JP2009071578A - Television receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce user's stress due to waiting time, when changing channels in viewing terrestrial digital broadcasting. <P>SOLUTION: A television receiver stores advertisement content, the contents of which are advertisements, and additional content, such as waiting screens which are distributed individually to users, as waiting content which is reproduced for waiting time, when channels are switched. When a channel selection operation is performed at a timing T1 during the outputting of broadcast programs on a channel 1 (CH1) and a channel 5 (CH5) is selected, one among waiting contents is selected and reproduced during periods T1 and T2, from the channel selection operation until the beginning of broadcast program output on the channel 5. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a television receiver compatible with terrestrial digital broadcasting.

In recent years, terrestrial digital broadcasting has been started for the purpose of promoting effective use of radio waves and higher image quality and higher functionality of television broadcasting, and television receivers compatible with this terrestrial digital broadcasting have become widespread (for example, Patent Document 1). In addition, so-called one-segment broadcasting for mobile terminals using a part of the frequency band of terrestrial digital broadcasting has also begun. Digital terrestrial broadcasting is performed on mobile terminals such as mobile phones, PDAs, notebook computers, and dedicated portable television receivers. Can receive and watch.
JP 2006-270369 A

  In a television receiver that receives and outputs a broadcast signal, a non-video period in which nothing is displayed, which is called a blackout, occurs when a channel is selected. This is because it takes time to perform processing for switching channels. Although the length of this period varies depending on the case, it may last for several seconds, during which time the user has to wait while watching a non-video screen, which is tedious.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described conventional problems, and provides a television receiver capable of reducing stress applied to a user by waiting time when switching channels when viewing digital terrestrial broadcasting. With the goal.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a television receiver according to the present invention is a television receiver that receives a broadcast wave of digital terrestrial broadcasting and outputs a broadcast program of a selected channel, and selects a channel for selecting a channel. And a channel switching means for starting a broadcast program output of the selected channel by performing a process of switching the channel when the channel is selected by the channel selection means, and the channel is selected by the channel selection means. Content reproduction means for reproducing a predetermined standby content from the start to the start of output of the broadcast program of the selected channel by the channel switching means.

  The television receiver according to the present invention further includes content storage means for storing a plurality of standby contents, wherein the content reproduction means is one standby among the standby contents stored in the content storage means. It is characterized in that time content is selected and played back.

  In the television receiver according to the above invention, the standby content includes advertisement content including advertisements.

  In the television receiver according to the invention, the standby content includes download content downloaded in advance according to a user operation from an external device connectable via a predetermined communication line.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to reproduce a predetermined standby content after the channel is selected and before the process of switching the channel is completed and the output of the broadcast program of the selected channel is started. The standby content can be played back during the period of blackout in the prior art. According to this, since the user does not wait while watching a screen on which nothing is displayed, the user is not bored, and the stress given to the user by the waiting time when switching channels can be reduced.

  DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the scope of the invention is not limited to the illustrated examples.

[appearance]
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an appearance example of the television receiver 1. A television receiver 1 shown in FIG. 1 has an apparatus main body 3 formed in a thin rectangular parallelepiped that is long in the horizontal direction, and is used by being carried by a user, for example. Specifically, the apparatus main body 3 is formed in a casing having a length of 61 mm, a width of 99 mm, and a thickness of 24 mm, for example.

  A liquid crystal display panel 5 and a plurality of touch switches SW1 to SW6 are disposed on the front surface of the apparatus main body 3. The liquid crystal display panel 5 is, for example, a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) type liquid crystal display panel having a screen size of 3.0 inches. The on / off switch SW1 switches on / off of the television viewing by switching on / off of the liquid crystal display panel 5 and the speaker 7. The channel switch SW2 selects a channel to be viewed on the television receiver 1. The volume switch SW3 changes the volume. The brightness switch SW4 changes the brightness of the liquid crystal display panel 5. The up switch SW5 and the down switch SW6 perform channel selection, volume increase / decrease, and brightness adjustment, and function according to the type of switch pressed immediately before. That is, when the up switch SW5 or the down switch SW6 is pressed after the channel switch SW2, it functions as a channel up switch or a channel down switch for selecting a channel. The channel switch SW2, the up switch SW5 functioning as a channel up switch, and the down switch SW6 functioning as a channel down switch correspond to channel selection means. Hereinafter, the pressing operation of the channel switch SW2 and the pressing operation of the up switch SW5 or the down switch SW6 performed after the channel switch SW2 are referred to as “channel selection operation”. Similarly, when the up switch SW5 or the down switch SW6 is pressed after the volume switch SW3, it functions as a volume up switch or a volume down switch for increasing or decreasing the volume, and the brightness switch SW4 is followed by the up switch. When the SW5 or the down switch SW6 is pressed, it functions as a brightness up switch or brightness down switch that adjusts brightness by making the screen brighter or darker.

  On the side surface of the apparatus main body 3, a speaker 7, an insertion port (not shown) for an earphone terminal (not shown), a card slot for detachably attaching a memory card 9, and the like are disposed. The memory card 9 may be of any standard such as an SD memory card (registered trademark) or a memory stick (registered trademark).

  The television receiver 1 receives a terrestrial digital broadcast signal, displays video information (television broadcast screen) based on the television broadcast signal on the liquid crystal display panel 5, and outputs audio information from the speaker 7. Further, the television receiver 1 is a content described in a broadcast markup language called BML (Broadcast Markup Language), which is a combination of still image data, text data, audio data, etc. A BML browser for reproducing “BML content” is built-in, and BML content of data broadcasting is received and reproduced.

[Constitution]
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a system configuration example of a digital television broadcasting system for viewing digital terrestrial broadcasting on the television receiver 1. As shown in FIG. 2, the digital television broadcasting system receives a plurality of broadcasting stations 30 (broadcasting station A, broadcasting station B,...) That transmit terrestrial digital broadcasting, and terrestrial digital broadcasting from each broadcasting station 30. And the television receiver 1 that outputs the data. Each broadcasting station 30 includes a television broadcasting system 310 and a data broadcasting system 330, and the data broadcasting system 330 is connected to the television receiver 1 via the network N. Here, the network N includes the Internet, a line for connecting to the Internet, an ISP server, and the like.

  A television broadcast system 310 provided on the broadcast station 30 side transmits a terrestrial digital broadcast broadcast wave via the radio tower 50 to provide a television broadcast service. This television broadcast is an image and audio signal of a broadcast program.

  On the other hand, the data broadcast system 330 includes a data broadcast content DB 331. The data broadcast content DB 331 stores various BML contents. The data broadcast system 330 sends these BML contents in real time by broadcast waves and distributes them to the television receiver 1 to provide a data broadcast service.

  In addition, the data broadcast content DB 331 includes an advertisement content DB 331a, and as advertisement content including advertisements, for example, still image data, moving image data, audio data for advertising of new products sold by a sponsoring maker, or a combination of these And data such as banner advertisements linked to the advertiser's web page. The data broadcasting system 330 sends these advertising contents to the television receiver 1 as appropriate by broadcast waves.

  Further, the data broadcasting system 330 includes an additional content DB 333, and as additional content that is download content to be individually distributed to the user of the television receiver 1, for example, character data to be displayed on a television broadcast screen or a data broadcast screen, The image data of the standby screen is managed. The data broadcasting system 330 reads the additional content requested in response to the additional content acquisition request received from the television receiver 1 from the additional content DB 333 and transmits it to the television receiver 1 via the network N.

  The television receiver 1 receives a terrestrial digital broadcast television data or a data broadcast signal transmitted from the television broadcast system 310 and the data broadcast system 330 of the broadcast station 30 of the selected channel, and outputs a broadcast program. . FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a main functional configuration of the television receiver 1. As shown in FIG. 3, the television receiver 1 includes an operation unit 100, a tuner 110, a demodulation unit 120, a decoder 130, an image display unit 140, an audio output unit 150, a wireless communication unit 160, a storage unit 170, and a card reading unit 180. The control unit 190 includes a clock unit 200 that measures current time information and notifies the control unit 190 of the current time information.

  The operation unit 100 is used by the user to input various operations such as on / off of TV viewing, channel selection, volume increase / decrease, and brightness adjustment, and outputs an operation signal corresponding to the operation input to the control unit 190. . The operation unit 100 is realized by, for example, a button switch, a lever, a dial, a mouse, a keyboard, various sensors, and the like. In the present embodiment, the operation unit 100 includes the on / off switch SW1, the channel switch SW2, the volume switch SW3, the brightness switch SW4, the up switch SW5, and the down switch SW6 in FIG.

  The tuner 110 extracts a broadcast signal in a frequency band corresponding to a broadcast program channel designated by the user from the broadcast signal of the digital terrestrial broadcast received by the antenna 111, modulates the extracted broadcast signal, and modulates the intermediate frequency. The signal is output to demodulation section 120.

  The demodulator 120 performs processing such as digital demodulation and error correction on the intermediate frequency signal input from the tuner 110, and also uses the descrambling information to generate a scramble signal added to the stream (for example, transport stream). The transport stream from which the scramble signal is released is output to the decoder 130.

  The decoder 130 decodes the transport stream input from the demodulation unit 120, separates it into a video / audio stream for television broadcasting and a data stream for data broadcasting, and reproduces them separately. For TV broadcast video / audio streams, each transport packet constituting this is discriminated, and data related to the transport packet related to the broadcast program designated by the user is separated into digital audio information, digital video information, etc. . Then, the decoder 130 decodes the digital video information compressed by the MPEG method and outputs it to the image display unit 140, and also decodes the digital audio information and outputs it to the audio output unit 150.

  The image display unit 140 displays video based on video information input from the decoder 130, displays a so-called OSD (on-screen display) such as a setting screen or menu screen composed of character information, and data based on standby content. Display still images and videos. The image display unit 140 is realized by various display devices such as an LCD and an ELD. The liquid crystal display panel 5 in FIG. 1 corresponds to the image display unit 140.

  The audio output unit 150 outputs audio based on the audio information input from the decoder 130 and outputs audio based on standby content data. The speaker 7 in FIG. 1 corresponds to the audio output unit 150.

  The wireless communication unit 160 is a device for transmitting and receiving data to and from the data broadcasting system 330 via the network N. Connection to a mobile phone line or a PHS line, connection to the Internet using this connection, etc. Perform the process. Then, wireless signals are transmitted / received to / from the data broadcasting system 330 by packet communication, for example, and additional content is received. The wireless communication unit 160 includes, for example, an antenna 161 that transmits and receives wireless signals to and from a wireless base station installed by a mobile phone communication service provider, an RF converter, and a wireless LAN card for connection to a wireless LAN. Etc.

  The storage unit 170 is realized by various IC memories such as ROM and RAM such as flash memory that can be updated and stored, a hard disk, and the like. A processing program, data used when executing these various processing programs, data of processing results obtained by arithmetic processing, and the like are stored.

  The storage unit 170 also stores a standby content playback program 171 for performing standby content playback processing and standby content data 173. The standby content data 173 corresponds to content storage means, and stores a plurality of standby content data. The standby content stored in the standby content data 173 is played back during the waiting time when the channel is switched, and is composed of still image data, moving image data, audio data, or a combination thereof, and is stored in advance. In addition to what is stored in 170, advertising content transmitted from the data broadcasting system 330 by broadcast waves and additional content received from the data broadcasting system 330 via the network N are included.

  The card reading unit 180 detachably mounts the memory card 9, and writes / rewrites data to / from the memory card 9 and reads data under the control of the control unit 190. The card reading unit 180 is realized by a read / write device corresponding to the type of media in the memory card 9 and its driver circuit. The above-described advertisement content and additional content may be read and acquired from the memory card 9 attached to the card reading unit 180. In this case, for example, the card reading unit 180 writes the advertisement content data and additional content received from the data broadcasting system 330 to the memory card 9. Alternatively, advertisement content and additional content data are downloaded from an external device in advance and stored in the memory card 9, and the memory card 9 is loaded into the card reading unit 180.

  The control unit 190 is realized by hardware such as a CPU. The control unit 190 performs instructions and data transfer to each unit constituting the television receiver 1 based on an operation signal input from the operation unit 100, a program and data stored in the storage unit 170, and the like. Overall operation of the receiver 1 is controlled. The control unit 190 functions as a channel switching unit. When a channel selection operation is performed, the control unit 190 controls the tuner 110 to execute a process for switching a broadcast program channel to be output. Then, the control unit 190 adds the advertising content data transmitted from the data broadcasting system 330 of the broadcasting station 30 by broadcast waves to the standby content data 173 of the storage unit 170. Alternatively, the control unit 190 notifies the data broadcast system 330 of the additional content acquisition request according to the user operation or periodically via the network N, and downloads the additional content transmitted from the data broadcast system 330 in response thereto. And added to the standby content data 173.

  The control unit 190 performs standby content playback processing according to the standby content playback program 171 and functions as a content playback unit. When the channel selection operation is performed, the control unit 190 performs a process for switching to the selected channel as described above. At this time, the control unit 190 is inserted in the waiting time for the tuning operation by the tuner 110 and in the video information. It may take time to wait for reception of a key frame, and to wait for synchronization between video information and audio information. During this time, a blackout state occurs. In the standby content reproduction process, control is performed to reproduce the standby content during the blackout period.

  FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the standby content reproduction processing. As shown in FIG. 4, for example, when a channel selection operation is performed at timing T1 during the output of a broadcast program of channel 1 (CH1) and channel 5 (CH5) is selected, the control unit 190 controls the channel. During the period T1 to T2 from when the selection operation is performed until the output of the broadcast program of the channel 5 is started, the advertisement content and the additional content that are the standby content are reproduced. The standby content to be played back at this time may be configured to be selected by the control unit 190 or may be configured to be designated by the user. For example, if the standby content to be played back is not specified by the user, the control unit 190 randomly selects and selects one advertising content from the advertising content stored in the standby content data 173. Play the ad content. Since the standby content is played back when the channel is switched, the user is likely to be watching the screen. For this reason, it is possible to allow the user to view the advertisement content efficiently. On the other hand, when the standby content to be played back is designated by the user, the control unit 190 plays back the designated standby content. According to this, the user designates the additional content stored in the standby content data 173 in the way of setting the standby screen, or designates the additional content after downloading the additional content from the data broadcasting system 330. Thus, the preferred standby content can be played during the waiting time when switching channels.

  Note that the screen display of the broadcast program video, OSD, and standby content is performed by superimposing the display information in layers. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the layer structure of the display screen. As shown in FIG. 5, the display information corresponding to the OSD layer L1, the broadcast program video display layer L2, and the standby content playback display layer L3 is individually displayed and superimposed. indicate. Thereby, the OSD display such as the setting screen and the menu screen in the layer L1 is always displayed on the screen. When the channel is switched and nothing is displayed on the layer L2 and no video is displayed, the standby content displayed on the layer L3 is displayed on the screen. When the process of switching channels is completed and the output of the broadcast program of the selected channel is started, the video of the broadcast program displayed on the layer L2 is displayed on the screen. In the present embodiment, standby content playback is started when a channel selection operation is performed, and standby content playback is started when channel switching processing is completed and broadcast program output of the selected channel is started. Although it is decided to stop, the standby content may always be displayed in the layer L3.

[Process flow]
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the control unit 190 related to the standby content reproduction processing. Note that the processing described here is realized by the control unit 190 reading and executing the standby content reproduction program 171.

  In this standby content reproduction process, the control unit 190 determines an operation signal input from the operation unit 100, and when a channel selection operation is performed (step S10: Yes), from the standby content data 173. The standby content to be played back is selected (step S20), and control for playing back the selected standby content is started (step S30). In parallel with the standby content reproduction control, the control unit 190 performs processing necessary to switch channels. Then, when the process of switching channels is completed and the output of the broadcast program of the selected channel is started (step S40: Yes), the control unit 190 controls the reproduction of the standby content that has started reproduction in step S30. It stops (step S50) and this process is complete | finished.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, when a channel selection operation is performed, the television receiver 1 completes the process of switching channels and starts outputting a broadcast program of the selected channel. During this period, the predetermined standby content can be maximized. According to this, since the user does not wait while watching a screen on which nothing is displayed, the user is not bored, and the stress given to the user by the waiting time when switching channels can be reduced.

  In the above-described embodiment, additional content to be played back as standby content is downloaded from the data broadcasting system 330. However, additional content that is accessed via the network N and played back as standby content is downloaded. The content may be downloaded.

  In the above-described embodiment, the case where the advertisement content and the additional content are reproduced as the standby content has been described. However, the content of the standby content is not limited to this. For example, it may be content related to broadcast programs of each channel such as notice information of programs such as dramas scheduled to be broadcast, movies, animation, sports and music.

  In addition, a reproduction time limit is set for the advertisement content transmitted from the data broadcasting system 330, and the advertisement content whose current time does not exceed the reproduction time limit is reproduced as standby content on the television receiver 1 side. May be. According to this, a new advertisement content can be viewed by the user without reproducing the old advertisement content.

  In each of the embodiments described above, a portable dedicated television receiver that receives terrestrial digital broadcasts has been described. However, the present invention is provided with a terrestrial digital broadcast reception function, such as a mobile phone, a PDA, or a portable type. The present invention can be similarly applied to a portable terminal device such as a game machine.

It is a figure which shows the example of an external appearance of a television receiver. It is the schematic which shows the system structural example of the digital television broadcasting system for viewing and listening to digital terrestrial broadcasting in a television receiver. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the main function structures of a television receiver. It is explanatory drawing for demonstrating a content reproduction process at the time of standby. It is a figure which shows the layer structure of a display screen. It is a flowchart which shows the process sequence of the control part concerning a content reproduction process at the time of standby.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Television receiver 100 Operation part 110 Tuner 111 Antenna 120 Demodulation part 130 Decoder 140 Image display part 150 Audio | voice output part 160 Radio | wireless communication part 161 Antenna 170 Storage part 171 Standby content reproduction program 173 Standby content data 180 Card reading part 190 Control Part 200 Clock part 9 Memory card 30 Broadcast station 310 Television broadcast system 330 Data broadcast system 331 Data broadcast content DB
331a Advertising Content DB
333 Additional content DB
50 radio tower N network

Claims (4)

A television receiver that receives a broadcast wave of terrestrial digital broadcasting and outputs a broadcast program of a selected channel,
Channel selection means for selecting a channel;
When a channel is selected by the channel selection means, channel switching means for performing a process of switching the channel and starting output of the broadcast program of the selected channel;
Content playback means for playing back a predetermined standby content from when a channel is selected by the channel selection means to when output of the broadcast program of the selected channel is started by the channel switching means;
A television receiver comprising: Content storage means for storing a plurality of standby contents,
2. The television receiver according to claim 1, wherein the content reproduction unit selects and reproduces one standby content from the standby content stored in the content storage unit.   The television receiver according to claim 1, wherein the standby content includes an advertising content including an advertisement.   The television receiver according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the standby content includes download content downloaded in advance according to a user operation from an external device connectable via a predetermined communication line. Machine.

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