JP2007267080A - Image receiving set - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image receiving set which reduces waste of a power line communication bandwidth. <P>SOLUTION: A PLC modem circuit 38 receives image data from an image server 24, and supplies it to an image conversion device 40. The image conversion device 40 converts the image and sound of the image data from the modem circuit 38 into a form which can be displayed with a graphic display device 50. The output image and audio signal of the image conversion device 40 is applied to the graphic display device 50 via an image and sound output terminal 34. An operating state sensing device 44 detects whether the graphic display device 50 is in an image indication state, or in a non-image indication state via a control terminal 36. According to the detection result of an electricity usage sensing device 44, in the case that the graphic display device 50 transits from the image indication state to the non-image indication state, when receiving image data, a control device 46 requires a distribution stop of the receiving image data of the image server 24. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a video receiving apparatus that receives video using power line communication.

  Recently, modem products with a physical speed of about 200 Mbps have appeared in power line communication (PLC) networks. In principle, in power line communication, when a plurality of modems are used on the same power line, the transmission band is shared, so in general, when the number of modems on the same power line increases, per unit The bandwidth of decreases. In particular, in a power line communication system using a band of several tens of Mbps such as video, management of a band allocated to each modem is important.

  In the PLC, multicast cannot be used even when data of the same content is transmitted to a plurality of PLC modems. This is because the band used for data transmission differs depending on the other modem. That is, the PLC basically has a one-to-one communication.

Patent Document 1 discloses an information transfer apparatus that controls transfer of stream information using a timer in order to prevent wasteful use of network resources.
JP 2004-295375 A

  When a video signal is received through power line communication, a set top box is connected to the power line communication modem, and a video display device is connected to the set top box. The set top box converts the video data received via the power line communication modem into a form suitable for display on the video display device, and outputs the converted data to the video display device.

  In such a viewing mode, conventionally, the set-top box in the power-on state requests the video server to distribute the video data and receives the video data regardless of whether or not the video display device displays the video. At this time, the band of power line communication is wasted, and as a result, the band that can be used by other power line communication modems is limited.

  Such a problem is the same when a video recording device for recording video is connected to the set-top box.

  It is an object of the present invention to provide a video receiving apparatus that reduces such waste of bandwidth.

  A video receiving apparatus according to the present invention is a video receiving apparatus that supplies video information received by power line communication (PLC) to a video equipment, and is a connection interface for connecting video equipment capable of transferring a video / audio signal and a control signal. A PLC modem circuit that receives video data from the video distribution device, a converter that converts video and audio data received via the PLC modem circuit into a predetermined format, and supplies the video equipment to the video equipment; When the operation state detection device detects an operation state and the operation state detection device detects a transition from the operation state to the non-operation state of the video device when receiving the video data, And a control device that requests a stop.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the waste of the band of power line communication by useless video transmission can be prevented. Band assignment to power line communication modems connected to unused video equipment can be reduced, and bandwidth can be assigned to other necessary power line communication equipment.

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

  FIG. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. The outlets 12 and 14 are connected to the power line 10 in the building or home. A power plug 22 of the PLC modem device 20 is connected to the outlet 12, and a video server 24 that stores and stores a plurality of videos is connected to the PLC modem device 20.

  A power plug 32 of the video receiver 30 is connected to the power outlet 14. The video display device 50 is connected to the video / audio output terminal 34 and the control terminal 36 of the video reception device 30. The video display device 50 displays video from the video / audio output terminal 34 and outputs audio. The video receiving device 30 can detect and monitor the operating state of the video display device 50 by exchanging control signals and their response signals with the video display device 50 via the control terminal 36. An example of an interface capable of transferring a video / audio signal and a control signal between video devices is HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface).

  The video receiving device 30 has a built-in PLC modem circuit 38, which is a combination of a set top box used for a cable TV and a PLC modem device. The PLC modem circuit 38 receives video data transmitted from the video server 24 via the PLC modem device 20 and the power line 10 and supplies the video data to the video conversion device 40. The video conversion device 40 uses the memory 42 to convert the video and video of the video data from the modem circuit 38 into a format that can be output by the video display device 50, for example, an analog NTSC signal and an analog audio signal.

  The video / audio signal output from the video conversion device 40 is applied to the video display device 50 via the video / audio output terminal 34. The video display device 50 displays the video from the video / audio output terminal 34 on the screen and outputs the audio from the speaker in the power-on state.

  The operation state detection device 44 is connected to the video display device 50 via the control terminal 36 and detects whether the video display device 50 is in a video display state or a video non-display state. The video non-display state is a power-off state or a standby state in which the power is on but no video is displayed. The operation state detection device 44 notifies the control device 46 of the detection result.

  The control device 46 controls the video reception device 30 according to the detection result of the power usage detection device 44 and the operation of the operation device 48, requests the video server 24 for video distribution, and requests the video distribution to stop. Details of this will be described later.

  A characteristic operation of the video receiver 30 will be described. When the video display device 50 is in the video display state based on the detection result of the operation state detection device 44, the control device 46 is designated by the channel set by the user using the operation device 48 (or specified by the remote controller of the video display device 50). The video server 24 is requested to transmit video data of the channel obtained from the video display device 50 via the control terminal 36 and the operation state detection device 44. The video data distributed from the video server 24 is processed as described above and is input to the video display device 50. The video display device 50 displays the video of the video data and outputs audio. Of course, the channel selection by the user and the transition of the video display device 50 from the video non-display state to the video display state may be slightly different.

  When the video data is received in this way, the video display device 50 transitions from the video display state to the video non-display state, and when the operation state detection device 44 detects this, the control device 46 has received the video data. The video server 24 is requested to stop the distribution of the video data via the PLC modem circuit 38. When the video display device 50 is in a video non-display state without requesting video distribution, the control circuit 46 does not transmit a distribution stop request signal to the video server.

  In this way, in this embodiment, when the video display device 50 becomes non-displayed, the video server 24 is requested to stop video distribution and video transmission by power line communication is stopped. Therefore, the power line communication band on the power line 10 is increased. It can prevent wasting.

  When a video recording device is connected instead of the video display device 50, the operation state detection device 44 detects whether or not the video recording device is recording. When the recording is stopped or the power is off, the recording operation is not in progress. The control device 46 requests the video server 24 to transfer the video data of the channel scheduled to be recorded immediately before the start of recording, and stops the transfer of the video data of the channel according to the end of the recording of the video recording device. 24.

  Although the embodiment in which the PLC modem and the device corresponding to the set top box are integrated has been described, the function of the video receiving device 30 may be appropriately separated into a communication function and a video processing function. For example, the video receiving device 30 may be separated from the video conversion device 40 and the memory 42, or only the PLC modem circuit 38 may be separated.

  Although the case where information consisting of video and audio is received has been described, the present invention can also be applied to the case where only video is received. That is, in the claims and the specification, the video includes both a case of only a video not including audio and a case of including video and audio.

  Although the invention has been described with reference to specific illustrative embodiments, various modifications and alterations may be made to the above-described embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the claims. This is obvious to an engineer in the field to which the present invention belongs, and such changes and modifications are also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

It is a schematic block diagram of the first embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

10: Power lines 12, 14: Outlet 20: PLC modem device 22: Power plug 24: Video server 30: Video receiver 32: Power plug 34: Video / audio output terminal 36: Power output terminal 38: PLC modem circuit 40: Video conversion Device 42: Memory 44: Operating state detection device 46: Control device 48: Operating device

Claims (3)

A video receiving device that supplies video information received by power line communication (PLC) to video equipment,
Connection interfaces (34, 36) for connecting video equipment, capable of transferring video / audio signals and control signals,
A PLC modem circuit (38) for receiving video data from the video distribution device (24);
A converter (40) for converting video / audio data received via the PLC modem circuit (38) into a predetermined format and supplying the video / audio data to the video equipment;
An operation state detection device (44) for detecting an operation state of the video equipment;
When the operation state detection device (44) detects a transition from the operation state to the non-operation state of the video device upon reception of the video data, the control device (46 that requests the video distribution device to stop video distribution) )
A video receiving apparatus comprising:   2. When the video device is a video display device, the operation state is a video display state, and the non-operation state is either a standby state where no video is displayed or a power-off state. The video receiver described in 1.   2. The device according to claim 1, wherein when the video device is a video recording device, the operation state is a recording operation state, and the non-operation state is one of a recording stop state and a power-off state. Video receiver.

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