies the condition based on the comparison result of the time comparison unit.

  Here, the time condition is a threshold value for time. This time threshold value is set, and it can be determined whether or not it is the current program depending on whether or not the time threshold is exceeded.

  Thus, for example, if the time threshold is set to 5 minutes, the current program is determined if the elapsed time is 5 minutes or more, and it is determined that the current program is not current if the elapsed time is less than 5 minutes. it can.

  Therefore, more specifically, first, for example, “from when the TV broadcast receiver is tuned (until the instruction signal is input)”, “when the TV broadcast receiver accepts a viewing reservation, “How much time has passed (at the time of signal input)” or “when the recording / playback apparatus accepts a recording reservation and how much time has passed (at the time of input of the instruction signal)” and the target program Get.

  Next, for example, for a program that is being viewed by a user, it is determined as a current program only when the program is viewed for a certain period of time (the TV broadcast receiver is synchronized), or for a program for which a recording reservation has been received from the user. If it is within several tens of seconds after accepting the reservation, it is possible to determine that the program is the current program.

  As a result, by measuring the elapsed time, it is possible to more accurately determine the program that the user is truly paying attention to.

  Alternatively, the current program determination means acquires the start time of the program indicated by the usage status information from the program information group based on the usage status information, and the time when the instruction signal is input by the instruction signal input means, Broadcast time calculation means for calculating the elapsed broadcast time indicating the elapsed time from the start of broadcasting based on the difference from the above start time, and for holding the time as a condition for determining as the current program A time condition holding means; and a broadcast time comparing means for comparing the elapsed broadcast time calculated by the broadcast time calculating means with the time condition held by the time condition holding means. As a result of comparison, if the elapsed broadcast time does not satisfy the time condition, the program indicated by the usage status information may be determined to be the current program. .

  Further, the current program determining means acquires the end time of the program indicated by the usage status information from the program information group based on the usage status information, and the time when the instruction signal is input by the instruction signal input means, Broadcast time calculation means for calculating the remaining broadcast time indicating the time from the difference from the end time to the end of the broadcast, and a time condition for holding a time that is a condition for determining the current program A comparison result of the broadcast time comparing means, comprising: holding means; and a broadcast time comparing means for comparing the remaining broadcast time calculated by the broadcast time calculating means with the time condition held by the time condition holding means. When the remaining broadcast time does not satisfy the time condition, only the program indicated by the usage status information may be determined as the current program.

  In this case, the current program determination means, based on the comparison result of the broadcast time comparison means, if the elapsed broadcast time and / or the remaining broadcast time does not satisfy the condition, only the program indicated by the usage status information is the current program. It is determined that On the other hand, based on the comparison result, when the elapsed broadcast time satisfies the condition, the program indicated by the usage status information and the program broadcast immediately before the program are determined to be current programs. If the remaining broadcast time satisfies the condition, the program indicated by the usage status information and the program broadcast immediately after the program are determined to be current programs.

  From the above, when the information that “the TV broadcast receiver is in synchronization” is obtained, immediately before the start of broadcasting of the target program at the time when the instruction signal is input, immediately before that It is possible to determine that the current program is the current program because it is highly likely that the program of interest is also attracting attention, and if the target program is just before the end of the broadcast, the next program is also likely to be attracting attention. Become.

  As a result, it is possible to more accurately determine the program that the user is really paying attention by measuring the broadcast time.

  The recommended program information output means further includes a display means for displaying the recommended program information as the display order of the recommended order of the recommended program information, and the recommended order determining means includes the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting means. The recommended criteria may be changed so that the priority recommended program information is displayed at the top by the display means.

  Thereby, since the recommendation order of the recommended program information group is determined to be higher as it matches the user's preference at the time of inputting the instruction signal, the user is higher in the program that matches his / her preference. It is possible to visually check the recommended program guide displayed on the screen.

  Here, in order to make it possible for the user to visually recognize the recommended program table displayed higher in the program that matches his / her preference, the following may be performed specifically.

  In this case, among the recommended program information to be displayed, the preferential recommended program information whose recommendation order has been increased based on the keywords included in the current program is displayed with highlighting processing, for example, with symbols and blinking characters. It is displayed after being processed. As a result, only the priority recommended program information whose recommendation order has been raised can be displayed by performing the above-described highlighting process.

  As a result, the user can easily view the priority recommended program information from the recommended program information. In addition, by highlighting in this way, the user can easily view the priority recommended program without changing the display order.

  For example, it comprises display means for displaying the recommended program information output by the recommended program information output means with the recommended order of the recommended program information as the display order, and the recommended order determining means is the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting means. A priority recommended program information identifier for identifying the priority recommended program information including the information is provided, and the recommended program information output means is based on the priority recommended program information identifier among the recommended program information displayed on the display means. The recommended program information may be output so that the program information identified as the preferentially recommended program information is highlighted by the display means.

  In the recommended program information output means, the program information identified as the priority recommended program information based on the priority recommended program information identifier among the recommended program information displayed on the display means is the priority recommended program information. The recommended program information in which a symbol is added to the preferentially recommended program information may be output so that this is displayed together with the symbol that can be visually recognized by the user together with the symbol that the user can visually recognize.

  The recommended program information output means displays the program information identified as the preferentially recommended program information based on the preferentially recommended program information identifier among the recommended program information displayed on the display means. The recommended program information may be output as described.

  In order to solve the above problems, a program recommendation method according to the present invention is connected to an external device that handles receivable program information, and recommends a program that reflects user preferences from the receivable program. In the program recommendation method according to the above, based on an instruction signal for instructing extraction of recommended program information input by the user, a keyword included in the program information and a keyword included in the program information from the program information group including a plurality of the program information. Extracting the program information of the program reflecting the user's preference as recommended program information using the preference information indicating the user's preference, and when the instruction signal is input, the external device The program information handled in the step is specified as current program information, and the current program information specified in the above steps is used as a key word. A step for extracting the recommended program information including the keyword extracted in the above step as the priority recommended program information, and determining a recommendation order of the recommended program information based on the changed recommended criterion; And outputting the extracted recommended program information in the recommendation order determined by the steps.

  According to the above configuration, when an instruction signal for instructing extraction of recommended program information is input by the user, a step of extracting program information of a program reflecting the user's preference as recommended program information is performed. The step of specifying the current program and the step of extracting the current program keyword are performed. Subsequently, among the extracted recommended program information, the recommendation standard is changed using the program information including the current program keyword as the priority recommended program information, and the recommendation order of the priority recommended program information is determined based on the changed recommendation standard. Steps are performed.

  Thereby, even if the recommendation order of the extracted recommended program information is determined based on the recommendation criteria such as the broadcast start order and the viewing frequency order, for example, the order in which the current program keyword is included more by the current program keyword, that is, The recommendation order is determined again according to the recommendation criterion “current preference order”. Finally, the step of outputting in the re-determined recommended order is performed, so that the recommended program information of the program is always updated in the order that matches the preference of the user who has instructed the recommended program display. It becomes possible to output.

  From the above, even if the usage time of the program recommendation device elapses, it is possible to immediately respond to changes in the user's preference and maintain the accuracy of the recommendation without reducing the accuracy of reflecting the user's preference. It becomes.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the program recommendation program according to the present invention instructs a computer connected to an external device that handles receivable program information to instruct extraction of recommended program information input by the user. Based on a signal, a program of a program reflecting a user's preference using a keyword included in the program information and preference information indicating the user's preference for each keyword from a program information group including a plurality of the program information. A procedure for extracting information as recommended program information; a procedure for specifying program information handled by the external device as the current program information when the instruction signal is input; The procedure for extracting keywords from the current program information and the recommended program information including the keywords extracted in the above steps are favored. A procedure for changing the recommendation standard as recommended program information, determining the recommendation order of the recommended program information based on the changed recommendation standard, and a procedure for outputting the extracted recommended program information in the recommendation order determined in the above steps This is a program recommendation program to be executed.

  In this case, it is possible to easily recommend a program that matches the user's preference by a general-purpose computer.

  Further, if the program recommendation program is recorded on a computer-readable recording medium, the program recommendation program simply includes the computer and always reflects the user's preference even if the usage time of the program recommendation device has elapsed. A program recommendation device capable of outputting recommended program information can be easily realized.

  Furthermore, the program recommendation device according to the present invention may be used in a television broadcast receiving device.

  In this case, in the television broadcast receiving apparatus, a program recommendation apparatus capable of outputting recommended program information that always reflects the user's preference even after the usage time of the program recommendation apparatus has elapsed is easily realized. Is possible.

  As described above, the program recommendation device according to the present invention uses a keyword included in program information from the program information group including a plurality of program information and preference information indicating the user's preference for each keyword. The recommended program information extracting means for extracting the program information of the program reflecting the user's preference as recommended program information, and the recommended order for determining the recommended order of the recommended program information extracted by the recommended program information extracting means based on any recommendation criteria To the recommended program information output means for outputting the recommended program information extracted by the recommended program information extraction means to the user in the recommended order determined by the recommendation order determination means, and the recommended program information extraction means Instruction signal input means for inputting an instruction signal for instructing extraction of recommended program information, and the instruction signal from the instruction signal input means is the recommended program information. When input to the extraction means, current program information specifying means for specifying the program information handled by the external device as current program information when the instruction signal is input, and current program information specified by the current program information specifying means A keyword extraction unit for extracting a keyword, wherein the recommendation order determination unit changes the recommendation standard using the recommended program information including the keyword extracted by the keyword extraction unit as the preferential recommendation program information, and the recommended standard after the change By determining the recommendation order of the recommended program information, it is possible to output the recommended program information that always reflects the user's preference even when the usage time of the program recommendation device has elapsed.

Embodiment 1
An embodiment of the present invention will be described as follows. In the present embodiment, the program recommendation device of the present invention is applied to a digital television broadcast receiver (hereinafter simply referred to as a television broadcast receiver), and is viewed by the user using the EPG of the digital television broadcast program. An example in which a program recommendation operation is performed will be described.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the television broadcast receiver according to the present embodiment.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the television broadcast receiver 200 according to the present embodiment includes a program recommendation device 100 for presenting recommended program information to the user, and EPG data 15 acquired from the outside of the television broadcast receiver 200. An EPG receiving unit 4 for receiving and an EPG data processing unit 5 for processing the received EPG data 15 are provided.

  The program recommendation device 100 is for extracting recommended program information from the EPG program information group and presenting it to the user when there is an instruction to display a recommended program from the user. The operation unit (instruction signal input means, order switching instruction signal input means) 100b for the user to operate.

  The apparatus main body 100a includes a viewing frequency counting unit (viewing frequency storage unit) 10 for counting the number of times a user views a program, and a recommended program information extracting unit (recommended program) for extracting recommended program information that matches the user's preference. (Information extracting means) 20, a recommendation order determining unit (recommended order determining means) 31 for determining the recommendation order of the extracted recommended program information, and generating display data for the program information extracted and recommended order determined Display information generating unit (recommended program information output means) 8 for display, display unit (display means) 9 for displaying the generated display data, and audiovisual equipment such as a television broadcast receiver 200 connected to the apparatus main body 100a A usage status information processing unit (current program information specifying means) 7 for specifying which program the (external device) handles, and the keyword of the specified program A user preference database (preference information group) for storing a user's viewing history as preference information as a database. 1 and a program information database (program information group) 2 for storing program information of receivable programs.

  The user preference database 1 is a database in which a user's program viewing history (viewing count, viewing date, etc.) is stored for each keyword included in the program. For example, various data are stored as a table 40 as shown in FIG. Has been. Details of the user preference database 1 will be described later.

  The program information database 2 is a database in which the EPG data 15 acquired by the EPG receiving unit 4 is processed by the EPG data processing unit 5 and then stored as an EPG consisting of a plurality of program information. Various data are stored as a table 37 as shown in d). Details of the program information database 2 will be described later.

  The viewing frequency counting unit 10 is for accumulating the user's program viewing history, for example, the number of viewing times and viewing date / time in the user preference database 1. The viewing frequency counting unit 10 extracts a viewing information receiving unit 11 that identifies a viewed program from a program viewing instruction signal transmitted by the user, extracts program information of the identified program, and acquires a keyword of the program. The program information acquisition part 12 and the preference information update part 13 which updates the program viewing history of the user preference database 1 for every acquired keyword are included. Details of each part will be described later.

  The recommended program information extraction unit 20 uses the preference information stored in the user preference database 1 to calculate the user's preference level for each program. The recommended program information extraction unit 20 includes a preference information acquisition unit 21 for acquiring preference information from the user preference database 1 and a preference point calculation unit for quantifying the degree of preference for each keyword based on the acquired preference information ( A preference point calculation means) 22 and a match degree calculation unit (match degree calculation means) 23 for quantifying the degree of match with the user's preference for each program. The recommended program information extraction unit 20 extracts the recommended program information by supplying the combination of the program information acquired from the program information database 2 and information on the degree of match to the recommendation order determination unit 31 using the above-described units. To do.

  Each unit in the recommended program information extraction unit 20 and the recommendation order determination unit 31 will be described in detail later.

  The operation unit 100b is for a user to input a signal for operating the television broadcast receiver 200. The first operation unit 3a provided in the television broadcast receiver 200 itself and the second operation unit 3b using a remote controller (remote controller) for remote operation outside the television broadcast receiver 200 are configured. The second operation unit 3b may be other wired input devices (such as a keyboard and a mouse) in addition to the above-described remote controller.

  The EPG receiving unit 4 is a receiving means for receiving EPG data 15 including EPG text information included in a digital broadcast signal transmitted from each broadcasting station. This includes a tuner for performing demodulation, a demodulation unit for performing demodulation according to the signal form, and the like.

  In the present embodiment, a recommended program is selected within the range of the EPG data 15 received by the EPG receiving unit 4. The EPG receiving unit 4 can receive the EPG data 15 from the current date and time to N days later (N is an arbitrary value) in one reception.

  The EPG data processing unit 5 is means for extracting a keyword for each program from the text information included in the EPG data 15 received by the EPG receiving unit 4 and storing it in the program information database 2 together with each program information. Here, for example, information as shown in FIG. 3D is stored in the program information database 2.

  Specific processing contents of the EPG data processing unit 5 will be described below with reference to FIGS. 3A to 3C and the program information database 2 with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 3A shows an example of text information of the EPG data 15 received by the EPG receiving unit 4 before the EPG data processing unit 5 performs processing. The text information 35 indicates information about a certain program A. In this embodiment, the text information 35 includes a “program ID” that can uniquely identify the program, a “start date and time” and “end date and time” of the program broadcast, a “broadcast station name” that broadcasts the program, and a program “Genre” name, program name (“title”), “performer” name, and program description (“detailed program description”) describing the contents of the program are described. However, such information items of the EPG data 15 are not limited to this, and for example, a performer may be provided with a tag that can identify the type of the presenter or commentator. Other information that can be received by the EPG receiving unit 4 includes, for example, copy control information, viewing age restriction, and pay program information.

  When the EPG data processing unit 5 is supplied with the EPG data 15 from the EPG receiving unit 4, the EPG data processing unit 5 extracts keywords from the “title” and “detailed program description” of each text information included in the EPG data 15, A record to be stored in the information database 2 is generated for each program.

  FIG. 3B shows an example of program information corresponding to one record generated by extracting keywords from the text information 35 by the EPG data processing unit 5. FIG. 3C shows an example of program information for another program G.

  The program information 36 is the program information of the program A, and is handled as one record in the program information database 2. The program information 36 includes eight attributes 36a. From the attributes “program ID” to “performer” (36b), what is directly acquired from the text information 35 is stored. On the other hand, in the attribute “word” (36c), a word extracted as a keyword by the EPG data processing unit 5 from the above “title” and “detailed program description” using a known technique is stored.

  In the present embodiment, the three types of attributes “title”, “performer”, and “word” (36d) are treated as attributes indicating keywords (hereinafter referred to as keyword types). One word per word stored in is called a keyword.

  The keywords extracted by the EPG data processing unit 5 are added to the EPG data 15 as described above, and each program is stored in the program information database 2 (FIG. 2) as shown in FIG. .

  That is, when the viewing frequency counting unit 10 counts the viewing frequency of the user, the recommended program information extracting unit 20, the usage status information processing unit 7, the current program keyword acquiring unit 19, and the display of the program information database 2 are displayed. The information generation unit 8 selects a recommended program and refers to it when outputting it.

  In the present embodiment, “title”, “performer”, and “word” are used as the keyword type, but the present invention is not limited to these. For example, “performer” may be further subdivided into “moderator”, “explanator”, “screenplay”, and the like.

  In addition, as a word to be handled as a keyword, if the “program feature keyword” representing the feature of the program is already included in the EPG data 15 created by the broadcasting station, it is stored in the attribute “word” as it is. May be.

  The “program feature keyword” has a data frame in which keywords are stored in the EPG data 15 in the same manner as the names of performers are stored. It is given as a keyword to represent. Therefore, in this embodiment, the EPG data processing unit 5 is different from the keyword stored in the attribute 36 c extracted from the “title” and “program detailed description” of the EPG data 15.

  Further, in the present embodiment, as a keyword extracting method when the program feature keyword is not included, a method of creating a list of words to be stored in advance and extracting only words that match the list is used. As another extraction method, text data may be subjected to morphological analysis, and only words whose part of speech is a noun may be extracted from the decomposed words.

  The EPG data 15 that is the source of program information stored in the program information database 2 is a storage device external to the television broadcast receiver 200 through a telephone line, a LAN (Local Area Network), the Internet, etc., although not shown here. Alternatively, it can be obtained from a recording medium or the like. In this case, the EPG receiver 4 only needs to have a function as a communication interface for performing processing of communication with the outside and a function as a recording medium reading device.

  Next, FIG. 4 shows a table structure of the user preference database 1 indicating user preference information about keywords in the present embodiment.

  In the present embodiment, the table 40 of the user preference database 1 is composed of six attributes, and has one record for each keyword and for each genre.

  As shown in FIG. 4, the attribute 41 stores the “keyword”, the attribute 42 stores the “genre”, and the attribute 43 stores the “keyword type”. Further, the attribute 44 indicates “viewing frequency” indicating the number of times the program including the keyword is viewed by the user, and the attribute 45 indicates the date and time when the program including the keyword was recently viewed. “Date” is stored in the attribute 46 as “preference point” calculated by the preference point calculation unit 22 based on the attribute data. Note that a method by which the preference point calculation unit 22 calculates preference points will be described later.

  In the present embodiment, the attribute 44 is counted by the viewing frequency counting unit 10 every time a user views a program. Furthermore, the table 40 does not simply count the viewing frequency for each keyword, but stores the viewing frequency for each genre, and for each keyword type in one genre. That is, in the table 40, information on which genre the program from which the keyword is extracted belongs (attribute 42), and information on which keyword type the attribute is classified into among the attributes 36d (attribute 43). And categorize keywords.

  In the present embodiment, since the attributes 41 to 43 function as composite keys, even keywords of the same word are treated as different records without duplication.

  In the example of the program A used in FIG. 3B, when the program A is viewed by the user, the attributes 41 are “title A”, “actor B”, “actress C”, “word D”, respectively. ”And“ word F ”and the attribute 42 is“ drama ”, one viewing frequency is recorded. Note that the record R6 is “word D”, but since the genre is different, the record R6 is a different record, and the viewing frequency is not counted.

  In addition, in this way, by managing the viewing frequency for each genre, not just for each keyword, it is possible to cope with situations where the same keyword is a favorite keyword in another genre but is not a favorite keyword in another genre. There is a merit that it is possible. However, this is not an indispensable requirement for carrying out the present invention, and a configuration that simply counts the viewing frequency for each keyword can provide substantially the same effect as the present embodiment.

  Next, each configuration of the viewing frequency counting unit 10 for accumulating the viewing frequency of the television broadcast receiver 200 according to the present embodiment, which is executed using the information of the user preference database 1 and the program information database 2 described above. Elements, each constituent element of the recommended program information extracting unit 20 for extracting recommended programs, a recommended order determining unit 31 for determining a recommended order of recommended program information, and a display information generating unit 8 for outputting the recommended order information This will be described below with reference to FIG.

  Note that the configurations of the viewing frequency counting unit 10 and the recommended program information extracting unit 20 used in the present embodiment are not limited to this. Any component and / or combination thereof may be included as long as the functions described below can be performed.

  The viewing frequency counting unit 10 is for storing a user's program viewing history in the user preference database 1. The program viewing history is user viewing information including a program ID for identifying a program viewed by the user and date / time information of the viewing, and the viewing information receiving unit 11 receives the input signal. The viewing information is input to the viewing information receiving unit 11 every time the user inputs the program viewing instruction signal 16 using the operation unit 100b in order to view a certain program. In the present embodiment, the date and time when viewing was performed is the date and time when the apparatus main body 100a received the program viewing instruction signal 16.

  When the viewing information A is input to the viewing information receiving unit 11, the program information acquisition unit 12 refers to the program information stored in the program information database 2 based on the viewing information A, and the program indicated by the viewing information A That is, information about a keyword is acquired from program information of a program viewed by a user (hereinafter simply referred to as a user viewed program). Specifically, based on the program ID, a record (that is, program information) is specified from the table 37, and a keyword (a word in the attribute 36d) and a genre are acquired therefrom.

  Next, the preference information update unit 13 matches the keywords acquired from the program information acquisition unit 12 within the same genre and the same keyword type in the user preference information of the user preference database 1 as already described above. If there are keywords, update each attribute data. On the other hand, for the keyword acquired from the program information acquisition unit 12, if there is no matching keyword in the same genre and the same keyword type in the user preference information of the user preference database 1, one record indicating the keyword is added. , 1 is added to the attribute 44.

In the present embodiment, the “last viewing date and time” is stored in the attribute 45. Therefore, the preference information update unit 13 stores the date / time information included in the viewing information A in the attribute 45. (If there is already a record, update it.)
Specifically, the preference information update unit 13 searches the user preference database 1 for a keyword of a new user viewing program for each genre and keyword type, and as a result of the search, a keyword that already corresponds to the user preference database 1 is found. If it is stored, one “viewing frequency” for the keyword is counted, and at the same time, the “last viewing date” is updated. On the other hand, if the keyword is not stored in the user preference database 1 as a result of the search, a new record is added to the table, and the keyword name, genre, keyword type, viewing frequency (the first time is “1” here) Enter), and register the last viewing date.

  When there is a keyword to be newly stored in the user preference database 1 and the memory capacity for storing the keyword in the user preference database 1 is exceeded, the record storing the keyword is deleted and a new record is deleted. And store the new keyword there. It is preferable that the record to be deleted is usually the keyword with the smallest number of times of viewing or the keyword with the oldest last viewing date. Thereby, the information of the user preference database 1 can be kept fresh as much as possible.

  In the present embodiment, the following method is used as an example of a method for selecting a record to be deleted. The keyword to be deleted is extracted based on the number of elapsed days from the last viewing date to the current date. In this case, the maximum number of storage days from the last viewing date, such as how many days the number of days elapsed from the last viewing date to the current date is allowed to be deleted, is determined in advance. Therefore, when the allowable amount of memory is exceeded when adding a new record, the attribute 45 is searched for items exceeding the maximum storage days, and the record is deleted if there is a corresponding item. If there is no corresponding item, the record having the number of viewing times is only one and the record closest to the maximum storage days is deleted.

  In the present embodiment, the viewing information input to the viewing information receiving unit 11 is viewing history information of a program viewed by the user, but information on a program reserved for recording or a program that the user likes. Information on a specified program may be used. The program designation method in this case is also not particularly limited, and for example, a method of registering with the input button while the user is viewing or a method of registering with the input button while viewing the EPG data 15 may be used. In addition, when viewing content in which text data that explains the content of the content is added to the content data, the text data is handled in the same way as the EPG data 15, so that the data in the text data can be given user preference. It can be stored in the user preference database 1 as a keyword to be shown.

  Next, the function of each unit of the recommended program information extraction unit 20 will be described.

  The recommended program information extraction unit 20 uses the preference information in the user preference database 1 to calculate the degree of match indicating the degree of match with the user's preference for each program information in the program information database 2, thereby obtaining recommended program information. It is for extracting. The extracted recommended program information and the degree of matching are used when the recommendation order determining unit 31 determines the recommendation order of the recommended program information.

  When the recommended program display instruction signal 17 is input to the recommended program information extraction unit 20 by the user via the operation unit 100b, the preference information acquisition unit 21 selects the preference point calculation unit 22 for each keyword from the user preference database 1. Information used for calculating points is acquired and supplied to the preference point calculation unit 22. The preference point calculation unit 22 calculates a preference point for each keyword based on the information supplied from the preference information acquisition unit 21.

  It can be determined that the preference point calculated for each keyword is higher as the value is higher, and the higher the viewing frequency, the higher the point. The calculation result at this time is stored, for example, as “preference point” in the attribute 46 of the table 40 shown in FIG.

  In this embodiment, the preference point calculation method uses a calculation method using only “viewing frequency” as a parameter. Here, the preference point has the same value as the viewing frequency.

  Using the above calculation method, when the preference points are obtained by taking some of the keywords in the table 40 of FIG. 4 as an example, for example, the preference point of the record R1 is 6, the preference point of the record R4 is 80, and the preference of the record R6 The point is 1. The reason why two different preference points are calculated for the same word D is that the word D to which the genre belongs is drama and the word D to which the genre is sport are distinguished as different records.

  In another preference point calculation method, when calculating preference points for each keyword, in addition to the type of keyword and the frequency of viewing the program containing the keyword, the number of days from the date of viewing to the current time (point calculation time) A plurality of programs may be used as parameters, such as the viewing time of the program, the number of broadcasts of the program containing the same keyword, and the percentage of viewing of the total number of broadcasts.

  For example, assume that the number of days from the viewing date to the present time is used as a parameter. Since the date of viewing is more recent (closer to the current time), it is more likely that the user likes it. Therefore, the last viewing date and time is more than 3 months compared with the current time using the attribute 45 information. If it is before, the coefficient 1 is within 3 months, the coefficient 2 is within 1 month, the coefficient 3 is weighted to each preference point calculated only from the viewing frequency as the coefficient 3, and the final preference point You can do it.

  Next, the degree of match calculated by using the keyword points obtained as described above and quantifying the degree of match with the user's preference for each program will be described. A program with a higher degree of match is considered to be more likely to match the user's preference.

  The degree of match includes the number of keywords stored in the user preference database 1 in the program information database 2 based on the EPG data 15 including program information of each program that can be viewed after the current date and time, and the keywords It is calculated by how many preference points each are.

  The program for which the match level calculation unit 23 is to calculate the match level is a program that can be viewed after the current date and time, but the user or the system specifies the range of programs for which the match level is to be calculated. The degree of match may be calculated for all programs in the range, and programs with a high degree of match may be recommended in descending order.

  The degree-of-match calculation unit 23 refers to the preference points for each keyword stored in the user preference database 1 and calculates the degree of match with the user's preference for each program stored in the program information database 2. Note that the points are set to 0 for keywords that are not stored in the user preference database 1.

  Next, a method for calculating the degree of match will be described. In the present embodiment, a method of calculating the degree of match by calculating the total value of points for each keyword type is used. Hereinafter, the program information 36 of the program A shown in FIG. 3B and the table 40 shown in FIG. 4 when the matching degree for the program A is calculated using the example of the program A shown in FIG. Will be described in detail. Note that the program information 36 in FIG. 3B corresponds to information for one record in the table 37 in FIG.

  Since the genre of the program information 36 is drama, the match level calculation unit 23 refers to the record whose attribute 42 is “drama” from the table 40. In the table 40, in the case of drama, there are “title”, “performer”, and “word” as keyword types, and the total value of points for each keyword type is obtained. Regarding the keyword “title A” in the program information 36, the keyword “title A” with the genre “drama” in the table 40 has 6 points, so the total value of the keyword type “title” points is 6. Further, regarding the keywords “Actor B” and “Actress C” in the program information 36, the preference point of “Actor B” in the table 40 is 7 and the preference point of “Actress C” is 3, so the keyword type “Performer” The total value of “” is 10.

  Further, regarding the keywords “word D” and “word F” in the program information 36, the points of “word D” and “word F” in the table 40 are both 80, so the total value of the points of the keyword type “word” is 160.

Therefore, regarding the program information 36, the degree of match obtained from the sum of the total values of the keyword types is
6 + 10 + 160 = 176
It becomes.

  The process for calculating the degree of coincidence described above is performed for each program for all programs for which the degree of coincidence is to be calculated.

  The recommendation order determination unit 31 determines the recommendation order to be displayed on the display unit 9 using the degree of matching obtained for each program in this way, and data of recommended program information to be displayed as a recommended program, and The recommendation order data is sent to the display information generation unit 8.

  The display information generation unit 8 generates display data so that the received recommended program information is displayed in the received recommendation order. The display data generated by the display information generation unit 8 is presented to the user by being displayed on the display unit 9. Thereby, the recommended program information extracted by the recommended program information extracting unit 20 is presented to the user in a display order based on the recommended order determined by the recommended order determining unit 31.

  Note that the method of calculating the degree of matching is not limited to the above, and the program feature keyword already included in the EPG data 15 of each program may be simply used, and the total of points may be used as the degree of matching. Alternatively, the average value of points may be calculated for each keyword type, and the total may be used as the degree of match.

  Hereinafter, the program recommendation device 100 will be described in more detail with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a program recommendation device 100 according to the present embodiment.

  Here, since the reference numerals given to the respective constituent elements shown in FIG. 1 correspond to the respective constituent elements to which the same reference numerals in FIG. 2 are assigned, the constituent elements having the same reference numerals already described with reference to FIG. Will not be described.

  The usage status information processing unit 7 acquires information (usage status information) indicating which program is handled by an audio-visual device such as the television broadcast receiver 200 connected to the apparatus body, and based on the information, This is for specifying the program (current program) that the user has focused on. The usage status information processing unit 7 uses the usage status information acquisition unit (usage status information acquisition means) 6 for acquiring the usage status information from the audiovisual device and the usage status information based on the acquired usage status information. And a current program determination unit (current program determination means) 18 for determining whether or not the program indicated by is a current program.

  The usage status information acquisition unit 6 acquires the “current status” usage status information of each of the audiovisual devices (not shown) connectable from the apparatus main body 100a, such as the television broadcast receiver 200. It is means of. Here, the audiovisual device refers to a program that uses a program information database 2 to handle a program transmitted from a broadcasting station or the like and provide it to a user. And a radio broadcast receiver.

  The current program determination unit 18 determines whether the program indicated by the usage status information is the current program based on the acquired usage status information, that is, when the user inputs the recommended program display instruction signal 17. It is determined whether or not the program has been viewed (attention). The program ID of the program determined to be the current program is supplied to the current program keyword acquisition unit 19.

  The current program keyword acquisition unit 19 refers to the corresponding program information from the program information database 2 for the program identified as the current program, acquires the keyword as the current program keyword therefrom, and supplies the keyword to the recommendation order determination unit 31. .

  Hereinafter, the function of each component from when the recommended program display instruction signal 17 is input to the apparatus main body 100a by the user until the current program keyword is supplied to the recommended order determination unit 31 will be described in more detail.

  In the present embodiment, the apparatus main body 100a is connected to a television broadcast receiver 200 and a recording / reproducing apparatus (not shown) for recording / reproducing a viewable broadcast program as audiovisual equipment. It shall be.

  When the user sends an instruction to display the recommended program guide, a recommended program display instruction signal 17 is input to the recommended program information extraction unit 20 via the operation unit 100b. As a result, the recommended program information extraction unit 20 performs recommended program extraction processing. Further, the recommended program display instruction signal 17 is also input to the usage status information acquisition unit 6 of the usage status information processing unit 7, and thus information indicating the user's “current” preference, which will be described in detail below, is recommended. A series of operations for supplying to the determination unit 31 is performed. As described above, “current time” indicates “the time point when the recommended program display instruction signal 17 is input to the program recommendation device 100”.

  When the recommended program display instruction signal 17 is input, the usage status information acquisition unit 6 acquires usage status information 50 as shown in FIG. 5 from each audiovisual device. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a data model of the usage status information 50 acquired by the usage status information acquisition unit 6 in the present embodiment.

  The usage status information 50 only needs to include at least two pieces of information, “how” a program is handled (or handled) by the audiovisual device. This makes it possible to specify which program the user is paying attention to at the “current time”. In the present embodiment, the information of “when” the handling is started (or handled) is further included. As a result, when the operation of the audio-visual device is a time-dependent operation such as “in synchronization”, information on how much time has passed from the start of synchronization to “current time”, or at a certain point in time In the case of an operation that ends, information about how much time has passed since the “viewing reservation acceptance” was made can be used as a judgment material for judging the current program, and the accuracy of judgment can be improved. Can do.

  Here, "tune" means that each audiovisual device uses a tuner to tune the frequency when acquiring data of the program transmitted by the broadcast station in order to handle the program desired by the user. . That is, “synchronized” indicates a state in which a program is being projected in a television broadcast receiver.

  In the present embodiment, as shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B, the usage status information 50 includes a data area 51 for storing a program ID (“how”) and a device operation type (“how”). A data area 52 for storing and a data area 53 for storing a time log ("when") are included.

  In the present embodiment, the “device operation type” stored in the data area 52 is <i> (the television broadcast receiver 200) is tuned to the program being broadcast, and <ii> (the television broadcast receiver 200 is ) Viewing reservation acceptance, <iii> Recording reservation acceptance (by the recording / playback apparatus).

  The time log stored in the data area 53 indicates the date and time when the audiovisual device starts tuning or when the audiovisual device accepts a reservation.

  FIG. 5A shows that the television broadcast receiver 200 is currently synchronized with the program with the program ID “A24001” and started from “2004/5/27 17:00:30”. FIG. 5B shows that the recording / playback apparatus accepts a recording reservation for the program with the program ID “A24002” at “2004/5/27 16:58:50”. It is a figure of the use condition information which shows.

  Here, the program ID stored in the data area 51 may be anything as long as it can uniquely identify each program from the program information. For example, in terrestrial analog broadcasting, the G code may be used, and if the program can be uniquely specified by a combination of a plurality of items such as “broadcast station” and “start date and time”, the data area 51 is set. A plurality of such combinations can be handled as “program IDs”.

  Next, when the usage status information 50 is supplied from the usage status information acquisition unit 6, the current program determination unit 18 determines the current program based on the usage status information 50. A specific determination method will be described below with reference to FIGS. 5 (a), 5 (b), 6, and 7. FIG.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the current program determination unit 18 in the present embodiment. The current program determination unit 18 stores a threshold (condition) used to determine the current program, a time threshold storage unit (time condition storage unit) 61, and an elapsed time from the time indicated by the data area 53 to “current time”. An elapsed time calculation unit (elapsed time calculation unit) 62, and an elapsed time comparison unit (time comparison unit) 63 that compares the calculated elapsed time with the time threshold value.
<I> While being tuned to a program being broadcast (by the television broadcast receiver 200) When receiving the usage information 50 shown in FIG. 5A, the current program determination unit 18 analyzes the data area 51 and the data area 52. Then, it is determined that the program “A24001” (hereinafter referred to as program 1) is being tuned, and program 1 is set as a candidate for the current program. In another determination method, the program 1 may be determined as the current program at this stage.

  In the present embodiment, the elapsed time calculation unit 62 further analyzes the data area 53, and from the difference between the “current time” and the time point indicated by the data area 53, the television broadcast receiver 200 starts to synchronize with the program 1. Calculate how much time has passed.

  Next, the elapsed time comparison unit 63 compares the elapsed time calculated by the elapsed time calculation unit 62 with the time threshold held in the time threshold holding unit 61 and returns the comparison result to the current program determination unit 18. If the elapsed time falls below the time threshold, the current program determination unit 18 determines that the program 1 is not the current program because the program 1 is not sufficiently viewed. On the other hand, if the elapsed time exceeds the time threshold, it is determined that the program 1 is being viewed, the program 1 is determined to be the current program, and the program ID is supplied to the current program keyword acquisition unit 19.

  According to the above-described configuration, it is possible to estimate the viewing time that the user is viewing the target program for determination, and thereby determine whether the program is focused. For example, if the user turns on the TV broadcast receiver 200 and issues a recommended program display instruction after the target program has flowed for about one minute, it is difficult to say that the user was watching with interest. In such a case, if the time threshold is set to 5 minutes, it is possible to determine that the viewing time of the target program is shorter than 5 minutes, and the user is not paying attention to the target program. High judgment can be implemented.

  Further, the current program determination unit 18 refers to the program information database 2 for the target program based on the program ID, thereby grasping the “start date and time (or end date and time)” of the program, It was broadcast before and after the current program by calculating how many minutes the broadcast time had elapsed (current broadcast time) (or how many minutes from the current time was over (remaining broadcast time)). It may be possible to determine whether or not a (to be) program is a current program.

  In this case, as shown in FIG. 7, the current program determination unit 18 holds a threshold used for determining the current program for the programs before and after the target program, a time threshold holding unit (time condition holding unit) 71, A broadcast time calculation unit (broadcast time) that calculates the elapsed broadcast time (or remaining broadcast time) from the absolute value of the difference from “start date (or end date)” to “current time” of the target program acquired from the information database 2 (Time calculation means) 72 and a broadcast time comparison unit (broadcast time comparison means) 73 that compares the calculated broadcast time with the time threshold value.

  Thus, for example, if the time threshold is set to 1 minute, if the elapsed broadcast time is within 1 minute, it is determined that the program broadcast before that is likely to have been noticed by the user, It is possible to determine that the program broadcast immediately before is the current program. Alternatively, if the remaining broadcast time is less than 1 minute, it is determined that there is a high possibility that the user wants to watch the next broadcasted program, and the target program and the next scheduled broadcast program are It can be determined that the program is a program.

  On the other hand, in any case, when the time condition is not satisfied, only the program being handled at the “current time” as the current program candidate is determined as the current program.

From the above, more accurate determination can be performed.
<Iii> Recording reservation reception (by recording / playback apparatus) When the current program determination unit 18 receives the usage status information 50 shown in FIG. 5B, the current program determination unit 18 sets the data area 51 and the data area 52 to each other. Analyzing it, it is determined that the recording reservation of the program “A24002” (hereinafter referred to as program 2) has been made, and program 2 is set as the current program candidate. In another determination method, the program 2 may be determined as the current program at this stage.

  In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, the elapsed time calculation unit 62 analyzes the data area 53, and the recording / playback apparatus reserves the recording reservation for the program 2 based on the difference between “current time” and the time indicated by the data area 53. Calculate how much time has passed since receiving

  Next, the elapsed time comparison unit 63 compares the elapsed time calculated by the elapsed time calculation unit 62 with the time threshold held in the time threshold holding unit 61 and returns the comparison result to the current program determination unit 18. If the elapsed time exceeds the time threshold, the current program determination unit 18 gives a recommended program display instruction with a user who has made a recording reservation after a sufficiently long time has elapsed since the program 2 was reserved for recording. Since it is not necessarily the same as the user, the program 2 is determined not to be the current program. On the other hand, if the elapsed time is less than the time threshold, it is determined that the user who reserved the recording of the program 2 and the user who issued the recommended program display instruction are likely to be the same, and the program 2 is the current program. It is determined that the program ID is present, and the program ID is supplied to the current program keyword acquisition unit 19.

  For data such as immediately after viewing reservation or immediately after recording reservation, the threshold for determining that it is “immediately” can be arbitrarily set within minutes (seconds) of the actual playback or reservation. There is a short time threshold of a few seconds to a few minutes so that it seems unlikely that the operator will change during the period from when the reservation operation is completed until the recommended program display instruction is issued. It is also desirable to improve accuracy.

  The determination method <ii> described above is substantially the same as the determination method <iii> above.

  If the audio-visual device is a digital recording device that records EPG program information and electronically records the program, it is further possible to record <vi> (recording) using the above-described configuration. The current program can be determined by adding “currently recording / reproducing”) and “v> (recording / reproducing apparatus)“ immediately after the end of recording / reproducing ”to the usage status information as operation types.

  In the case of <vi>, the current program is determined by the same method as in <i> above. In the case of <v>, if the recording / playback end time is stored in the data area 53 of the usage status information 50, the recording / playback end time and “ From the difference with “current time”, it is possible to calculate how much time has elapsed since the user finished viewing the recorded program. Thereby, when the calculated elapsed time is shorter than the above time threshold, it is highly likely that the user who has played and viewed the recorded program is the same as the user who has given the recommended program display instruction Thus, it is possible to determine that the target recorded program is the current program.

  When the program information of the recorded and reproduced program is stored in the EPG, the current program keyword can be acquired from the EPG with the recorded and reproduced program as the current program.

  As described above, the program ID of the program determined as the current program by the current program determination unit 18 is supplied to the current program keyword acquisition unit 19, and the current program keyword acquisition unit 19 uses the program information database 2 based on the program ID. The keywords are acquired from these and supplied as the current program keywords to the recommendation order determination unit 31 shown in FIG.

  Next, after the current program keyword is supplied by the current program keyword acquisition unit 19, the recommendation order of the extracted recommended programs is determined based on the recommendation criteria, and is displayed on the display unit 9 in the determined order. The function of each component will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 1, 8, and 9.

  The recommendation order determination unit 31 uses the recommended program information extracted from the recommended program information extraction unit 20 and the degree of match for each program, and the current program keyword supplied from the current program keyword acquisition unit 19. This is for determining the order of recommendation of information.

  FIG. 8A shows recommended program information 74 extracted from the program information database 2 as recommended program information and indicating the degree of match for each program. The recommended program information 74 is an example of data supplied from the recommended program information extraction unit 20 to the recommendation order determination unit 31. A method for determining the recommendation order of the recommended program information 74 will be described. In the present embodiment, the matching degree of program 1 is 102, the matching degree of program 2 is 173, and the matching degree of program 3 is 150, taking the above-described matching degree calculation method and preference information in table 40 as examples.

  FIG. 8B shows an example of current program information supplied from the current program keyword acquisition unit 19. In the present embodiment, the current program keyword acquisition unit 19 uses not only the current program keyword but also the current program information 70 configured in substantially the same manner as the program information stored in the program information database 2 as a recommendation order determination unit. 31.

  Here, the information about the current program supplied from the current program keyword acquisition unit 19 to the recommendation order determination unit 31 does not necessarily have this configuration. The recommendation order determining unit 31 can recognize each keyword included in the current program, which keyword type they belong to, and which genre the current program belongs to. For example, any information may be included (or not included).

  The recommendation order determination unit 31 recognizes genre-specific keywords included in “title”, “performer”, and “word” from the supplied current program information 70.

  As shown in FIG. 8B, in the present embodiment, the keywords of the current program C are “title I”, “word D”, “word E”, and “word J”, and the genre is “sports”. is there.

  Next, the recommendation order determination unit 31 changes the recommendation order of the recommended program information 74 by increasing the recommendation order for program information of programs including the same keyword as the current program C. In this way, the recommendation criterion according to the present invention when the recommendation order of recommended program information including the same keyword as the current program is raised is referred to as “current preference order”.

  A specific method for determining the recommendation order for the three programs 1 to 3 illustrated in FIG. 8A using the keyword of the current program C according to the recommendation criterion “current preference order” will be described below.

  More specifically, in the present embodiment, a method is used in which the preference order of the matched keyword preference points is set to “current preference order” for each program using the preference points of the current program keyword. .

First, the keyword preference point of the current program C is referred to. The preference points of each keyword are as follows from the table 40 of FIG.
"Title I" of the genre "Sports" ... 0 points (no registration)
"Word D" of the genre "Sport" ... 1 point "Word E" of the genre "Sport" ... 95 points "Word J" of the genre "Sport" ... 0 points (no registration)
As a result of referring to the user preference database 1, when there is no registration for a keyword, 0 points is given as no registration.

  Next, it is confirmed from the recommended program information 74 whether there is a matching keyword for each program information, and for the matched keyword, the points obtained as described above are added together.

  Program 1 includes “word D” and “word E” of the genre “sports”, so 96 points in total, program 2 has no matching keywords, so 0 points in total, and program 3 also matched Since there are no keywords, the total is 0 points. Therefore, in this embodiment, when the recommendation criterion “current preference order” is applied, the recommendation order is determined in the order of program 1, program 2, and program 3.

  Thus, since the current program C includes “word D” and “word E” having the genre “sports” as keywords, a program including “word D” and “word E”, that is, a program here. The recommendation order of 1 is the highest. When there is no other program including the keyword included in the current program C, the matching criteria already supplied from the recommended program information extraction unit 20 among the remaining programs are used, based on the recommendation criteria “order of matching”. The recommendation order may be determined, or the recommendation order may be determined based on the recommendation criterion “broadcast start order”.

  According to the conventional technique, if the recommendation criterion is only “in order of match”, the program 2, the program 3, and the program 1 are arranged in this order. If the recommendation criterion is “broadcast start order”, the program 3, the program 2, and the program 1 are arranged in this order.

  As described above, when the recommendation criterion “current preference order” according to the present invention is applied, unlike the recommendation order based on the conventional viewing frequency alone, the latitude order that reflects the keyword of the program of interest of the user at “current” is used. Program recommendation.

  As described above, the recommendation order determination unit 31 compares how many current program keywords are included for each piece of program information of the recommended program information 74 shown in FIG. 8A, and includes more current program keywords. The order of recommendation is determined in the order of the current order (current order of preference), and data indicating the recommendation order and data indicating the extracted recommended program information are supplied to the display information generation unit 8.

  There are various methods for measuring how many keywords that match the current program keyword are included. For example, the comparison may be made simply by the number of matching keywords. Alternatively, each time a matching keyword is included, a score may be added and the score may be compared. When comparing by score, it is possible to apply a recommendation criterion “current preference order” that more reflects the user's preference by preparing a weighting coefficient for each keyword type.

  As described above, the display information generation unit 8 creates display data based on the recommended program information supplied from the recommendation order determination unit 31 and the recommendation order, and outputs the display data to the display unit 9. At this time, the output data of the recommended program information group is display data that is displayed in order from the top in accordance with the recommendation criterion “current preference order”. Since the display unit 9 displays the input display data on the screen, the user has information on recommended programs recommended by the program recommendation device 100 in the current preference order, that is, the user's current interest. It is possible to view in the order of the programs that are present.

  Further, the display information generation unit 8 has a processing function for highlighting a program, and applies a recommendation standard “current preference order”, thereby recommending a recommended program (hereinafter referred to as a priority recommended program) whose display order is increased. May be subjected to image processing for highlighting in order to further improve the visibility of the user.

  In such a case, the recommendation order determining unit 31 does not necessarily need to change the recommendation order for sorting in the “current preference order”. It is only necessary that the recommendation order determining unit 31 has a function for giving priority recommended program identification information so that the display information generating unit 8 can identify the priority recommended program.

  Thereby, it is possible to improve a user's visibility with respect to the program used as the object of order change by applying recommendation standard "current preference order".

  From the above, it becomes possible to display a priority recommended program that is determined to be highly interested by the user so as to be noticed by the user, and as a result, the recommended program information that more accurately reflects the user's preference is displayed to the user. Can be provided.

  FIG. 9 shows an example in which the recommendation standard “current preference order” is applied, and the priority recommended program is highlighted and displayed on the display unit 9.

  As shown in FIG. 9, the recommended program information group 81 to which the recommendation criterion “current preference order” and then “match degree order” are applied, and the recommendation criterion “current preference order” are applied to the screen of the display unit 9. Thus, an emphasis mark 82 given to the priority recommended program whose display order has changed to the top is displayed.

  For example, when the order of the program “professional baseball to team A × team B” has changed to the top by the recommendation order determination unit 31, a recommendation recommended to the user by giving an emphasis mark 82 when displaying the program ranking. The program information group can be displayed so that it can be seen that it is a particularly recommended program (that is, a program that is estimated to be highly interested by the user).

  The display order is displayed in the recommendation standard “broadcast start order” or “match degree order” as in the past, and only the programs designated by the recommendation order determination unit 31 that the recommendation order changes to the top are included in the recommended programs. As a particularly recommended priority recommended program, it may be displayed only with the emphasis mark 82.

  In addition to marking, the emphasis method may display the priority recommended program in a separate frame, or perform decoration processing (such as changing the underline, bold line, color, or size) on the character. May be.

  In this way, in order to highlight and display the priority recommended program, the recommendation order determining unit 31 applies the priority recommended program whose recommendation order has changed when the recommendation criterion “current preference order” is applied. Thus, it is only necessary to have a function of assigning a priority recommended program information identifier and supplying it to the display information generating unit 8. The priority recommended program information identifier may be any information as long as the display information generating unit 8 can identify that the program information with the identifier is a priority recommended program.

  For example, the recommended program information supplied to the display information generation unit 8 is provided with a data area of a flag indicating whether or not the program is a preferential recommended program. If it is preferentially recommended program information based on “preference order”, 1 is stored.

  Next, the display information generation unit 8 generates display data to be displayed on the display unit 9 based on the recommended program information, the recommendation order, and the priority recommended program information identification flag. At this time, the display data can be generated so that only the recommended program information whose priority recommended program information identification flag is 1 is highlighted.

  As a highlighting method, in addition to the above-described example, for example, recommended program information may be presented so as to blink on the display unit 9.

  Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 9, in order to enable the user himself to select whether to display based on any recommendation criteria of “broadcast start order”, “match degree order”, or “current preference order”, A display order switching button 83 may be provided.

  In this case, the program recommendation device 100 further includes a recommendation criterion change instruction unit (recommendation criterion change instruction means) 32 that instructs the recommendation order determination unit 31 to change to the recommendation criterion selected by the user, and the display order switching button. It is only necessary to include an input interface for selecting 83, that is, for inputting the order switching instruction signal 14. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the order switching instruction signal 14 is input using the operation unit 100b.

  According to the above configuration, when the order switching instruction signal 14 is input to the recommendation standard change instruction unit 32 by the user via the operation unit 100b, the recommendation standard change instruction unit 32 recommends the recommendation standard indicated by the instruction signal. An instruction is sent to the recommendation order determination unit 31 to change the reference. The recommendation order determination unit 31 changes the recommendation standard to the recommendation standard designated by the recommendation standard change instruction unit 32 based on the sent instruction, and determines the recommendation order based on the changed recommendation standard.

  As a result, the user can operate the recommendation standard change instruction unit 32, and the user can arbitrarily switch the recommendation order (for example, broadcast start order, match degree order, current preference order, etc.) based on a desired recommendation standard. The recommended program information can be browsed.

  As a result, it is possible to provide a program recommendation device that further improves convenience for the user to obtain recommended program information.

  Next, the flow of each process of the program recommendation device 100 according to the present embodiment will be described below with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 10 to 12 and the block diagram of FIG.

  FIG. 10 shows a flow of transition to each process when the program recommendation device 100 receives an instruction signal (program viewing instruction signal 16 or recommended program display instruction signal 17) from the user via the operation unit 100b. And it is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process in which the viewing frequency counting part 10 updates the user preference database 1. FIG.

  When the program viewing instruction signal 16 or the recommended program display instruction signal 17 is input from the user via the operation unit 100b (Yes in S101), the program recommendation device 100 determines the content of the instruction signal in S102. . When the input signal is the program viewing instruction signal 16, the viewing frequency counting unit 10 proceeds to the viewing frequency counting process after S 103. When the input information is the recommended program display instruction signal 17 (No in S102), the process proceeds to a program recommendation process (S121). The flow of program recommendation processing will be described later.

  When the process proceeds to the viewing frequency counting process, the program information acquisition unit 12 refers to the program information of the user viewing program indicated by the viewing information receiving unit 11 that has received the program viewing instruction signal 16 from the program information database 2 and selects a keyword. Obtain (S103).

  Next, the preference information update unit 13 identifies the genre of the user viewing program (S104), and for each keyword acquired by the program information acquisition unit 12, the keyword attribute data stored in the user preference database 1 is stored. Move to update process.

  The preference information update unit 13 determines whether or not there is an unprocessed attribute data update among the acquired keywords (S107), and if there is no unprocessed keyword, the viewing frequency counting process ends. On the other hand, if there is an unprocessed keyword, information on the keyword type is also acquired for one of the unprocessed keywords, and it is determined whether or not the keyword type keyword is already stored in the user preference database 1. (S108).

  In the above determination, if the keyword is already stored in the user preference database 1, the viewing frequency is counted as 1 (S109), the last viewing date is updated to “current time” (S110), and the process returns to S107. .

  In S108, if the keyword is not stored in the user preference database 1, it is determined whether or not a new record of the keyword can be added to the user preference database 1 (S111). This determination is made based on, for example, an allowable amount of memory for storing the user preference database 1.

  As a result of the determination in S111, if a record can be added, one record is added with the keyword and the genre identified in S104, and the remaining attribute data for the record is also added. (S113).

  On the other hand, if it is determined in S111 that a record cannot be added, one keyword record already stored is deleted (S112).

  By deleting the record, a new record can be added, and then the process returns to S107.

  Next, the flow of the program recommendation process S121, which is shifted when the input signal is the recommended program display instruction signal 17 in S102, will be described based on the flowchart of FIG.

  When the process proceeds to the program recommendation process S121, the preference point calculation unit 22 first determines whether there is a keyword for which preference point calculation is not processed in the preference information of the user preference database 1 (S201). Proceed to the process. On the other hand, if there is an unprocessed keyword, one of them is acquired and a preference point is calculated (S202).

  Subsequently, the degree-of-match calculation unit 23 determines whether there is program information for which the degree-of-match calculation has not been processed for the program information stored in the program information database 2 (S205).

  If there is unprocessed program information, one of them is acquired, the genre of the program information is identified with reference to the program information database 2 (S206), and the keyword included in the program information is acquired. (S207).

  Next, the degree-of-match calculation unit 23 searches the user preference database 1 for each keyword for all keywords acquired in S207, adds all the preference points of the searched keywords, and calculates the degree of match (S208).

  When there is no unprocessed program information in each of the above steps, the recommended program information extraction unit 20 recommends recommended program information 74 including the degree of match for each program information as shown in FIG. It supplies to the determination part 31 (S209), and it transfers to usage status information processing (S210). The flow of S210 will be described later.

  When the current program keyword is supplied to the recommendation order determination unit 31 in the process of S210, the recommendation order determination unit 31 determines the recommendation order based on the recommendation criterion “current preference order”, The recommended program information is supplied to the display information generating unit 8 together with the priority recommended program identification information (S211). Subsequently, the display information generation unit 8 outputs display data so as to be displayed in a designated recommendation order and emphasized with respect to the priority recommended program (S212). Finally, display data is displayed on the display unit 9 (S213).

  Note that the usage status information processing S210 does not necessarily have to be performed in the order shown in FIG. 11, and any step is possible as long as it is between the program recommendation process S121 of FIG. 10 and the recommendation order determination (S211). May be inserted between (or in parallel) and executed.

  Next, the flow of the usage status information processing S210 for determining the current program and supplying the current program keyword to the recommendation order determination unit 31 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  When the process proceeds to the usage status information processing S210, the usage status information acquisition unit 6 first acquires usage status information from each audiovisual device (S301). Next, the current program determination unit 18 analyzes the contents of the usage status information, and acquires a program ID, a device operation type, and a time log (S302).

  Thereafter, the current program determination unit 18 determines the device operation type in S303. When the current program determination unit 18 determines that the device operation type indicates “synchronization”, the elapsed time calculation unit 62 calculates the elapsed time from the difference between the time log and the current time (S304). Here, the elapsed time comparing unit 63 compares the time threshold held by the time threshold holding unit 61 with the elapsed time, and returns the comparison result to the current program determining unit 18 (S305). If the elapsed time exceeds the time threshold as a result of the comparison, the current program determination unit 18 determines that the current program is the current program (S306). If the elapsed time is less than the time threshold, the current program determination unit 18 determines that the current program is not the current program (S307).

  On the other hand, if the current program determination unit 18 determines that the device operation type indicates “reservation acceptance” in S303, the elapsed time calculation unit 62 similarly calculates the elapsed time from the difference between the time log and the current time ( S310). Here, the elapsed time comparing unit 63 compares the time threshold held by the time threshold holding unit 61 with the elapsed time, and returns the comparison result to the current program determining unit 18 (S311). As a result of the comparison, the current program determination unit 18 determines that the current program is the current program if the elapsed time is less than the time threshold (S306), and determines that the current program is not the current program if the elapsed time is greater (S307).

  Subsequently, in S308, it is determined whether there is usage status information that has not been determined yet. If there is undetermined usage status information, the above-described processing after S302 is repeated. On the other hand, if it is determined that all the usage status information has been determined, the current program determination unit 18 supplies the program IDs for all the programs determined to be the current program to the current program keyword acquisition unit 19. Based on this, the current program keyword acquisition unit 19 acquires the current program keyword from the program information database 2, and supplies them to the recommendation order determination unit 31 (S309).

  As described so far, by using the program recommendation device of the present invention, it is possible to present recommended programs to the user in order from a program similar to the program (current program) that the user is paying attention to at the “current time”. It can be said that the similar program is a program of interest to the user at present and is a favorite program.

  The user does not remember all the programs that have been viewed in the past, and does not remember the program information of the programs that have been viewed, so what keywords are accumulated at what points I do not know exactly. For this reason, there is a situation in which the user does not know why the recommended program is recommended, and inviting such a situation means that a program recommendation that matches the user preference is being performed. Absent.

  For example, it is assumed that a user who is not interested in soccer watches the soccer game intensively at one time by taking advantage of the time of the World Cup soccer. Even in such a special case, the program recommendation device does not perform exceptional processing, and counts the viewing frequency of keywords related to “sports” and “soccer” each time it is viewed. As a result, the preference points for “sports” and “soccer”, which are not usually of interest to the user, increase in a short period of time.

  In such a case, even if the holding time ends and the viewing pattern of the user returns to normal, there is no sudden change in the contents of the user preference database 1. Here, when a recommended program display instruction is given to a conventional program recommendation device, programs of “sports” and “soccer” which are not user's preference are recommended.

  On the other hand, the program recommendation device according to the present invention can display a recommended program with a higher display order for a program including a current program keyword (that is, a keyword of a program that the user is currently interested in viewing). Therefore, it is possible for the user to make highly accurate recommendations that match the preferences.

  This is also effective when multiple devices are shared. For example, a user A can only watch a program of a sports genre, but if a user other than the user A views a program of a genre of a drama much more frequently than the user A, the number of times of viewing is small. There is a possibility that sports programs may not be displayed by a method in which recommended programs are always arranged in order of degree of match, as in the past. Even if it is displayed, if the number of recommended programs is large and displayed in the lower level, the possibility that the recommended program is visually recognized by the user A to the lower level is low. As a result, for such a recommended program guide, the user A feels that his / her preference is not reflected and determines that a program recommendation with low accuracy is being performed.

  On the other hand, the program recommendation device according to the present invention, from the program of the sports genre preferred by the user A, when the user A is viewing the program of the sport genre and is instructed to display the recommended program. Displayed at the top.

  Therefore, it is possible to display a program similar to the program that the user himself / herself was watching with interest at the top. In this way, even when a plurality of devices are shared, it is possible to make a program recommendation that is convenient for the user who uses the device, without having to provide a conventional mechanism for identifying each individual person. .

  From the above, it is possible to present recommended program information that always reflects the user's preference even when the usage time of the program recommendation device has elapsed.

Next, the above-described program recommendation device further includes an input interface that allows the user to arbitrarily set the recommended range of the program, and further improves the convenience for obtaining recommended program information for the user. explain.
[Embodiment 2]
Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described as follows. In the present embodiment, the preference point threshold is applied to the television broadcast receiver 200 as in the first embodiment, and the program recommendation device 300 further uses the preference point to selectively use the preference point when calculating the degree of match. An example in which a program interface is provided with a user interface that allows the user to freely set the program will be described.

  FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of program recommendation device 300 according to the present embodiment.

  Here, since the reference numerals given to the constituent elements shown in FIG. 13 correspond to the constituent elements assigned the same reference numerals in FIG. 1, the constituent elements having the same reference numerals already described with reference to FIG. Will not be described.

  The program recommendation device 300 is different from the program recommendation device 100 shown in FIG. 1 in that the program recommendation device 300 includes an operation unit (instruction signal input means, order switching instruction signal input means, condition setting means) 300b. A threshold holding unit (condition setting means) 24 is further provided.

  The operation unit 300b is a means for allowing the user to freely set the preference point threshold value, and is the same as the operation unit 100b except for this point.

  The point threshold value holding unit 24 is a means for holding a point threshold value setting signal 25 input via the operation unit 300b, and is referred to by the match level calculation unit 23 when calculating the match level.

  With the above configuration, the user can freely set the preference point condition used when calculating the degree of match. As a result, if the condition is set high, there is an increased possibility of avoiding erroneous recommendation of programs that are not of interest to the user (narrow range recommendation). Conversely, if the conditions are set low, it is possible to make a program recommendation that uniformly reflects the preference for a plurality of users, rather than a program recommendation biased to a particular user's preference (a wide range of recommendations). ).

  As for the method for setting the point threshold, in the present embodiment, a narrow range recommendation mode and a wide range recommendation mode are prepared, and the user selects the mode using the operation unit 300b. Although the user sets the preference point condition, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, an arbitrary numerical value may be set, and the matching degree calculation unit 23 may refer to the numerical value.

  Note that the recommendation of a narrow range is to recommend only a program that is presumed to be particularly preferred by the user, and recommends using only keywords with high viewing frequency (sets the threshold higher). At this time, there are fewer recommended programs.

  Conversely, the recommendation of a wide range is to recommend as many programs as possible that the user may like, using keywords that are less frequently viewed and using more keywords than the above recommendations. To recommend. At this time, more programs are recommended.

  Next, a method for calculating the degree of matching by referring to the point threshold value as an effective keyword from the point threshold value holding unit 24 when calculating the degree of matching will be described.

  The point threshold value holding unit 24 stores, as threshold values, numerical values of keyword preference points that are used as effective keywords when calculating the degree of match. Specifically, a low numerical value is stored when a wide range of recommendations is set, and a high numerical value is stored when a narrow range of recommendations is set. Also, any of the above numerical values may be stored in advance as an initial value, or a standard numerical value set in advance as the standard mode may be prepared.

  The association between the above two recommendation modes and the numerical value (threshold value) at the time of setting is, for example, fixed at a value N in advance when recommending a wide range, and M (N <M) when recommending a narrow range. Keep it. In the present embodiment, N is 5 and M is 85.

  Therefore, if the user sets a recommended range in a wide range using the operation unit 300b, the numerical value 5 is stored in the point threshold value holding unit 24, and if the recommended mode in a narrow range is set, the numerical value 85 becomes a point threshold value holding unit. 24.

  Alternatively, in another threshold setting method, the value of A% (A <100) may be dynamically determined as a threshold with respect to the highest value of viewing frequency, or B when keywords are arranged in descending order of points. It is good also considering the point of the keyword of the order of% (B <100) or more as a threshold value.

  In still another method, the point threshold value may be set depending on whether a plurality of devices are shared or used independently. In this case, when sharing a plurality, it is possible to make a recommendation covering all the preferences of all members by making a wide range of recommendations. When using it alone, by recommending a narrow range, do not use keywords that are less frequently viewed and do not clearly know whether you like them, but only keywords that are likely to be preferences that have a certain degree of viewing frequency accumulated. Use.

  In this way, it is possible to recommend a large number of programs that match the preference and a small number of programs that do not match. The point threshold value setting signal 25 in this case is designated by the user or the apparatus main body 300a. When the apparatus main body 300a designates, for example, a device is highly likely to be used alone, a personal computer is used alone, and a device that is likely to be shared by a plurality of devices is a plurality of television broadcast receivers. You may make it designate automatically as use.

  Here, referring to the table 40 of FIG. 4 used in the first embodiment, a specific example of the method for calculating the degree of matching of the program information 36 of FIG. 3B based on the threshold value of the point threshold value holding unit 24 Will be described.

  It is assumed that the threshold value 5 stored when the point threshold value holding unit 24 is set to recommend a wide range is stored.

  When the recommended program display instruction signal 17 is input to the program recommendation device 300 in the same manner as in the first embodiment, the preference point calculation unit 22 of the recommended program information extraction unit 20 calculates a preference point.

  Next, the degree-of-match calculation unit 23 refers to the point threshold value holding unit 24 before acquiring the preference points of the program information 36. Here, the threshold value 5 is acquired.

And about the program information 36, the total value of a preference point is calculated | required for every genre and every keyword classification as follows.
Keyword “Title A”: Point 6 (effective from 6 ≧ 5)
Six points of title A are effective keywords because the threshold value is 5 or more, and the total value of points of the keyword type “title” is six.
Keyword “Actor B”: Point 7 (effective from 7 ≧ 5)
Keyword "Actress C" ... Point 0 (3) (invalid from 3 <5)
Regarding the “actor B” and “actress C” whose keyword type is “performer”, the point of the actor B in the table 40 is 7 and the point of the actress C is 3, so the point 3 of the actress C is less than the threshold 5 Since it is invalid, the actress C has 0 points. Therefore, the total value of the points for which the keyword type is a performer is 7.
Keyword “word D”: point 80 (effective from 80 ≧ 5)
Keyword “word F”: Point 80 (effective from 80 ≧ 5)
Further, since the points of “word D” and “word F” in the table 40 are both 80, the total value of points of the keyword type “word” is 160.

From the above, regarding the program information 36, when a wide range of recommended modes is selected, the degree of match obtained from the sum of the total values of each keyword type is
6 + 7 + 160 = 173
It becomes.

  Note that when the recommended mode in a narrow range is selected, the number of effective keywords decreases, and the number of programs with a matching degree greater than 0 decreases. For example, also in the example of the program information 36, the degree of match is calculated as 0. Since the recommendation order determination unit 31 recommends a program having at least a degree of match greater than 0, even if the program information includes only a number of keywords with low preference points, the program is not recommended. Programs that have keywords with extremely high preference points are recommended using only keywords with high points, as it can be assumed that users are more likely to like programs that contain many keywords with low preference points. As a program, a recommended program table in which the proportion of programs that match the user's preference is high can be presented to the user, instead of a small number of recommended programs.

  14 to 16 are flowcharts showing a flow of transition to each process and a flow of each process when the program recommendation device 300 receives an instruction signal from the user via the operation unit 300b. .

  Hereinafter, the flow of each process of the program recommendation device 300 will be described with reference to FIGS. 14 to 16 with reference to the block diagram of FIG.

  When the user inputs the program viewing instruction signal 16, the recommended program display instruction signal 17, or the point threshold setting signal 25 via the operation unit 300b (Yes in S401), the program recommendation apparatus 300 instructs in S402. Determine the content of the signal. When the input signal is the program viewing instruction signal 16, the viewing frequency counting unit 10 proceeds to the viewing frequency counting process after S 403.

  Next, when the input signal is other than the program viewing instruction signal 16, the program recommendation device 300 determines whether the input signal is the recommended program display instruction signal 17 or the point threshold setting signal 25 in S405. Here, when it is determined that the point threshold value setting signal 25 is detected, a numerical value as a threshold value associated with the recommendation mode indicated by the point threshold value setting signal 25 is stored in the point threshold value holding unit 24 (S406). When the input information is the recommended program display instruction signal 17 (No in S405), the process proceeds to a program recommendation process (S421).

  Since the viewing frequency counting process is the same as that of the first embodiment (S103 and after in FIG. 10), the description thereof is omitted here.

  Next, the flow of the program recommendation process S421, which is shifted when the input signal is the recommended program display instruction signal 17 in S405, will be described based on the flowchart of FIG.

  When the program recommendation process is started, first, the recommended program information extraction unit 20 calculates the degree of match for each program in S501 to S508.

  Since the processing of S501 to S507 is the same as that of the first embodiment (S201 to S207 in FIG. 11), the description is omitted here. When the process of S507 is completed, the process proceeds to the matching degree calculation process S508.

  FIG. 16 shows the flow of processing when the matching level calculation unit 23 calculates the matching level.

  First, the degree-of-match calculation unit 23 refers to the point threshold value holding unit 24 and acquires a threshold value (S601).

  Next, the degree-of-match calculation unit 23 searches the user preference database 1 by genre for all the keywords acquired in S207, and acquires the preference points (S602).

  For all the acquired preference points, it is determined whether or not the point is equal to or greater than a threshold value (S603), and if it is equal to or greater than the threshold value, the preference point is acquired as it is (S604). If the threshold is not exceeded, the preference point is acquired as 0 (S605). In S606, it is determined whether there is a preference point that has not yet been determined. If there is an unprocessed preference point, the process returns to S603. If the determination is completed for all preference points, the preference points acquired in S604 and S605 are added together to calculate the degree of match (S607).

  When the matching degree calculation process S508 ends, the recommended program information extraction unit 20 determines in S505 in FIG. 15 whether there is a program for which the matching degree calculation process has not been processed. If it is determined that the matching degree has been calculated for all the program information, the recommended program information extracting unit 20 determines the recommended program information 74 including the matching degree for each program information as shown in FIG. Is supplied to the unit 31 (S509), and the process proceeds to usage status information processing (S510). Since the flow after S509 is the same as that of the first embodiment (S209 to S213 in FIG. 11), the description is omitted here.

  According to the above configuration, the point threshold set by the user via the operation unit 300 b is held in the point threshold holding unit 24. Then, as in the first embodiment, after the recommended program display instruction signal 17 from the operation unit 300b is received, when the matching degree calculation unit 23 calculates the matching degree with the user's preference, the points of the point threshold value holding unit 24 Refers to the threshold. The degree-of-match calculation unit 23 uses only the preference points that satisfy the condition above the point threshold among the preference points calculated by the preference point calculation unit 22 for the degree-of-match calculation.

  Thereby, the user can freely set a threshold value of a keyword preference point that is effective when calculating the degree of match.

  In addition, the program recommendation device 300 of the present invention displays a program recommended to the user from programs similar to the currently viewed program, so that the user can easily understand the reason for recommendation, and the program currently focused on is displayed. Since similar programs are displayed, timely recommendation is possible.

  In addition, even if it is shared by multiple users, by switching the display order according to the current viewing state, programs that match the preferences of the current user can be displayed at the top. It becomes. Therefore, it is possible to present a recommended program guide that is convenient for all users to share without forcing the user to perform cumbersome operations such as identification information registration and input.

  In addition, because the user can set what range to recommend, the user who specifies the recommendation mode in a narrow range is very likely to match the preference using only keywords with extremely high preference points. For a user who presents only a program as a recommended program and designates a wide range of recommendation modes, a program recommendation with a uniform degree of preference using a keyword with a low preference point can be performed. From the above, it is possible to perform highly accurate program recommendation corresponding to the case where the apparatus main body is used by a plurality of users.

  In each embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 3A, the EPG receiving unit 4 includes start date and time information, end date and time information, broadcast station information, genre information, title information, performer information, and The configuration for acquiring various information such as program detailed explanation information at a time has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this.

  For example, the remaining various information may be acquired by receiving an instruction from the user or the apparatus main body without acquiring all the various information at once. That is, the program information may be acquired through a plurality of stages. As an example of this, when the start date / time information, the end date / time information, the broadcast station information, the genre information, and the title information are acquired and an instruction from the user or the like is received, the remaining performer information and the program detailed description The structure which acquires information is mentioned.

  In this configuration, detailed program information of a broadcast program is acquired from a plurality of servers based on a program ID that can specify a broadcast program such as start date / time information, end date / time information, broadcast station information, G code, and the like. May be used as a keyword extraction target.

  The program recommendation device according to the present invention is also effective when a device is shared by a plurality of users. For example, in a situation where a plurality of users share a device, and the preferences of the plurality of users are varied, proper recommendation cannot be made unless the number of users and users are identified. When recommending a program to a user among a plurality of users, there is a possibility that a program recommended by a keyword included in program information of a program that the user does not view does not match the user's preference. Because it is expensive.

  Therefore, in order to identify a person in use, a technique is generally used in which identification information is input at the time of operation or history accumulation, and the history is accumulated and learned for each identification ID. There is a burden such as. In addition, when a plurality of users are watching the same program at the same time, the user's preferences are not accumulated unless they are reflected in the history of all the users who are watching as well as the users identified at the time of operation. The problem of using by a plurality of users is not solved only by the method of identifying at the time of operation such as providing operation buttons. As a result, it is not possible to recommend a program that reflects the preferences of all the users.

  On the other hand, the program recommendation device of the present invention matches the preference of the user currently used by switching the recommendation order according to the viewing situation at the “current time” even if the program recommendation device is shared by a plurality of users. The higher the program, the higher the display. Therefore, it is possible to recommend a program that is convenient for each shared user without burdening the user such as registration and input of identification information.

  Furthermore, the program recommendation device according to the present invention makes it possible to recommend a program whose reason for recommendation is easy for the user by changing the display order of the recommended programs according to the current viewing state. The program currently being watched by the user (current program) is estimated, and the programs extracted in order from the program having the program attribute close to that program are displayed. As a result, since the programs that are relatively close to the program that the user is currently paying attention are displayed in order, it is possible for the user to easily understand the reason for recommendation. In addition, since the programs closest to the program of interest are displayed in order, the program that is currently interested in is displayed at the top, and timely recommendation is possible.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the claims, and embodiments obtained by appropriately combining technical means disclosed in different embodiments. Is also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

  Note that in each part and each processing step of the program recommendation device of the above embodiment, calculation means such as a CPU executes a program stored in storage means such as ROM (Read Only Memory) or RAM, and input means such as a keyboard. It can be realized by controlling output means such as a display or communication means such as an interface circuit. Therefore, various functions and various processes of the program recommendation device of this embodiment can be realized simply by a computer having these means reading the recording medium on which the program is recorded and executing the program. In addition, by recording the program on a removable recording medium, the various functions and various processes described above can be realized on an arbitrary computer.

  As the recording medium, a program medium such as a memory (not shown) such as a ROM may be used for processing by the microcomputer, and a program reading device is provided as an external storage device (not shown). It may be a program medium that can be read by inserting a recording medium there.

  In any case, the stored program is preferably configured to be accessed and executed by the microprocessor. Furthermore, it is preferable that the program is read out, and the read program is downloaded to the program storage area of the microcomputer and the program is executed. It is assumed that the download program is stored in the main device in advance.

  The program medium is a recording medium configured to be separable from the main body, such as a tape system such as a magnetic tape or a cassette tape, a magnetic disk such as a flexible disk or a hard disk, or a disk such as a CD / MO / MD / DVD. Fixed disk system, card system such as IC card (including memory card), or semiconductor memory such as mask ROM, EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), flash ROM, etc. In particular, there are recording media that carry programs.

  In addition, if the system configuration is capable of connecting to a communication network including the Internet, the recording medium is preferably a recording medium that fluidly carries the program so as to download the program from the communication network.

  Further, when the program is downloaded from the communication network as described above, it is preferable that the download program is stored in the main device in advance or installed from another recording medium.

  The program recommendation device according to the present embodiment is substantially realized by computer hardware, a program executed by the computer hardware, and data stored in the computer hardware. FIG. 16 shows an internal configuration of a computer system 500 for realizing the program recommendation device 100 or the program recommendation device 300 of the present invention.

  Referring to FIG. 17, a computer system 500 includes a computer 520 having an optical disk drive 501 and a magnetic disk drive 502, a monitor 503, and a remote controller 504.

  In addition to the optical disk drive 501 and the magnetic disk drive 502, the computer 520 includes a remote control interface (I / F) 505 that receives a signal from the remote controller 504, a CPU (central processing unit) 506, a remote control interface 505, a CPU 506, and an optical disk. A bus 507 connected to the drive 501 and the magnetic disk drive 502, a read-only memory (ROM) 508 connected to the bus 507 and storing a boot-up program and the like, and also connected to the bus 507, program instructions, system programs, And a random access memory (RAM) 509 for storing work data and the like.

  Although not shown here, the computer 520 may further include a network adapter board that provides a connection to a local area network (LAN).

  A program for causing the computer system 500 to implement the functions of the program recommendation device 100 or the program recommendation device 300, the EPG data 15, and the usage status information 50 are all the optical disc 510 or the optical disc 510 to be inserted into the magnetic disc drive 502 or It is stored in the magnetic disk 511 and further transferred to the hard disk 512. Alternatively, the program, EPG data 15, and usage status information 50 may be transmitted to the computer 520 through a network (not shown) and stored in the hard disk 512. The program is loaded into the random access memory 509 at the time of execution. The program may be loaded directly from the optical disk 510 to the random access memory 509 from the magnetic disk 511 or via a network.

  This program includes a plurality of instructions for causing the computer 520 to realize the function of the program recommendation device according to the present embodiment. Some of the basic functions necessary to realize these functions are provided by an operating system (OS) or a third-party program running on the computer 520, or modules of various toolkits installed on the computer 520. Therefore, this program does not necessarily include all functions necessary to realize the functions of the program recommendation device according to each embodiment. If this program includes only instructions for executing control of each program recommendation device by calling an appropriate function or “tool” in a controlled manner so that a desired result is obtained. Good. The operation of computer system 500 is well known and will not be repeated here.

  A recording medium on which a program for realizing the function of the program recommendation device, EPG data 15, and usage status information 50 is recorded is a CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read Only Memory), an MO (Magneto-Optical disc), The present invention is not limited to the optical disk 510 such as MD (Mini Disc) and DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), and the magnetic disk 511 such as FD (flexible disk) and hard disk. Tapes such as magnetic tape and cassette tape, card-type recording media such as IC (Integrated Circuit) card and optical card, and semiconductors such as mask ROM, EPROM (Erasable Programmable ROM), EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM), and flash ROM It can be either memory. However, the computer system 500 needs to be equipped with a reading device for reading from these recording media.

  The program recommendation device of the present invention accumulates user viewing data using EPG, and extracts a recommended program from the EPG based on the data, and is recorded in each audiovisual device such as a recording / playback device, a television broadcast receiver, or a personal computer. It can be used suitably.

1, showing an embodiment of the present invention, is a block diagram illustrating a main configuration of a program recommendation device. FIG. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the television broadcast receiver provided with the program recommendation apparatus shown in FIG. (A) is a figure which shows the text information of the EPG data which the program recommendation apparatus shown in FIG. 1 receives, (b) and (c) are processed by the EPG data processing part from the EPG data of (a). It is a figure which shows the example of the program information after, and (d) is a figure which shows the table structure when the program information of (b) and (c) is stored in a program information database. It is a figure which shows the table structure of the user preference database shown in FIG. (A) And (b) is a figure which shows the example of usage status information which the usage status information acquisition part shown in FIG. 1 acquires from audiovisual equipment. It is a block diagram which shows the principal part structure of the current program determination part shown in FIG. It is a block diagram which shows the principal part structure of the other current program determination part shown in FIG. (A) is a figure which shows the example of the program information group by which the matching degree was calculated by the matching degree calculation part shown in FIG. 2, (b) is a current program as a current program by the current program keyword acquisition part shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the program information of the extracted program. It is a figure which shows the example of a display when the display data of the recommendation program output from the display information generation part shown in FIG. 1 are displayed on a display part. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of each process of the program recommendation apparatus by this Embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of each process in the program recommendation process shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of each process in the use condition information processing shown in FIG. FIG. 29, showing another embodiment of the present invention, is a block diagram showing a main configuration of a program recommendation device. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of each process of the program recommendation apparatus shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of each process in the program recommendation process shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of each process in the matching degree calculation process shown in FIG. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the structure of the hardware which applies the program recommendation apparatus of this invention. (A) is a figure which shows an example of the table structure which stored the keyword and the viewing frequency about it in the structure of patent document 1, (b) is based on the information of the table of (a), and is shown as a recommendation program It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the program information of the selected program.

Explanation of symbols

1 User preference database (preference information group)
2 Program information database (program information group)
6 Usage status information acquisition unit (Usage status information acquisition means)
7. Usage status information processing section (current program information identification means)
8 Display information generator (recommended program information output means)
9 Display section (display means)
10. Viewing frequency counting unit (viewing frequency storage means)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Viewing information receiving part 12 Program information acquisition part 13 Preference information update part 14 Order switching instruction signal 16 Program viewing instruction signal 17 Recommended program display instruction signal 18 Current program determination part (current program determination means)
19 Current program keyword acquisition unit (keyword extraction means)
20 Recommended Program Information Extraction Unit (Recommended Program Information Extraction Unit)
21 Preference information acquisition unit 22 Preference point calculation unit (preference point calculation means)
23. Match level calculation unit (match level calculation means)
24 point threshold holding unit (condition setting means)
25 point threshold value setting signal 31 recommendation order determination unit (recommendation order determination means)
32 recommendation standard change instruction section (recommendation standard change instruction means)
50 Usage status information 61 Time threshold value holding unit (time condition holding means)
62 Elapsed time calculation unit (elapsed time calculation means)
63 Elapsed time comparison unit (time comparison means)
70 Current program information 71 Time threshold holding unit (time condition holding means)
72 Broadcast time calculation unit (broadcast time calculation means)
73 Broadcast time comparison unit (broadcast time comparison means)
74 Recommended Program Information 81 Recommended Program Information Group 82 Highlight Mark 83 Display Order Switching Button (Order Switching Instruction Input Unit)
100 Program recommendation device 100a Device main body 100b Operation unit (instruction signal input means, order switching instruction signal input means)
200 TV broadcast receiver 300 program recommendation apparatus 300a apparatus main body 300b operation unit (instruction signal input means, order switching instruction signal input means, condition setting means)

Claims (16)

In a program recommendation device that is connected to an external device that handles receivable program information and recommends a program that reflects user preferences from the receivable program,
From the program information group including a plurality of the program information, using the keyword included in the program information and the preference information indicating the user's preference for each keyword, the program information of the program reflecting the user's preference is recommended program information. Extracting recommended program information as means,
A recommendation order determining means for determining a recommendation order of the recommended program information extracted by the recommended program information extracting means according to an arbitrary recommendation criterion;
Recommended program information output means for outputting recommended program information extracted by the recommended program information extracting means in the recommended order determined by the recommended order determining means;
An instruction signal input means for inputting an instruction signal for instructing the recommended program information extraction means to extract recommended program information;
Current program information specifying means for specifying, as current program information, program information handled by the external device when the instruction signal from the instruction signal input means is input to the recommended program information extracting means;
Keyword extracting means for extracting a keyword from the current program information specified by the current program information specifying means,
The recommendation order determining means changes the recommendation standard using the recommended program information including the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting means as the priority recommended program information, and determines the recommendation order of the recommended program information based on the changed recommended standard. A program recommendation device. Furthermore, order switching instruction signal input means for inputting an instruction signal for instructing switching of the recommendation order of the recommended program information output to the recommended program information output means,
When an instruction signal is input from the order switching instruction signal input means, the recommendation order determination means is instructed to change the recommendation standard used in the recommendation order determination means to a recommendation standard corresponding to the instruction signal. The program recommendation device according to claim 1, further comprising recommendation standard change instruction means. Furthermore, the preference information group consisting of a plurality of the preference information includes a viewing frequency accumulation means for accumulating the number of times the user views as a viewing frequency for each keyword,
The recommended program information extracting means includes:
Preference point calculation means for calculating preference points based on the viewing frequency accumulated by the viewing frequency accumulation means;
Using a preference point based on the viewing frequency, and a degree-of-match calculation means for calculating a degree of match with the user's preference of the program,
2. The program recommendation device according to claim 1, wherein recommended program information is extracted based on a calculation result of the matching degree calculation means. Furthermore, in order to calculate the degree of matching by the degree-of-matching calculation means, a condition setting means for the user to set conditions for using the preference points is provided,
4. The program recommendation device according to claim 3, wherein the degree of match calculation means calculates the degree of match using only preference points that satisfy the conditions set by the user using the condition setting means. . The current program information specifying means is:
Usage status information acquisition means for acquiring the usage status of the external device and the program handled by the external device as usage status information from the external device;
Current program determination means for determining whether the program indicated by the usage status information is a current program based on the usage status information acquired by the usage status information acquisition means,
2. The program recommendation device according to claim 1, wherein current program information is specified from the program information group using a determination result by the current program determination means. The usage status information acquisition means acquires, as usage status information, time information when the external device handles the program from the external device,
The current program determination means is
An elapsed time calculating means for calculating an elapsed time from the difference between the time when the instruction signal is input by the instruction signal input means and the time information;
A time condition holding means for holding a time as a condition for determining as a current program;
Time comparison means for comparing the elapsed time calculated by the elapsed time calculation means with the time condition held by the time condition holding means;
With
6. The program according to claim 5, wherein the program indicated by the usage status information is determined to be a current program only when the elapsed time satisfies the time condition based on a comparison result of the time comparison unit. Program recommendation device. The current program determination means is
Based on the usage status information, the start time of the program indicated by the usage status information is acquired from the program information group, and the broadcast time is calculated from the difference between the time when the instruction signal is input by the instruction signal input means and the start time. A broadcast time calculation means for calculating an elapsed broadcast time indicating a time elapsed since the start of
A time condition holding means for holding a time as a condition for determining as a current program;
Broadcast time comparison means for comparing the elapsed broadcast time calculated by the broadcast time calculation means with the time condition held by the time condition holding means,
The comparison result of the broadcast time comparison means determines that the program indicated by the use status information is a current program when the elapsed broadcast time does not satisfy the time condition. Program recommendation device. The current program determination means is
Based on the usage status information, the end time of the program indicated by the usage status information is acquired from the program information group, and the broadcast time is calculated from the difference between the time when the instruction signal is input by the instruction signal input means and the end time. Broadcast time calculation means for calculating the remaining broadcast time, indicating the time until
A time condition holding means for holding a time as a condition for determining as a current program;
Broadcast time comparison means for comparing the remaining broadcast time calculated by the broadcast time calculation means with the time condition held by the time condition holding means,
6. As a result of comparison by the broadcast time comparison means, if the remaining broadcast time does not satisfy the time condition, it is determined that only the program indicated by the usage status information is the current program. 8. The program recommendation device according to 7. Further, the display device includes display means for displaying the recommended program information output by the recommended program information output means, with the recommendation order of the recommended program information as a display order,
The recommendation order determining unit is configured to change the recommendation criterion for the preferential recommendation program information including the keyword extracted by the keyword extraction unit so that the preferential recommendation program information is displayed on the top by the display unit. The program recommendation device according to claim 1. Further, the display device includes display means for displaying the recommended program information output by the recommended program information output means, with the recommendation order of the recommended program information as a display order,
The recommendation order determining means gives a priority recommended program information identifier for identifying the priority recommended program information including the keyword extracted by the keyword extracting means,
The recommended program information output means displays the program information identified as the preferential recommended program information based on the preferential recommended program information identifier among the recommended program information displayed on the display means. The program recommendation device according to claim 1, wherein recommended program information is output.   The recommended program information output means indicates that, out of the recommended program information displayed on the display means, program information identified as priority recommended program information based on the priority recommended program information identifier is priority recommended program information. 11. The program recommendation device according to claim 10, wherein recommended program information in which a symbol is added to the priority recommended program information is output so as to be displayed on the display unit together with a symbol that can be visually recognized by a user.   The recommended program information output means displays the program information identified as the preferentially recommended program information based on the preferentially recommended program information identifier among the recommended program information displayed on the display means. The program recommendation device according to claim 10, wherein recommended program information is output as described above. In a program recommendation method in a program recommendation device that is connected to an external device that handles receivable program information and recommends a program that reflects user preferences from the receivable program,
Based on an instruction signal for instructing extraction of recommended program information input by the user, keywords included in the program information from the program information group including a plurality of the program information and the user's preference for each keyword are shown. Extracting the program information of the program reflecting the user's preference as the recommended program information using the preference information;
When the instruction signal is input, identifying the program information of the program handled by the external device at the time of inputting the instruction signal as current program information;
Extracting a keyword from the current program information identified by the above steps;
Changing the recommendation standard as the recommended program information including the keyword extracted in the above step as the priority recommended program information, and determining the recommendation order of the recommended program information according to the changed recommended standard;
Outputting the extracted recommended program information in the recommendation order determined by the above steps. To a computer connected to an external device that handles receivable program information,
Based on an instruction signal for instructing extraction of recommended program information input by the user, keywords included in the program information from the program information group including a plurality of the program information and the user's preference for each keyword are shown. Using the preference information and extracting the program information of the program reflecting the user's preference as recommended program information;
When the instruction signal is input, a procedure for identifying the program information handled by the external device at the time of inputting the instruction signal as current program information;
A procedure for extracting keywords from the current program information identified by the above steps;
A procedure for changing the recommendation standard as the recommended program information including the keyword extracted in the above step as the priority recommended program information, and determining the recommendation order of the recommended program information based on the changed recommended standard,
The program recommendation program which performs the procedure which outputs the extracted recommended program information in the recommendation order determined by the said step.   The computer-readable recording medium which recorded the program recommendation program of Claim 14.   A television broadcast receiver comprising the program recommendation device according to any one of claims 1 to 12.

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