JP2007272815A - Content server apparatus, genre setting method and computer program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To set a genre name to a content having no name. <P>SOLUTION: A controller of a content server apparatus 1 detects a content having no genre name from a group of contents, and determines an artist name of the detected content to acquire a genre assigned to contents of the same artist. In addition, the controller accesses a preregistered content information providing apparatus 3 to acquire a genre name from content information that has the same artist name as search conditions, and then writes the genre name into the content stored in a storage device. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a content server device, a genre setting method, and a computer program.

  As a method of searching for desired content, there is a method of setting “genre (classification)” in content attribute information and performing narrowing down or searching using the genre as a key.

The content usually has a field called TOC (Table Of Contents), and information such as a genre name is written in the TOC. Using the genre stored in the TOC information as a key, as described above, the content is searched or displayed in a tree on the menu. However, the genre name is not always written in the TOC information. Also, a mechanism that can acquire the genre name of a content from a database in which music content information is widely accumulated, such as CDDB (CD DataBase), has been proposed (for example, Patent Document 1). Is not necessarily registered. Furthermore, genre information may not be available for content that is not registered in CDDB or the like.
JP 2005-174212 A

  Content for which a genre is not set is also assigned to a genre such as “Unknown” or “Other”. However, there are many actual genres of content classified as “others”, and it is often impossible to search for content desired by the user.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to enable a genre to be automatically set for content without a genre.

In order to achieve the above object, a content server device according to the first aspect of the present invention provides:
Content storage means for storing a plurality of contents, their genres, and artists in association with each other;
Non-genre content discriminating means for discriminating content not associated with a genre from content stored in the content storage means;
Artist discriminating means for discriminating the artist of the content discriminated by the non-genre content discriminating means;
Genre determining means for determining a genre associated with the artist determined by the artist determining means;
For content that is determined not to be associated with a genre by the non-genre content determination unit, the content storage unit stores a genre so that the content, the artist, and the genre determined by the artist determination unit correspond to each other. Genre writing means for writing;
It is characterized by providing.

  For example, the content server device may be connected via a communication network to a content information providing device that stores content attribute information including content identification information, the content genre, and an artist. In this case, for example, the content server device includes second genre determining means for accessing the content information server and determining a genre associated with the artist determined by the artist determining means, and the genre writing And means for determining whether the genre is not associated with the non-genre content discriminating means and the artist discriminated by the artist discriminating means being associated with the genre discriminating means or The genre is written in the content storage means so that the genres determined by the two genre determination means are associated with each other.

  For example, the content storage means stores TOC (Table Of Contents) information, and the non-genre content determination means refers to TOC (Table Of Contents) information, and whether the genre is described in the TOC information. By determining whether or not the content is not associated with a genre.

In order to achieve the above object, a genre setting method according to a second aspect of the present invention includes:
Among the contents stored in the content storage means for storing the plurality of contents, the genre and the artist in association with each other, the contents not associated with the genre are determined,
Determine the artist of the identified content,
Determine the genre associated with the determined artist,
Based on the determined genre, for the content determined not to be associated with the genre by the non-genre content determination unit, the genre corresponding to the content is written in the content storage unit.
It is characterized by that.

In order to achieve the above object, a computer program according to the third aspect of the present invention provides a computer,
Among the contents stored in the content storage means for storing a plurality of contents, the genre and the artist in association with each other, a content not associated with the genre is determined,
Determine the artist of the identified content,
Determine the genre associated with the determined artist,
Based on the determined genre, for the content determined not to be associated with the genre by the non-genre content determination unit, the genre corresponding to the content is written in the content storage unit.
Execute the process.

  According to the present invention, a genre can be automatically set for content having no genre information. Moreover, since the genre is specified based on the artist, the genre can be specified relatively accurately.

  Hereinafter, a content server apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described.

  A content server apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention is an apparatus installed in a content distribution company. As shown in FIG. 1, a communication network N, a content server apparatus 1, a client apparatus 2, and content information It comprises a providing device 3.

  The content server device 1 is a device that stores a plurality of contents, receives a search condition (song title, genre, artist name, etc.) from the client device 2, searches for the corresponding content, and provides it to the requesting client device 2. is there. Note that the content server device 1 has a function of automatically setting a genre when a genre is not set for stored content. A mechanism for automatically setting the genre will be described later.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the content server device 1 includes a communication device 10, a control device 11, and a storage device 12.

  The communication device 10 includes, for example, a communication device such as a NIC (Network Interface Card), a router, or a modem, and transmits / receives various information to / from the client device 2 via the communication network N.

  The control device 11 includes, for example, a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a RAM (Random Access Memory) serving as a work area, and executes various control operations described later.

  The storage device 12 is composed of an external storage device such as a hard disk device, and stores a processing program of the control device 11, a content group such as music, and the like. As shown in FIG. 3, the content group is a set of a plurality of contents having TOC information. In the TOC information, attribute information such as album title, genre name, total performance time, performance time of each music, and the like are registered. Along with the TOC information, each piece of music included in the album is stored as content. Not all information is available, and information such as genre and artist may be missing.

  The communication network N is a network that performs data transmission based on a communication program such as TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol).

  The client device 2 is a general content reproduction device having a network communication function, and is constituted by, for example, an information processing device such as a personal computer or a content reproduction dedicated device.

  The client device 2 is a device used by a person who uses content (hereinafter referred to as a user).

  For example, the client device 2 designates search conditions such as a song name, artist name, and genre name as a search condition, instructs the content server device 1 to perform a search, receives a list of contents corresponding to the search condition, Arbitrary content is specified from the list, downloaded, and stored in the storage device.

  The client device 2 can play back or search the content stored in the storage device.

  The content information providing device 3 is a device that provides information related to music recorded on a music CD to the user's client device 2, and includes information providing devices such as CDDB and freedb. In this CDDB and freedb, as shown in FIG. 4, for example, the number of songs included in the album and its time, as well as various information such as the album release date, song genre, songwriter and composer are registered. Is done.

  Next, processing for using the content server device 1 will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 5, the processing of the content server device 1 includes a content extraction process (step S1), a genre name acquisition process (step S2), and a genre name writing process (step S3). Hereinafter, each process will be described in detail.

  As a premise, in the storage device 12 of the content server device 1, it is assumed that a content group is registered together with the TOC by the content distributor as shown in FIG. 3 and the content can be downloaded from the client device 2. .

  As another premise, it is assumed that a content information group as shown in FIG. 4 is registered in the content information providing apparatus 3 and the content server apparatus 1 is in an environment accessible to the content information providing apparatus 3.

  Under such a premise, the user casts a search condition with the artist name “Nihohe” and the genre name “Enka” from the client device 2 to the content server device 1, and the content of the content corresponding to the search condition. Assume that an extraction request is made.

  First, the control device 11 of the content server device 1 performs content extraction processing (step S1).

  In this content extraction process (step S1), the control device 11 reads and stores the artist name and genre name written in the request message (step S100). Specifically, the control device 11 determines whether or not there is any description in the received request request message, for example, in the items of artist name and genre name of the request message described in HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Whether or not “Nihohe” or “Enka” is written is read by a known method such as a search command if it is java and stored in the storage device 12.

  Next, in step S100, the control device 11 uses the stored artist name and genre name to extract content having the same artist name and genre name as the artist name and genre name. Specifically, the control unit 11 extracts content that matches the artist name “Nihohe” and stores it in the storage device 12 (step S101).

  Further, the control device 11 determines whether or not the content extracted in step S101 has a genre name (step S102), and if it is determined that there is no genre name (step S102; No), there is no genre name. The content is extracted and stored in the storage device 12 (step S103). Specifically, the control unit 11 reads the character string written in the “genre name” item of the content 120 extracted in step S101, and determines whether or not there is a genre name. Then, when there is no genre name, that is, blank, the content is extracted and stored in the storage device 12. On the other hand, when it is determined that there is a genre name (step S102; Yes), the content extraction process (step S1) is terminated.

  When the processes so far are finished, the content extraction process (step S1) is finished, and the process proceeds to the genre name acquisition process (step S2).

  The control device 11 accesses the content server device 3 by reading the artist name stored in step S100 and the location information of the content information providing server device 3 stored in advance in the content server device 1, for example, the IP address, and accesses the content server device 3. Content information 320 is extracted from the information group. Specifically, the control device 11 uses, for example, a search command for java to use the search command or the like to extract content information having the artist name stored in step S101 from the content server device 3, and in step S202 described later. A telegram including a command for reading the genre name is created (step S200).

  Next, the control device 11 executes the instruction included in the message generated in step S200, and specifies the content information 320 of the artist name described in the message from the content information group of the content information providing device 3 (step S200). S201). Specifically, the control device 11 specifies content information 320 including “Nihohe” written in the message from the content information group, using the search command described above.

  Subsequently, the control device 11 takes out the character string described in the item of the genre name of the content information 320 and stores it in the storage device 12 (step S202). Specifically, the control device 11 executes the electronic message generated in step S200 described above, extracts “Enka” as the genre name from the content information 320, and stores it in the storage device 12. In addition, when the genre name “enka” cannot be extracted from the content information 320, for example, even when the genre name is blank, the control device 11 stores the blank value in the storage device 12.

  When the processing so far is finished, the genre name acquisition processing (step S2) is finished, and then the genre name writing processing (step S3) is performed.

  In the genre name writing process (step S3), the control device 11 first determines whether or not the genre name stored in the storage device 12 in step S202 is a character string (step S300). Specifically, the control device 11 determines whether the genre name is written by reading the genre name “enka” (step S300). If it is determined that the genre name is written, the genre name is written in the content without the genre name stored in S103, and the content is stored (step S301). Specifically, the genre name “enka” is written and stored in the genre name item of the corresponding content using, for example, a write command or the like.

  On the other hand, if it is determined that the genre name is not written, the process proceeds to artist search processing (step S31).

  On the other hand, in the artist search process (step S31), the control device 11 specifies content having the same artist name as the artist name stored in step S101 from the content extracted in step S101 (step S310).

  Then, it is determined whether or not the content specified in step S310 has a genre name (step S311). If there is a genre name, the genre name of the content (content 121 shown in FIG. 3) is read and content without a genre name is obtained. 120 is written (step S312).

  On the other hand, if it is determined in step S311 that there is no genre name, the artist name stored in step S100 is written in the content 120 without the genre name (step S313).

  By performing step S301 or step S311 as described above, a genre name is set for content without a genre name.

  Then, the control device 11 instructs the communication device 10 to transmit the TOC information of the content stored in any one of step S301, step S312 or step S313 to the client device 2, and the communication device 10 Information is transmitted to the client device 2 (step S302).

  With the above process, the genre name writing process (step S3) is completed, and all the genre setting processes are completed. By performing such processing, even when a search request for content without a genre name is made from the client device 2, a search based on the genre name can be performed without being classified as “others” or the like.

  The above embodiment is an example, and the present invention is not limited to this. That is, various applications are possible, and all embodiments are included in the scope of the present invention.

For example, in the above embodiment, the genre name is written in the content on the assumption that the content information providing device 3 is connected. However, it is not possible to connect to the communication network N by detecting whether the communication network N can be connected, for example. When the possibility is high, it is possible to directly set the genre name from the content group of the content server device 1 without connecting to the content information providing device 3.
Further, the content information providing apparatus 3 may not be connected.

  In the above embodiment, the artist name and the genre name are received from the client device 2 and the content is searched. However, for example, the search is performed with other processing conditions such as the artist name and the country name. It doesn't matter.

  In the above embodiment, the case where a genre and an artist are designated as search conditions has been described as an example in order to facilitate understanding, but the search conditions are arbitrary. If there is content whose genre is not specified as a result of the search, the artist is identified, the other content of the artist is identified, the genre assigned to it is identified, and the genre of the corresponding content To do.

When a plurality of genres are searched for the same artist, for example, an arbitrary genre may be specified by a method such as majority vote.
Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the content of the music CD is taken up and described, but the content may be an image, a moving image, a book, a paper, or the like. Thus, an artist is a broad concept including singer, orchestra, composer, lyricist, film director, lead actor, assistant performer, screenwriter, original author, paper writer, supervisor, and the like. The genre name is not limited to the type of music in the music field, but can be any image, movie type, technical field, age, country / region, etc.

  Further, although an example has been shown in which a genre is set for content for which genre is not set when a search request is made from the client device 2, the content server 1 automatically sets a genre at a timing with a low load such as midnight. Also good.

  The system configuration and operation can be arbitrarily changed as long as the same functional configuration can be obtained. For example, in the above embodiment, it is assumed that the content server device 1 and the content information providing device 3 are physically separated from each other. Specifically, the function of the content server device 1 and the function of the content information providing device 3 may be retained. In the case of this configuration, it is not necessary to access the content information providing device 3, so that the IP address information or the like is stored in advance in the storage device 12 in order to read the IP address information of the content information providing device 3 in step S200, for example. There is no need.

  The content server device 1 according to the above embodiment can be configured by a general-purpose computer system as well as being realized by a dedicated device. In this case, the general-purpose computer device can be caused to function as the content server device 1 by installing a program for realizing each of the above processes in the general-purpose computer system and executing the program in cooperation with the OS.

  Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the content server device 1 and the client device 2 are physically separated from each other. However, the content server device 1 and the client device 2 are devices such as audio devices having the functions of the content server device 1 and the client device 2 together. May be.

In addition, in the case where a plurality of contents, their genres, and artists are stored in association with each other, the present invention discriminates the contents that are not associated with the genres from the stored contents, and the artist of the contents It is possible to apply to general processing for determining the genre associated with the determined artist with respect to other content and automatically associating the determined genre with the corresponding content.
Moreover, although it demonstrated as a genre name, the information which specifies a genre and an artist is not limited to a name, Arbitrary identification information is applicable.

  Further, the method for providing the program for realizing the above-described functions is arbitrary, and the program can be provided by being stored in a recording medium such as a CD-ROM, or via a communication medium such as the Internet. .

It is a figure which shows typically the content server apparatus, client apparatus, and content information provision apparatus which concern on embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the content server apparatus shown in FIG. It is an image figure which shows the specific example of the content which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is an image figure which shows the specific example of the content information which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the processing operation | movement of the genre setting process which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the processing operation | movement of the content extraction process shown in FIG. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the processing operation | movement of the genre name acquisition process shown in FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a processing operation of a genre name writing process shown in FIG. 5. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the processing operation of the artist search process shown in FIG.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Content server apparatus 2 Client apparatus 3 Content information provision apparatus
N communication network 10 communication device 11 control device 12 storage device 120 content for which genre is not set 121 content for which genre is set 320 content information for which genre is set

Claims (5)

Content storage means for storing a plurality of contents, their genres, and artists in association with each other;
Non-genre content discriminating means for discriminating content not associated with a genre from content stored in the content storage means;
Artist discriminating means for discriminating the artist of the content discriminated by the non-genre content discriminating means;
Genre determining means for determining a genre associated with the artist determined by the artist determining means;
For content that is determined not to be associated with a genre by the non-genre content determination unit, the content storage unit stores a genre so that the content, the artist, and the genre determined by the artist determination unit correspond to each other. Genre writing means for writing;
A content server device comprising: The content server device is connected via a communication network to a content information providing device that stores content attribute information including content identification information and the genre and artist of the content,
The content server device includes second genre determining means for accessing the content information server and determining a genre associated with the artist determined by the artist determining means,
The genre writing means is a content that is determined not to be associated with a genre by the non-genre content determination means and is associated with the artist determined by the artist determination means. Write the genre in the content storage means so as to associate the genre determined by the determination means or the second genre determination means,
The content server apparatus according to claim 1. The content storage means stores TOC (Table Of Contents) information,
The non-genre content determining means refers to TOC (Table Of Contents) information and determines whether or not a genre is described in the TOC information, thereby determining a content not associated with a genre.
The content server device according to claim 1, wherein the content server device is a content server device. Among the contents stored in the content storage means for storing a plurality of contents, the genre and the artist in association with each other, a content not associated with the genre is determined,
Determine the artist of the identified content,
Determine the genre associated with the determined artist,
Based on the determined genre, for the content determined not to be associated with the genre by the non-genre content determination unit, the genre corresponding to the content is written in the content storage unit.
The genre setting method characterized by this. On the computer,
Among the contents stored in the content storage means for storing a plurality of contents, the genre and the artist in association with each other, a content not associated with the genre is determined,
Determine the artist of the identified content,
Determine the genre associated with the determined artist,
Based on the determined genre, for the content determined not to be associated with the genre by the non-genre content determination unit, the genre corresponding to the content is written in the content storage unit.
A computer program that executes processing.

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