JP2007006095A - Content reproducer, content reproducing method, recording medium with content reproduction program stored, and integrated circuit used for the content reproducer - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a content reproducer for generating a virtual channel in an accumulated content where contents to be broadcast in a certain time zone are not similar to content. <P>SOLUTION: For reproducing the accumulated content accumulated in an information recording medium 120 together with attribute information indicating content contents, an attribute information acquisition part 130 acquires attribute information on broadcast content. A feature amount calculation part 111 calculates a feature amount of content by using the attribute information about the broadcast information and attribute information on the accumulated content. A similarity calculation part 112 assigns the broadcast content and dissimilar accumulated content as the virtual channels to be reproduced in a broadcast time zone of the broadcast content on the basis of the calculated similarity. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to content playback, and more particularly, to automatically searching for content recorded on an information recording medium and playback.

  With the development of digital technology, it has become possible to store a large amount of AV data consisting of video and audio without deterioration. Recently, HDDs having a capacity of several tens of GB or more can be obtained at a relatively low cost, and HDD-based recorders have also appeared. Therefore, as the capacity of the recording medium increases, more content can be stored in the content reproduction apparatus. The HDD is a device capable of random access to recorded data. Therefore, when the stored content is played back, it is not necessary to play back the recorded programs in order from the top as in the case of the conventional video tape, and it is possible to search and play back the favorite content.

  However, if the number of stored contents becomes large due to the increase in the capacity of recording media, it becomes difficult to select the contents to be reproduced. In the case of a TV program, in a system in which automatic recording is performed based on user preferences, profile information, etc., there is a tendency to record more programs than necessary in order to avoid disappointment of the user due to omission of recording. . For this reason, the work burden for the user to select the replayed program becomes more and more excessive. Furthermore, television viewers are not always watching a specific program being broadcast. That is, it is common to watch a program that is viewed for an unintended purpose, or that it is viewed because the TV was on. On the other hand, the act of sequentially judging what to watch among the recorded programs is not suitable for the latter viewing mode. In addition, many users experience a psychology that achieves a sense of accomplishment and a sense of security by recording a particular broadcast program, and this is one factor that does not lead to actual viewing behavior. For this reason, many recorded programs tend to be stored without being reproduced simply by recording. In addition, music contents tend to have the same tendency, and the amount of music that users accumulate on recording media becomes large due to the spread of copying from package media such as CDs and DVDs and the distribution of electronic music. Will become oversized. Also, when music content is played outdoors using a portable HDD music playback device or HDD car navigation system, such as when commuting to work or school, music is not searched one by one, but the system automatically performs random playback. Often listen to music selection.

In such a usage environment, as a means for reducing the search burden on the user, a virtual channel is allocated according to a category defined by the user, and a program corresponding to the category is recorded on the virtual channel. A system has been devised in which various recorded programs can be viewed simply by continuing playback of the video (for example, Patent Document 1). In this case, as a form until the user views the stored content, first, the currently broadcast content (television or radio broadcast) is selected by switching channels, and the content of interest is selected and viewed. However, if content that is currently being broadcast is not broadcast, it is generally considered that the content stored in the recording medium is searched for and viewed.
JP 2001-333358 A

  However, according to the conventional content search means, the stored content is reproduced for each virtual channel according to the classification definition. Therefore, there is a possibility that the content on the virtual channel having the same classification definition as the content currently being broadcast is played back at the same time. As a result, there is a problem that the content being played back on one of the channels is missed.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a content playback apparatus that generates a virtual channel with stored content whose content is not similar to content scheduled to be broadcast in a certain time zone.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention employs the following configuration.

  A first aspect of the present invention is a content playback device for playing back stored content recorded on an information recording medium, a recording unit for recording the stored content and attribute information, which is information relating to the content of the content, on the information recording medium, and broadcasting A content receiving unit that receives content, an attribute information acquiring unit that acquires broadcast content attribute information, and a similarity that calculates the degree of similarity between broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each stored content based on the attribute information The content reproduction device includes a degree calculation unit and a virtual channel reproduction unit that controls reproduction of the stored content determined as a virtual channel in a predetermined time zone and output to the output device.

  In a second aspect based on the first aspect, the similarity calculation unit determines the length of the predetermined time period according to the length of the reproduction time of the stored content, and the broadcast content broadcast in the time period The similarity with the stored content is calculated.

  In a third aspect based on the first aspect, the content receiving unit receives broadcast content from a plurality of broadcast channels, and the similarity calculation unit is similar to each of the plurality of broadcast content received from the plurality of broadcast channels. Calculate the degree.

  In a fourth aspect based on the first aspect, the virtual channel generation unit determines the stored content whose similarity calculated by the similarity calculation unit is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold as the stored content to be reproduced.

  In a fifth aspect based on the first aspect, the recording unit records the broadcast content and the attribute information of the broadcast content in association with each other on the information recording medium.

  In a sixth aspect based on the fifth aspect, the broadcast content is a television program.

  In a seventh aspect based on the sixth aspect, the attribute information acquisition unit acquires information about the program genre of the broadcast content as attribute information, and the similarity calculation unit has the same program genre for the broadcast content and the stored content. If they are the same, the degree of similarity is calculated to be relatively high, and if they are different, the degree of similarity is calculated to be relatively low.

  In an eighth aspect based on the sixth aspect, the attribute information acquisition unit acquires information about the performer of the broadcast content as attribute information, and the similarity calculation unit determines that the same performer is used for the broadcast content and the stored content. If the same performer is included, the similarity is calculated to be relatively high. If the same performer is not included, the similarity is calculated to be relatively low.

  In a ninth aspect based on the sixth aspect, the attribute information acquisition unit acquires, as attribute information, a word included in the program content information that is information indicating the content of the broadcast content, and the similarity calculation unit The number of words included in both the program content information of the content and the program content information of the stored content is determined, and if the number of words included in both is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, the similarity is relatively If the number of the words is not higher than the predetermined threshold, the degree of similarity is calculated to be relatively low.

  In a tenth aspect based on the sixth aspect, the attribute information acquisition unit acquires a word included in the program title as attribute information, and the similarity calculation unit includes the program title of the broadcast content and the program title of the stored content. And the number of words included in both is determined to be relatively high if the number of words included in both is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, and the number of words is determined to be the predetermined threshold Otherwise, the similarity is calculated to be relatively low.

  In an eleventh aspect based on the fifth aspect, the broadcast content is a radio program, and the content recorded by the recording unit is music data.

  In a twelfth aspect based on the eleventh aspect, the attribute information acquisition unit acquires the title information of the music as attribute information, and the similarity calculation unit has the same title as the music data recorded in the broadcast radio program. It is determined whether or not the music is broadcast. When the same music is broadcast, the similarity is calculated relatively high. When the same music is not broadcast, the similarity is calculated relatively low.

  In a thirteenth aspect based on the eleventh aspect, the attribute information acquisition unit acquires album information including the music as attribute information, and the similarity calculation unit is a music in which the recorded music data is broadcast on a radio program. If it is included in the same album, the degree of similarity is calculated to be relatively high. If it is not in the same album, the degree of similarity is relative. Calculate low.

  In a fourteenth aspect based on the eleventh aspect, the attribute information acquiring unit acquires artist information of the music as attribute information, and the similarity calculating unit is a music broadcast on the radio program with the artist of the recorded music data It is determined whether or not the music of the artist is the same artist. If the music is from the same artist, the similarity is calculated to be relatively high, and if the music is not from the same artist, the similarity is calculated to be relatively low.

  In a fifteenth aspect based on the eleventh aspect, the attribute information acquisition unit acquires genre information of music as attribute information, and the similarity calculation unit broadcasts the genre of recorded music data and a radio program. It is determined whether or not the genre of the music is the same genre. If the genre is the same, the similarity is calculated to be relatively high. If the music is not the same genre, the similarity is calculated to be relatively low.

  A sixteenth invention according to any one of the first to fifteenth inventions, further comprises a GUI generating unit that generates a display screen on which the attribute information is displayed on the screen, and the GUI generating unit A display screen is generated in which the attribute information and the attribute information of the stored content reproduced as a virtual channel are displayed on the same screen.

  A seventeenth aspect of the present invention is a content reproduction method for reproducing stored content recorded on an information recording medium, the recording step for recording the stored content and attribute information which is information relating to the content of the content on the information recording medium, and broadcasting A content reception step for receiving content, an attribute information acquisition step for acquiring broadcast content attribute information, and a similarity for calculating the similarity between broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each stored content based on the attribute information A degree calculation step, a virtual channel generation step for determining the stored content to be played back in a predetermined time zone according to the similarity, and the playback of the stored content determined in the predetermined time zone as a virtual channel to the output device A virtual channel playback step for controlling output; It is a recording and reproducing method.

  An eighteenth aspect of the invention is a recording medium that records a content reproduction program that is executed by a computer of a content reproduction apparatus that reproduces content, and is executed by the computer of the content reproduction apparatus that reproduces stored content recorded on an information recording medium A recording medium for recording the content reproduction program to be recorded, a recording step for recording the stored content and attribute information which is information relating to the content of the content on the information recording medium, a content receiving step for receiving the broadcast content, and a broadcast content An attribute information acquisition step for acquiring the attribute information, a similarity calculation step for calculating the similarity between the broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each stored content based on the attribute information, and a reproduction in the predetermined time zone Determine the accumulated content to be used according to the degree of similarity A recording medium recorded with a content reproduction program that causes a computer to execute a virtual channel generation step and a virtual channel reproduction step for controlling reproduction of the stored content determined as a virtual channel in a predetermined time zone and output to an output device is there.

  A nineteenth aspect of the invention is an integrated circuit used in a content playback apparatus for playing back stored content recorded on an information recording medium, wherein the stored content and attribute information that is information relating to the content are recorded on the information recording medium. Based on the attribute information, the content receiving unit that receives the broadcast content, the attribute information acquisition unit that acquires the broadcast content attribute information, and the similarity between the broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each stored content A similarity calculation unit to calculate, a virtual channel generation unit to determine the stored content to be played back in a predetermined time zone according to the similarity, and playback of the determined stored content in the predetermined time zone as a virtual channel It is an integrated circuit provided with the virtual channel reproduction | regeneration part which controls the output to an output device.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, the stored content can be viewed only by an operation familiar with a general television receiver such as a channel switching operation. That is, the user does not need to learn a new operation method other than the channel switching operation, and is not required to have an active operation or viewing attitude in order to play back the stored content. Further, on the virtual channel, content corresponding to the degree of similarity with the content of the content currently being broadcast is reproduced. For this reason, it is possible to prevent similar content on the real channel and the virtual channel from being played back at the same time, and to reduce oversight of content that is of interest to the user.

  According to the second aspect, the number of broadcast contents whose similarity is to be calculated can be changed according to the length of the reproduction time of the stored contents, and all the broadcast contents broadcast in a predetermined time zone can be changed. Thus, dissimilar stored content can be reproduced as a virtual channel, and oversight of content of interest can be reduced.

  According to the third aspect, similarity can be calculated for broadcast content broadcast on a plurality of broadcast channels. For this reason, dissimilar stored content can be assigned to a virtual channel for each of the programs broadcast on a plurality of broadcast channels in a certain time zone, and oversight of content of interest can be reduced.

  According to the fourth aspect of the invention, by providing a predetermined threshold for determination of similarity, uniform processing can be performed in the determination processing of similarity between broadcast content and stored content, and the processing load is reduced. be able to.

  According to the fifth aspect of the invention, it is possible to record and record a wide variety of broadcast contents together with their attribute information to obtain accumulated contents, and to increase opportunities to view more diverse contents.

  According to the sixth aspect, a virtual channel is generated for a television program. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the television broadcast content accumulated in large quantities in a large-capacity storage medium such as an HDD recorder that has become common in recent years from being stored without being viewed.

  According to the seventh to tenth aspects, words (text data) indicating a genre, performers, program contents, etc. are used to determine the similarity of television broadcast content. Therefore, the degree of similarity can be determined by a simple method of comparing text data without performing complicated analysis processing on the contents of the program. As a result, the processing load related to virtual channel generation can be reduced.

  According to the eleventh aspect, a virtual channel is generated for a radio program. Therefore, it is possible to prevent radio programs stored in large quantities on a large-capacity storage medium such as an HDD car navigation system from being stored without being listened to while stored.

  According to the twelfth to fifteenth aspects, words (text data) indicating the title, artist, album name, and genre of music are used for determining the similarity of radio contents. Therefore, the degree of similarity can be determined by a simple method of comparing text data without performing complicated analysis processing on the contents of the program. As a result, the processing load related to virtual channel generation can be reduced.

  According to the sixteenth aspect, the contents of the virtual channel and the program information related to the actual broadcast can be displayed together on the same screen. Thereby, it is possible to tell the user in an easy-to-understand manner what program can be viewed at present.

  According to the seventeenth to nineteenth aspects, the same effect as that of the first aspect can be obtained.

  The present invention relates to content recording / playback, and is a content playback device that creates a virtual channel for continuously playing back stored content separately from a real channel being broadcast. On the virtual channel, the stored content whose content is not similar to the broadcast content broadcast at the same time is reproduced. Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In addition, this invention is not limited by this Example.

(First embodiment)
A content playback apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a content reproduction apparatus according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, the content reproduction apparatus 100 includes a control unit 110, an information recording medium 120, an attribute information acquisition unit 130, a broadcast content reception unit 140, an operation information acquisition unit 150, an audio decoder 160, and a video decoder 161. A GUI display unit 170, an audio encoder 180, a video encoder 181 and a clock unit 190, which are connected by an internal bus.

  The control unit 110 controls the entire content recording / playback processing performed by the content playback device. Content such as broadcast content is stored in the information recording medium 120. The attribute information acquisition unit 130 acquires attribute information regarding broadcast content from, for example, a program guide (EPG data), a CDDB, or the like via a communication unit (not shown). The attribute information includes the broadcast station name of the program, the broadcast date and time, the genre name, the program title, the performer name, the text data (program overview) regarding the program content, the program playback time length, and the like. The broadcast content receiving unit 140 receives content data (video data and audio data) that is the content of the broadcast content from a communication unit (not shown). The operation information acquisition unit 150 acquires operation information from the user. The audio decoder 160 decodes the compressed audio data of the content. The video decoder 161 decodes the compressed video data of the content. The GUI display unit 170 displays a graphical user interface to be output on the display screen. The audio encoder 180 encodes the audio data of the content into compressed data. The video encoder 181 encodes the video data of the content into compressed data. The clock unit 190 generates time information.

  The control unit 110 includes a feature amount calculation unit 111, a similarity calculation unit 112, a virtual channel generation unit 113, a recording unit 114, a GUI generation unit 115, and a virtual channel reproduction unit 116. The feature amount calculation unit 111 extracts feature attributes from the attribute information acquired by the attribute information acquisition unit 130, and calculates a feature amount that serves as a guideline for indicating the features of the contents of each content. Here, as elements for extracting feature quantities, there are a broadcast station name, broadcast date and time, genre name, program title, performer name, text data related to program contents, and the like. For program titles and program contents, features are extracted using words decomposed using morphological analysis. The similarity calculation unit 112 uses the attribute feature quantity calculated by the feature quantity calculation unit 111 to determine the similarity between the content scheduled to be broadcast and the content stored in the information recording medium 120 (hereinafter referred to as stored content). Is calculated. In addition, the similarity calculation unit 112 notifies the calculated similarity to the virtual channel generation unit 113. The virtual channel generation unit 113 generates a reproduction schedule for stored content to be reproduced as a virtual channel. Further, the virtual channel generation unit 113 records the reproduction schedule generated on the information recording medium 120 or the like via the recording unit 114. The recording unit 114 controls information recording on the information recording medium 120. Specifically, the recording unit 114 records the content data received by the broadcast content receiving unit 140 on the information recording medium 120 in association with the attribute information acquired by the attribute information acquiring unit 130. The recording unit 114 also records content other than broadcast content on the information recording medium 120 together with its attribute information. The recording unit 114 also records the reproduction schedule of the virtual channel on the information recording medium 120. The recording unit 114 also compresses content data as necessary when recording content. Specifically, the recording unit 114 determines whether or not the content data received by the broadcast content receiving unit 140 is compressed content data such as digital broadcast. If the content data is compressed, it is determined whether the compression encoding method is the same as the compression encoding method recorded on the information recording medium. If the content data is the same, the content data is directly stored in the information recording medium. Record. Alternatively, recording is performed by another compression encoding method based on a user's instruction operation. In this case, the content data is decoded by the audio decoder 160 and the video decoder 161, encoded into another compression encoding method by the audio encoder 180 and the video encoder 181, and recorded on the information recording medium 120. On the other hand, when the content data received by the broadcast content receiving unit 140 is not encoded, it is encoded into the compression encoding method using the audio encoder 180 and the video encoder 181 and recorded in the information recording medium 120. Of course, you may record on the information recording medium 120 as it is, without compressing. The GUI generation unit 115 generates a GUI to be displayed on the screen. The virtual channel playback unit 116 controls playback of the virtual channel.

  1, a control unit 110 (a feature amount calculation unit 111, a similarity calculation unit 112, a virtual channel generation unit 113, a recording unit 114, a GUI generation unit 115, a virtual channel reproduction unit 116), an attribute information acquisition unit 130, The broadcast content receiving unit 140, the operation information acquisition unit 150, the audio decoder 160, the video decoder 161, the GUI display unit 170, the audio encoder 180, and the video encoder 181 may be typically realized as an LSI that is an integrated circuit. These may be individually made into one chip, or may be made into one chip so as to include a part or all of them. Further, the method of circuit integration is not limited to LSI's, and implementation using dedicated circuitry or general purpose processors is also possible. Further, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) that can be programmed after manufacturing the LSI, or a reconfigurable processor that can reconfigure the connection and setting of the circuit cells inside the LSI may be used. Furthermore, if integrated circuit technology comes out to replace LSI's as a result of the advancement of semiconductor technology or a derivative other technology, it is naturally also possible to carry out function block integration using this technology. Biotechnology can be applied.

  The detailed operation of the virtual channel reproduction schedule generation process (hereinafter referred to as the schedule generation process) performed by the control unit 110 will be described below with reference to FIGS. Here, a case where a virtual channel is set as shown in FIG. 2 will be described as an example. In FIG. 2, when the power is turned on at 13:10, the stored content 1 which is a 60-minute program is assigned to 13: 0 to 14:00, and the 30-minute program is assigned to 14:00:00 to 14:30. Is stored content 3, which is a 30-minute program from 14:30 to 15:00.

  3 and 4 are flowcharts showing details of the schedule generation process. For example, when the content playback apparatus 100 is turned on, the processes shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 are performed. Here, for convenience of explanation, it is assumed that when the content playback apparatus 100 is turned on, a virtual channel playback schedule for one day (up to 23:59:59) is generated. In FIG. 3, when the power is turned on, the control unit 110 first determines whether or not a virtual channel playback schedule for the current day has already been created (step S1). As a result, if it has already been created (YES in step S1), the schedule generation process is terminated as it is. On the other hand, when it has not been created yet (NO in step S1), the power is turned on for the first time on that day, so the processing after step S2 described below is performed to create a virtual channel playback schedule for the day. To do.

  Next, the control unit 110 calculates the start time and end time of the time zone when the power is turned on, and sets the comparison start time and end time (step S2). Here, the time zone means a time zone until the hour value changes. For example, if the power is turned on at 19:45, the beginning of the time zone will be 19:00 and the end will be 20:00. If the power is turned on at 13:10, the start end will be 13:00 and the end end will be 14:00. The comparison start time and end time indicate the range of time zones to be compared in calculating the similarity between stored content and broadcast scheduled content, which will be described later. The process of step S2 will be described in more detail. First, the control unit 110 acquires the time when the power is turned on (hereinafter referred to as the turn-on time) from the clock unit 190 in the form of hour, minute and second. Next, the control unit 110 keeps the “hour” value of the input time as it is, sets the “minute / second” value to 0, and sets it as the comparison start time. That is, if the power is turned on at 19:45, a value of 19: 00: 00: 00 is set as the comparison start time. Next, 1 is added to the value of “hour” (0 in the case of 23), the value of “minute / second” is set to 0, and the comparison end time is set. That is, if the power is turned on at 19:45, a value of 20:00:00 is set as the comparison end time. Above, the process of step S2 is complete | finished.

  When the process of step S2 is completed, the control unit 110 acquires one piece of attribute information of any stored content that has not yet been assigned as a virtual channel from the information recording medium 120 (step S3). Here, for convenience of explanation, it is assumed that the accumulated time is acquired in order from the oldest. At this time, as the stored content to be acquired, content that is longer than the time from the time of power-on to the end of the time zone is targeted. Taking FIG. 2 as an example, only stored contents with a playback time length of 50 minutes or more are targeted. In other words, the stored content with a playback time length of 30 minutes is excluded from the target in step S3. This is because, for example, the stored content is allocated so that the program of the virtual channel ends at the change of time such as 14:00 or 15:00, which is generally a program break. By performing such allocation, it is possible to view the program while switching between the virtual channel and the broadcast station channel efficiently at the break of the program.

  Next, the similarity between the stored content acquired in step S3 and the scheduled broadcast content is calculated in a time zone between the comparison start time and the comparison end time (hereinafter referred to as a comparison time zone) (step S4). . In step S4, first, the feature amount of each content is calculated as a vector from the attribute information of the stored content (hereinafter, content to be inspected) acquired in step S3 and the attribute information of the content scheduled to be broadcast. The similarity is calculated using the quantity.

  The process of step S4 will be described more specifically. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing details of the similarity calculation process shown in step S4. In FIG. 5, first, the feature quantity calculation unit 111 extracts feature attributes from the attribute information of the inspection target content (step S21). Here, text data about a genre, a performer, a program title, and program content is extracted from the attribute information as a feature attribute. Next, the feature amount calculation unit 111 calculates the feature amount of the inspection target content as a vector value using the extracted feature attributes (step S22). The calculation of the vector value (hereinafter, feature vector) is performed for each feature attribute of genre, performer, program title, and program content. In the calculation of the genre feature vector, each genre is set as an evaluation item, and the evaluation value is set to 1 for items that match the genre, and the evaluation value is set to 0 otherwise. For example, suppose there are three genres: news, variety, and movie. In this case, the feature vector related to the genre of the variety program is (news: 0, variety: 1, movie: 0). In the vector regarding performers, each performer is set as an evaluation item, the evaluation value corresponding to the performer of the program is set to 1, and the other evaluation values are set to 0. In the vector for the program title and program content, each word extracted by morphological analysis is used as an evaluation item, and the appearance frequency of the word is used as an evaluation value. For example, assuming words of baseball, female, love, and prison, and the words of female and love appear twice and once in the program content of a program, the feature vector of this program content is (baseball : 0, female: 2, love: 1, prison: 0). In this way, the feature amount calculation unit 111 generates a genre vector (GVr), performer vector (PVr), title vector (TVr), and content vector (CVr) as feature vectors of the content to be inspected.

  Next, the attribute information acquisition unit 130 calculates a feature vector for each broadcast-scheduled content in the comparison time period as in the case of the inspection target content (step S23). Specifically, first, the attribute information acquisition unit 130 acquires attribute information about each broadcast-scheduled content in the comparison time period from an EPG or the like. Next, the feature amount calculation unit 111 extracts the feature attributes as described above from the attribute information. Then, the feature amount calculation unit 111 calculates the feature vector as described above for each broadcast scheduled content, and the genre vector (GVb), performer vector (PVb), title vector (TVb), A content vector (CVb) is generated (step S24).

Next, the similarity calculation unit 112 calculates the similarity using the feature vector of the content to be inspected and the feature vector of the scheduled broadcast content (step S25). The content similarity (CSim) is calculated by the sum of the similarity (VSim) of the feature vectors of each evaluation item (genre, performer, title, content).
CSim = αVSim (GVr, GVb) + βVSim (PVr, PVb) + γVSim (TVr, TVb) + ζVSim (CVr, CVb)
Vsim (A, B) means the calculation of the cosine distance between the vectors A and B. Further, α, β, γ, and ζ are weighting factors, and are set so as to represent the importance of similarity between items. If there is a similarity that is not used, the weighting factor for that item may be set to zero. Using such a calculation formula, a predetermined time zone (for example, from 19:00 to 20:00) is taken into consideration, and the degree of similarity between each content scheduled to be broadcast in that time zone and the content to be examined Is calculated. Then, the similarity calculation unit 112 associates the calculated similarity with the inspection target content and holds it in a temporary storage unit (memory or the like) (not shown) (step S26). FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of similarity data held in the temporary storage means. In FIG. 6, each inspection target content (accumulated content) is stored in association with the similarity to each broadcast-scheduled content. Note that the degree of similarity is indicated by a value with 100 as the maximum. Above, the similarity calculation process in step S4 is complete | finished.

  Returning to FIG. 3, when the calculation of the similarity with each broadcast-scheduled content is completed for one content to be inspected, it is next determined whether or not the calculation of the similarity is completed for all the stored content (step S5). . As a result, if there is any accumulated content that has not yet been calculated, the process returns to step S3 and the process is repeated. On the other hand, when the calculation of the similarity is completed for all the stored contents, the control unit 110 advances the process to step S6.

  Next, with respect to the similarity between the calculated broadcast scheduled content and the stored content, the virtual channel generation unit 113 shows the stored content in which the similarity with all the broadcast scheduled content is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold as shown in FIG. The stored content (time information) is searched from the information recording medium 120. That is, the stored content that is different for all the broadcast-scheduled content is searched. Taking FIG. 6 as an example, when the threshold value is 30, the stored content 1 is searched. Then, the virtual channel generation unit 113 sets the reproduction schedule of the virtual channel so that the stored content 1 ends at the comparison end time (step S6). As a result, as shown in FIG. 2, the stored content 1 is assigned so as to end at 14:00. When a plurality of stored contents are searched as a result of the search, the stored contents having the smallest sum of the similarities with all the scheduled broadcast contents are selected from them. Of course, one may be selected at random from the retrieved plurality of stored contents. If the corresponding stored content is not searched, the stored content having the largest number of broadcast-scheduled contents whose similarity is equal to or less than the threshold is selected.

  At the time when the processing in step S6 is completed, only virtual channels up to 14:00 have been created. Therefore, subsequently, a reproduction schedule of virtual channels after 14:00 is created. When step S6 ends, control unit 110 sets the comparison end time as the value of the comparison start time (step S7). That is, in the above-described processing, when 13:00 is the comparison start time, this is set to 14:00.

  Next, the control unit 110 determines whether or not the creation of the virtual channel reproduction schedule has been completed for one day (step S8). For example, when the reproduction start time exceeds 0:00, it is determined that the creation of the virtual channel for one day is finished. Of course, the playback schedule may be created not only for one day but for several days or weeks. As a result of the determination in step S8, if it is determined that the creation of the reproduction schedule for one day has been completed, the reproduction schedule creation process is terminated as it is. On the other hand, when the reproduction schedule for one day has not yet been created, the control unit 110 proceeds with the process to step S9.

  Next, as in step S3, the control unit 110 acquires one piece of attribute information of any stored content that has not yet been assigned as a virtual channel from the information recording medium 120 (step S9). However, unlike the step S3, the reproduction time length of the stored content to be read is not limited here.

  Next, the control unit 110 acquires the reproduction time length of the accumulated content acquired in step S9, that is, the content to be inspected from the attribute information (step S10). Here, it is assumed that the reproduction time length is 60 minutes. Next, the control unit 110 sets a time obtained by adding the reproduction time length acquired in step S10 to the comparison start time as the value of the comparison end time (step S11). That is, in the above-described processing, when 14:00 is the comparison end time, this is set to 15:00. This means that the number of broadcast-scheduled contents to be compared for similarity calculation changes depending on the reproduction time length of the inspection target contents. For example, taking FIG. 2 as an example, if the comparison start time is 14:00 and the accumulated content acquired as the inspection target in step S9 is accumulated content for one hour, the similarity to the programs A2, A3, and B3 If the accumulated content is 30 minutes, the similarity between the program A2 and the program B3 is calculated. At this time, as described above, if the playback time length is a fraction such as 58 minutes, the playback time length is rounded up to 60 minutes so that the program is divided at the transition of time as described above.

  Next, the feature vector is obtained from the attribute information by the same process as in step S4 described above, and the similarity is calculated (step S12). Next, it is determined whether or not the similarity calculation has been completed for all the stored contents (step S13). As a result, if there is an accumulated content that has not yet been calculated, the process returns to step S9 and the process is repeated. On the other hand, when the calculation of the similarity is completed for all the stored contents, the control unit 110 advances the process to step S14.

  Next, as in step S6, the virtual channel generation unit 113 stores the degree of similarity between the calculated broadcast-scheduled content and the stored content in which the similarity between all the broadcast-scheduled contents is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold. Search for content. Then, the virtual channel generation unit 113 sets a reproduction schedule of the virtual channel so that the searched stored content starts from the comparison start time. At this time, the reproduction time length of the retrieved stored content is acquired from the attribute information.

  Next, the control unit 110 sets a time obtained by adding the reproduction time length acquired in step S14 to the comparison start time as a new comparison start time. For example, if the comparison start time is 14:00 and the stored content assigned in step S14 is a 30-minute program, the comparison start time is set to 15:30 and a 60-minute program is set. If so, the comparison start time is set to 15:00. If the stored content assigned in step S14 is a 120-minute program, the comparison start time is set to 16:00. When the setting of the comparison start time in step S15 is completed, the process returns to step S8, and the processes in steps S8 to S15 are repeated until the reproduction schedule for the virtual channel for one day is created. This completes the schedule creation process.

  Next, reproduction of the virtual channel generated by the above-described processing will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing details of the virtual channel reproduction processing. In FIG. 7, first, in step S <b> 31, a virtual channel reproduction instruction from the user is acquired via the operation information acquisition unit 150 and notified to the control unit 110. The control unit 110 issues an instruction to start playback of the designated virtual channel to the virtual channel playback unit 116.

  Next, in step S <b> 32, the control unit 110 acquires the current time information from the clock unit 190 and the virtual channel schedule generated by the virtual channel generation unit 113. In step S33, the control unit 110 identifies the stored content to be reproduced from the virtual channel schedule based on the virtual channel designated by the user and the current time information. In subsequent step S34, control unit 110 calculates the elapsed playback time of the stored content up to the current time. For example, when the current time is 20:30 and the stored content specified from the virtual channel schedule is scheduled to be played back from 19:00, the playback elapsed time is 90 minutes. Next, in step S35, the control unit 110 searches the information storage medium 120 for the specified stored content, and specifies the playback start location of the stored content based on the playback elapsed time. In step S36, the control unit 110 reads audio data or video data from the specified playback start location, and outputs the data to the audio decoder or video decoder for playback. The virtual channel is reproduced by the processing as described above.

  As described above, in the first embodiment, when viewing the stored content recorded on the large-capacity recording medium, the user does not need to search for the content one by one, but only by the operation of switching a general channel. It is possible to view stored contents with high possibility. Furthermore, it is possible to view stored content that is not similar in content to the content currently being broadcast. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the problem that one of the contents is missed by playing the content of interest at the same time.

  Regarding the calculation of the feature vector, in step S2, the appearance frequency of the word is used as it is as the evaluation value, but a value obtained by performing some kind of normalization may be used as the evaluation value. Also, the TF of a word (appearance rate of the word in the sentence) and IDF (an index indicating how rare the word is) may be used as the evaluation value. In addition, when each word is used as an evaluation item for a feature vector, there is a possibility that the same word does not appear in a plurality of program contents, and the similarity is not correctly determined by comparing each feature vector. is there. Therefore, a feature vector may be created by replacing a plurality of words having similar semantic contents with another word. For example, all three words such as love, love, and confession may be replaced with the word love, and if the above three words appear, the evaluation value of the evaluation item of love may be set to 1. Furthermore, such a dictionary for grouping words may be created in advance and recorded in the information recording medium 120, or may be acquired from a server using means such as the Internet.

  Further, regarding the calculation of the feature vector for the stored content in steps S21 to S22 in FIG. 5, for example, the stored content may be calculated and recorded at the timing when the stored content is recorded on the information recording medium 120. . In steps S21 and S22, the calculated feature vector may be acquired from the information recording medium 120. Thereby, the processing time concerning a similarity calculation process can be reduced.

  Further, regarding the calculation of the similarity, in the above-described embodiment, the feature vector is calculated from the attribute information composed of the text data, and the similarity is calculated. However, if audio / video data for program promotion can be acquired as attribute information in the future, features may be extracted from the audio / video data and used for feature vector calculation. In this case, a content feature amount extraction unit that extracts feature amounts from the content data may be added to the configuration. Then, using the content feature amount extraction unit, for example, it is conceivable to extract text information from the utterance content using speech recognition and extract a word of the utterance by morphological analysis. Moreover, image recognition may be performed and performer information may be extracted. Furthermore, it is also conceivable to extract text information from the telop using image recognition. Further, the contents of the program advertisement may be extracted from the content information of the scene such as music, conversation, cheering, etc. using audio data.

  In the virtual channel generation processing described with reference to FIG. 3, virtual channel scheduling is started based on time information when the power is turned on. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and a virtual channel may be scheduled at an arbitrary time according to a user instruction. For example, when the user is not interested in the content being broadcast and the stored content assigned to the virtual channel, when another stored content is to be assigned to the virtual channel, a virtual channel generation process is performed based on the user's instruction. You may do it. In this case, control is performed so that the same stored content is not assigned to the same time zone again. As a result, the stored content can be used more effectively and its death can be prevented.

  Furthermore, the virtual channel may be generated using information on the broadcast station and broadcast date and time of the attribute information. For example, instead of considering the broadcast schedule contents of all broadcast stations, the similarity to the broadcast schedule contents of a specific broadcast station may be calculated. Further, the stored content searched for by virtual channel generation may be searched from stored content broadcast by a specific broadcasting station. When the stored content is assigned to a virtual channel in a certain time zone, a restriction may be set so that the stored content is not assigned to the time zone during which the stored content was broadcast. On the contrary, the content allocated to the virtual channel may be searched from the accumulated content of the broadcast time zone. Further, if the similarity to the broadcast-scheduled content is lower than the threshold value, it may be assigned to the virtual channel in order from the stored content with the oldest broadcast date and time.

  Further, in FIG. 3, the stored content different in content from the broadcast-scheduled content is searched using the similarity based on the content feature vector. However, the stored content may be searched using a simpler method. For example, information related to a genre may be used to search for stored content of a genre different from the broadcast-scheduled content and assign it to a virtual channel. Moreover, you may search the accumulation | storage content in which the performer who does not appear in a broadcast schedule content appears using the information regarding a performer. In addition, using words that appear in the program title and program content, the number of the same words that appear in the program title and program content of the stored content and the program title and program content of the scheduled broadcast content is less than the threshold value. Content may be searched.

  Further, in step S12 in FIG. 4 described above, some normalization may be performed because the number of broadcast-scheduled contents to be compared changes according to the reproduction time length of the stored contents. For example, when there are a plurality of stored contents to be searched in the above step S6, in the above description, the stored contents with the minimum sum of similarities are selected, but the value divided by the number of broadcast scheduled contents (that is, You may make it select the thing with the smallest (average similarity with each broadcast schedule content).

  Further, in the above-described step S14, when the stored content (for example, content of 1 hour or 2 hours) having a playback time length that is an integral multiple of 1 hour is allocated, the playback start time is the same as the minute / second value of hour / minute / second. You may limit to when it is 00. That is, stored content having a playback time length of 1 hour or 2 hours is assigned to the playback start time of 15:00 or 16:00, but is assigned from the playback start time of 16:30 or 16:20. Absent. On the other hand, if the stored content is not a playback time length that is an integral multiple of one hour (for example, content of 30 minutes or 20 minutes), it may be assigned to an arbitrary playback start time. Further, it is also possible to limit such stored content that is not a reproduction time length that is an integral multiple of one hour so that it is not continuously assigned to a virtual channel more than a certain threshold number of times. As a result, it is possible to prevent the stored content for a short time from being assigned continuously for a long time.

  In step S14, for example, in the case of long-time content such as 2-hour content or 3-hour content, the number of broadcast-scheduled content to be compared for similarity increases as the playback time length increases. Therefore, there is a high possibility that the program is similar to a certain program, that is, it is difficult to determine that the program is dissimilar, and it is difficult to allocate these long-time accumulated contents to the virtual channel. For this reason, even if the program contents are somewhat similar, it may be possible to assign them to virtual channels to prevent the storage of long-time stored contents. Specifically, for example, in step S14 described above, it is conceivable to search for stored contents in which the number of broadcast-scheduled contents having a similarity equal to or less than a threshold is equal to or greater than the number of receivable broadcast stations. That is, the playback time length of a certain stored content is 2 hours, the number of broadcasting stations is 2, the number of comparison target programs is 6, and the number of dissimilar programs (the number of programs having a similarity equal to or less than a threshold) is 4. If so, the content stored for 2 hours may be allocated to the virtual channel. At this time, when there are a plurality of stored contents searched, one stored content may be selected using the normalization (average similarity) described above. Note that, regarding the number of receivable broadcast stations, if there is a broadcast station that does not broadcast a program in a certain time zone such as midnight, the broadcast station may not be included in the receivable broadcast station number.

  Furthermore, regarding the reproduction of the virtual channel, for example, the stored content may be reproduced from the beginning by receiving a user instruction for the accumulated content being reproduced on the virtual channel. For example, at 13:10 in FIG. 2, the stored content 1 is reproduced from the point in time when 10 minutes have elapsed from the start of the program. At this time, when the user gives an instruction to reproduce the content via the operation information acquisition unit 150, the time information of the accumulated content 1 is referred to and the accumulated content is reproduced from the beginning on the spot. May be. Thereby, when the user feels that the user wants to watch the program from the beginning while viewing the virtual channel, the playback can be started immediately.

  Further, the number of virtual channels is not necessarily one, and a plurality of virtual channels may be generated. Hereinafter, a process of generating a plurality of virtual channels will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing details of a plurality of virtual channel generation processes in a certain time zone. In FIG. 8, first, in step S41, a variable N which is a variable indicating the number of virtual channels is set to 1.

  Next, in step S42, an Nth (first) virtual channel is generated. This is performed by the same processing as the processing from step S2 to step S6 described with reference to FIG. Therefore, detailed description is omitted.

  Next, in step S43, with respect to all the scheduled broadcast contents in the comparative time zone, the stored contents whose similarity is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold and not assigned to the Nth virtual channel, and the Nth virtual channel The similarity with the stored content assigned to is calculated using the same formula as described above. For example, when the stored content of the second virtual channel is to be specified, the similarity with the stored content assigned to the first virtual channel is calculated. If the stored content of the third and subsequent virtual channels is to be searched, the similarity with the stored content assigned to the second virtual channel is calculated.

  Next, in step S44, the stored content that is the most dissimilar to the stored content assigned to the Nth virtual channel (the sum of the similarities is the smallest) is searched. That is, a stored content that is as different as possible from the stored content of the Nth virtual channel is searched.

  In subsequent step S45, the stored content searched in step S44 is assigned to the (N + 1) th virtual channel.

  Next, in step S46, it is determined whether or not the allocation for the scheduled virtual channels has been completed. As a result, when all of the scheduled virtual channels have not been allocated (NO in step S46), 1 is added to the variable N in step S47, and the processes in steps S43 to S46 are repeated. On the other hand, if all the virtual channels have been allocated (YES in step S46), the processes in steps S41 to S46 are performed until a reproduction schedule for one day is completed. At this time, the processing performed in step S42 is the same as the processing in steps S7 to S15 in FIGS. 3 and 4 described above. This completes the plurality of virtual channel generation processes. As described above, if a plurality of virtual channels are generated, it is possible to increase the chances of viewing a larger amount of stored content and prevent the stored content from being stored dead.

  Furthermore, a program guide may be displayed to improve user convenience. Hereinafter, the program guide display process will be described with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10. FIG. The program table displayed here is a combination of the actual broadcast program table and the virtual channel program table as shown in FIG. That is, when the user instructs display of the program guide with the remote controller or the like, the program guide as shown in FIG. 9 is displayed.

  FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing details of the program guide display process. In FIG. 10, first, in step S51, when the operation information acquisition unit 150 acquires a program guide display instruction from the user using a remote controller or the like, the control unit 110 issues a program guide display screen creation start instruction to the GUI generation unit 115. Put out. In addition, the attribute information acquisition unit 130 acquires the attribute information of the actual broadcast program from the EPG.

  Next, in step S <b> 52, the GUI generation unit 115 receives the attribute information acquired by the attribute information acquisition unit 130, the virtual channel schedule table generated by the virtual channel generation unit 113, and the current time information from the clock unit 190. get. In subsequent step S53, the GUI generation unit 115 extracts schedule data of virtual channels after a certain time period including the current time information. For example, one day early in the morning (3: 00-7: 00), morning (7: 00-12: 00), noon (12: 00-17: 00), night (17: 00-22: 00), midnight Assuming that it is divided into five time zones (22: 00-3: 00), if the current time information indicates 13:00, the schedule data from 12:00, which is the daytime time zone Will be extracted. It should be noted that other methods may be used for dividing the time zone. At this time, the GUI generation unit 115 also acquires the attribute information of the stored content (program reproduced on the virtual channel) indicated by the extracted schedule data from the information recording medium 120.

  Next, in step S54, the GUI generation unit 115 creates a program guide by combining the acquired attribute information. As shown in FIG. 9, the program table seems to be a combination of the program table for the actual broadcast program created based on the attribute information and the virtual channel program table based on the schedule data extracted from step S53. It is a naive program guide. In FIG. 9, a program title and program contents are described in each program cell. In subsequent step S55, the GUI generation unit 115 causes the GUI display unit 170 to display the program table generated in step S54. By performing the above processing, the program guide is displayed. In this way, by creating and displaying a program table combining actual broadcast programs and virtual channels, the user can determine what programs are scheduled to be broadcast and what programs are assigned to the virtual channels. It is possible to know and enhance the convenience of viewing.

(Second Embodiment)
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. In the first embodiment described above, a virtual channel is generated for video content such as a television program. On the other hand, in the second embodiment, a virtual channel is generated for music content. Note that the content reproduction apparatus according to this embodiment is the same as that of the above-described first embodiment, and thus the same reference numerals are assigned and detailed description thereof is omitted.

  First, recording of content data such as CD, DVD, and electronic music distribution on the information recording medium 120 by the content reproduction apparatus 100 will be described. When the compressed content data is received by the broadcast content receiving unit 140, the recording unit 114 records the content data on the information recording medium as it is if it is the same as the compression encoding method recorded on the information recording medium. However, when recording by another compression encoding method, the content data is decoded by the audio decoder 160, encoded to another compression encoding method by the audio encoder 180, and recorded on the information recording medium 120. If the content data received by the broadcast content receiving unit 140 is not encoded, the content data is encoded by the audio encoder 180 and the video encoder 181 according to the compression encoding method and recorded on the information recording medium 120. Of course, you may record on the information recording medium 120 as it is, without encoding in a compression encoding system. In addition, when attribute information is acquired by the attribute information acquisition unit 130 (in the case of CD or DVD, music bibliographic information recorded on CDDB or disc, in the case of DVD radio program, radio program guide, etc.), the feature amount calculation The feature amount is extracted by the unit 111 and recorded on the information recording medium 120 as a pair with the corresponding content. The feature amount in this case includes a genre name, artist name, song name, album name, impression information, lyrics information, liner note, and the like. Note that, for the song name, album name, lyrics information, and liner note, words decomposed using morphological analysis are extracted as feature quantities. Impression information is information indicating the impression of a song, such as a dark song or a bright song.

  The virtual channel reproduction schedule generation processing according to the second embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. The reproduction schedule generation process performed in this embodiment is the same as the generation process described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4 in the first embodiment except for the similarity calculation process in steps S4 and S12. For this reason, descriptions other than the similarity calculation processing are omitted.

  FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing details of similarity calculation processing in the second embodiment. In FIG. 11, the feature quantity calculation unit 111 first extracts a feature attribute from the attribute information of the inspection target content (step S61). Here, genre, artist, song title, album name, impression information, and content information are extracted from the attribute information as feature attributes. Here, the content information is an item combining the lyrics information and the liner note. Next, the feature amount calculation unit 111 calculates a feature vector of the content to be inspected using the extracted feature attributes (step S62). The feature vector is calculated for each attribute of genre, artist, song title, album name, impression information, and content information. In the genre feature vector, each genre is set as an evaluation item, the evaluation value corresponding to the genre of the music is set to 1, and the evaluation value is set to 0 otherwise. For example, assuming that there are three genres of JPOP, classic, and jazz, the feature vector related to the genre of JPOP music is (JPOP: 1, classic: 0, jazz: 0). In the artist-related vector, each artist name is an evaluation item, the evaluation value of the corresponding music artist name is 1, and the other evaluation values are 0. In the vector related to impression information, each impression word is an evaluation item, the evaluation value of the impression of the corresponding music is 1, and the other evaluation values are 0. The feature vectors for the song title, album name, and content information use each word extracted by morphological analysis as an evaluation item, and the appearance frequency of the word as an evaluation value. For example, assuming the words of winter, love, sea, and flowers, if the words of love and sea appear once each in a music title, the feature vector of this song name is (winter: 0, love: 1, sea: 1, flowers: 0). Although the appearance frequency of the word is used as it is as the evaluation value, a value obtained by performing some normalization may be used. Moreover, you may use TF * IDF of a word as an evaluation value. Also, a feature vector may be calculated by replacing a plurality of words having similar semantic contents with one word. In this way, the feature amount calculation unit 111 uses the genre vector (GVr), artist vector (PVr), impression vector (IVr), song name vector (STVr), and album name vector (ATVr) as the feature vectors of the content to be inspected. , A content vector (CVr) is generated. Similar feature vectors are calculated for playlists that have already been set. For example, in consideration of artists A, B, and C, if a playlist includes 5 songs of artist A and 3 songs of artist C, the artist vector of this playlist is (artist A: 5, Artist B: 0, Artist C: 3). Of course, a value obtained by performing some normalization may be used as the evaluation value.

  Next, the attribute information acquisition unit 130 calculates a feature vector for each broadcast-scheduled content in the comparison time period as in the case of the content to be inspected (step S63). Specifically, the attribute information acquisition unit 130 first acquires attribute information about each broadcast-scheduled content in the comparison time period from a radio program guide or the like. Next, the feature amount calculation unit 111 extracts the feature attributes as described above from the attribute information. Then, the feature amount calculation unit 111 calculates a feature vector similar to that in step S62 for each program in which one or more music contents are broadcast, and generates a genre vector (GVb), an artist vector (PVb), and an impression. A vector (IVb), a song name vector (STVb), an album name vector (ATVb), and a content vector (CVb) are generated. The content vector is generated using the program content described in the radio program guide. Also, if the program is not clearly divided at certain intervals, such as Internet radio, the scheduled broadcast song is divided at an appropriate time interval such as one hour, and the feature vector is set for each segment as one program. You may create it. Of course, feature vectors may be created for each song.

Next, the similarity calculation unit 112 calculates the similarity using the feature vector of the inspection target content and the feature vector of the scheduled broadcast content (step S65). The content similarity (CSim) is represented by the sum of the feature vector similarities (VSim) of each evaluation item (genre, artist, impression, song title, album name, content).
CSim = αVSim (GVr, GVb) + βVSim (PVr, PVb) + γVSim (IVr, IVb) + θVSim (STVr, STVb) + ζVSim (ATVr, ATVb) + ηVSim (CVr, CVb)
Vsim (A, B) means the calculation of the cosine distance between the vectors A and B. Further, α, β, γ, θ, ζ, and η are weighting factors, and are set so as to represent the importance of similarity between items. If there is a similarity that is not used, the weighting factor for that item may be set to zero. Using such a calculation formula, considering a certain time zone (for example, from 19:00 to 20:00), the similarity to the stored content is determined for each of a plurality of programs broadcast in this time zone. Will be calculated. Then, the similarity calculation unit 112 associates the calculated similarity with the inspection target content and holds it in a temporary storage unit (memory or the like) (not shown) (step S66). Above, the similarity calculation process in 2nd Embodiment is complete | finished.

  The reproduction of the virtual channel generated by such a process is performed by the same process as the reproduction process described with reference to FIG. 7 in the first embodiment. As for the display of the program guide, the same processing as that described with reference to FIG. 10 in the first embodiment is performed, and the program guide as shown in FIG. 12 is displayed. In FIG. 12, in the program channel of the virtual channel, information of the stored contents searched, for example, album name, song name, artist name, etc. are described.

  As described above, in the second embodiment, when viewing the stored content recorded on the large-capacity recording medium, the user does not need to search for the content one by one, but only by switching the general channel. It is possible to view stored contents with high possibility. In addition, since the stored content whose content is not similar to the content currently being broadcast is played back, the content of interest is not played back at the same time, and the problem of missing one of the content can be prevented.

  In the above description, the stored content having the content different from that of the broadcast-scheduled program is searched using the similarity based on the feature vector. However, the stored content may be searched using a simpler method. For example, stored content that is in a genre different from the genre of a song included in a broadcast schedule program in a certain time zone may be searched and assigned to a virtual channel. In addition, using the information related to the artist, it is also possible to search for the accumulated content of an artist different from the artist of the song broadcast on the broadcast scheduled program. Similarly, stored content included in an album different from the album including the song broadcast in the broadcast scheduled program may be searched using the album name information. In addition, by using information related to impressions, a song having an impression different from the impression of a song broadcast on a broadcast-scheduled program may be searched from the stored content. The stored content having a song name different from the song name broadcasted in the scheduled broadcast program may be searched using the song name information. Furthermore, using the words appearing in the program contents, lyrics information, and liner notes, they appear in the contents of the scheduled programs, the lyrics and liner notes of the broadcast songs, and the lyrics information and liner notes of the stored contents. You may search the accumulation | storage content in which the number of words is less than a threshold value.

  In the above-described processing, a feature vector is calculated from attribute information composed of text, and a similarity is calculated. However, in the future, if information related to the content data of the scheduled broadcast song (for example, rust of the scheduled broadcast song) can be obtained via the Internet, a feature vector related to the feature amount of the content data is generated and used for similarity calculation. It doesn't matter. In this case, a content feature amount extraction unit that extracts feature amounts from the content data as described above may be added to the configuration. Content data features include music features such as song tempo, beat, tonality, chords, timbre, and number of sounds, physical features such as frequency, music signal power level, vocal voice quality, and music There are mapping information derived using values such as feature quantities and physical feature quantities and mapping functions. For example, map information includes sensitivity information indicating the impression of a song such as a bright song or a dark song. Then, when the information recording medium 120 is recorded, the feature amount of the stored content is extracted by the content feature amount extraction unit and recorded in the information recording medium 120.

  Further, the number of virtual channels is not necessarily one, and a plurality of virtual channels may be generated. In this case, the same processing as that described with reference to FIG. 8 in the first embodiment may be performed.

  A content playback apparatus, a playback method, a recording medium on which a playback program is recorded, and an integrated circuit used in the playback apparatus according to the present invention allow a user to view stored content with a simple operation. This is useful for applications such as a content playback apparatus using a storage medium.

Block diagram showing the configuration of the content playback device Diagram showing an example of a virtual channel The flowchart which shows the reproduction schedule production | generation process of a virtual channel The flowchart which shows the reproduction schedule production | generation process of a virtual channel The flowchart which shows the detail of the similarity calculation process shown by step S4 of FIG. 3, and step S12 of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the calculated similarity Flowchart showing virtual channel content playback processing Flow chart showing multiple virtual channel generation processing The figure which shows an example of the program guide in the case of television broadcasting Flowchart showing program table display processing Flow chart showing similarity calculation processing in the case of radio broadcasting The figure which shows an example of the program guide in the case of radio broadcasting

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Content reproduction apparatus 110 Control part 111 Feature-value calculation part 112 Similarity calculation part 113 Virtual channel production | generation part 114 Recording part 115 GUI production | generation part 116 Virtual channel reproduction part 120 Information recording medium 130 Attribute information acquisition part 140 Broadcast content reception part 150 Operation Information acquisition unit 160 Audio decoder 161 Video decoder 170 GUI display unit 180 Audio encoder 181 Video encoder 190 Clock unit

Claims (19)

A content playback device for playing back stored content recorded on an information recording medium,
A recording unit that records attribute information that is information on the stored content and the content of the content on the information recording medium;
A content receiver for receiving broadcast content;
An attribute information acquisition unit for acquiring attribute information of the broadcast content;
A similarity calculation unit that calculates the similarity between the broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each of the stored content based on the attribute information;
A virtual channel generation unit that determines the stored content to be reproduced in the predetermined time period according to the similarity;
A content reproduction apparatus comprising: a virtual channel reproduction unit that controls reproduction of the determined stored content as a virtual channel and output to an output apparatus in the predetermined time period.   The similarity calculation unit determines the length of the predetermined time period according to the length of the reproduction time of the stored content, and calculates the similarity between the broadcast content broadcast in the time period and the stored content The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 1. The content receiving unit receives the broadcast content from a plurality of broadcast channels,
The content reproduction device according to claim 1, wherein the similarity calculation unit calculates the similarity for each of a plurality of broadcast contents received from the plurality of broadcast channels.   The content playback device according to claim 1, wherein the virtual channel generation unit determines the stored content whose similarity calculated by the similarity calculation unit is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold as the stored content to be played back.   The content reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording unit records the broadcast content and attribute information of the broadcast content in an information recording medium in association with each other.   The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the broadcast content is a television program. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires information about the program genre of the broadcast content as the attribute information,
The similarity calculation unit determines whether or not the broadcast genre and the stored content have the same program genre. If the program genre is determined to be the same, the similarity is calculated to be relatively high. The content reproduction device according to claim 6, wherein the content reproduction device calculates a low value. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires information about a performer of the broadcast content as the attribute information,
The similarity calculation unit determines whether or not the same performer is included in the broadcast content and the stored content, and if the same performer is included, the similarity is calculated to be relatively high and the same appearance is performed. The content playback apparatus according to claim 6, wherein if the user is not included, the similarity is calculated to be relatively low. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires, as the attribute information, a word included in program content information that is information indicating the content of the broadcast content,
The similarity calculation unit determines the number of words included in both the program content information of the broadcast content and the program content information of the stored content, and the number of words included in both is a predetermined threshold value The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 6, wherein if it is above, the degree of similarity is calculated to be relatively high, and if the number of the words is not equal to or greater than the predetermined threshold, the degree of similarity is calculated to be relatively low. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires a word included in a program title as the attribute information,
The similarity calculation unit determines the number of words included in both the program title of the broadcast content and the program title of the stored content, and the number of words included in both is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold. 7. The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 6, wherein if there is, the similarity is calculated to be relatively high, and if the number of words is not equal to or greater than the predetermined threshold, the similarity is calculated to be relatively low.   The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the broadcast content is a radio program, and the content recorded by the recording unit is music data. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires song title information as the attribute information,
The similarity calculation unit determines whether or not a song having the same title as the recorded song data is broadcast in a broadcast radio program. When the same song is broadcast, the similarity is relatively high. The content reproduction device according to claim 11, wherein the content reproduction device calculates and calculates a relatively low similarity if the same music is not broadcast. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires album information including music as the attribute information,
The similarity calculation unit determines whether the recorded music data is a music included in the same album name as an album name including a music broadcast on the radio program, and is included in the same album The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the similarity is calculated relatively high, and the similarity is calculated relatively low if the music is not in the same album. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires artist information of music as the attribute information,
The similarity calculation unit determines whether the artist of the recorded music data and the artist of the music broadcast on the radio program are the same artist, and if the music is the same artist, the similarity is calculated. The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the content reproduction apparatus calculates a relatively high value and calculates a similarity level relatively low if the music is not of the same artist. The attribute information acquisition unit acquires genre information of music as the attribute information,
The similarity calculation unit determines whether the genre of the recorded music data and the genre of the music broadcast on the radio program are the same genre. The content reproduction apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the similarity is calculated to be relatively low and the similarity is calculated to be relatively low if the music is not of the same genre. A GUI generation unit for generating a display screen on which the attribute information is displayed on the screen;
The GUI generation unit generates a display screen in which the attribute information of the broadcast content and the attribute information of the stored content reproduced as the virtual channel are displayed on the same screen. The content reproduction apparatus described in 1. A content playback method for playing back stored content recorded on an information recording medium,
A recording step of recording, on the information recording medium, attribute information that is information relating to the stored content and the content;
A content receiving step for receiving broadcast content;
An attribute information acquisition step of acquiring attribute information of the broadcast content;
A similarity calculation step of calculating a similarity between the broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each of the stored content based on the attribute information;
A virtual channel generating step for determining the stored content to be reproduced in the predetermined time period according to the similarity;
A content reproduction method comprising: a reproduction of the determined stored content as a virtual channel in the predetermined time zone and a virtual channel reproduction step of controlling output to an output device. A recording medium on which a content reproduction program executed by a computer of a content reproduction apparatus for reproducing content is recorded,
A recording medium that records a content reproduction program that is executed by a computer of a content reproduction apparatus that reproduces stored content recorded in an information recording medium,
A recording step of recording attribute information, which is information relating to the stored content and the content of the content, on the information recording medium;
A content receiving step for receiving broadcast content;
An attribute information acquisition step of acquiring attribute information of the broadcast content;
A similarity calculation step of calculating a similarity between the broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each of the stored content based on the attribute information;
A virtual channel generating step for determining the stored content to be reproduced in the predetermined time period according to the similarity;
A recording medium on which is recorded a content playback program that causes the computer to execute playback of the determined stored content as a virtual channel in the predetermined time zone and a virtual channel playback step for controlling output to an output device. An integrated circuit used in a content playback apparatus for playing back stored content recorded on an information recording medium,
A recording unit that records attribute information that is information on the stored content and the content of the content on the information recording medium;
A content receiver for receiving broadcast content;
An attribute information acquisition unit for acquiring attribute information of the broadcast content;
A similarity calculation unit that calculates the similarity between the broadcast content broadcast in a predetermined time zone and each of the stored content based on the attribute information;
A virtual channel generation unit that determines the stored content to be reproduced in the predetermined time period according to the similarity;
An integrated circuit comprising: a virtual channel playback unit that controls playback of the determined stored content as a virtual channel and output to an output device in the predetermined time period.

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