JP2009100142A - Digital broadcast receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that methods of holding received data contents regardless of the change of a channel being viewed and allowing the data contents to be reused in response to channel re-selection, in order to reduce user's waiting time when presenting the data broadcast content transmitted by digital broadcasting, are disadvantageous with respect to use efficiency of a storage device of a receiver because there is the possibility that contents having high frequencies in update, such as data contents synchronized with programs, cannot be reused though being held. <P>SOLUTION: An expiration time in storing a data content is stored in association with program information, and such a configuration is employed that data contents which have high frequencies in update and are reused with a low possibility are not stored, whereby the efficient use of the storage device of the receiver is attainable. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a data broadcast receiving system of a terrestrial digital broadcast receiving apparatus, and more particularly to a method for managing data contents stored in a receiver.

  In recent years, digital broadcasting, in which television broadcasting signals are digitized, has become widespread. In digital broadcasting, a broadcast program is composed of a combination of video, audio, and data, and digital broadcasting has increased interactivity from a broadcast that only allows viewing to a form in which viewers participate.

The data content is described in a markup language called BML, and is transmitted after being multiplexed with a broadcast wave in a carousel format. A digital broadcast receiver compatible with data broadcasting acquires data content transmitted in a carousel format from a broadcast wave, and presents it to the user when all the components are available. Since the data content differs depending on the broadcaster, for example, when the user performs channel switching, the data content is acquired again. However, in view of the fact that data content is unlikely to be updated in real time unlike video and audio, the channel being viewed has been updated in order to reduce the waiting time for the user to present the data content. Even in such a case, there has been proposed a receiver that retains received data content and reuses it when it is selected again.
JP-A-10-304264

  However, there are data contents that are program-linked and non-program-linked data contents. In particular, the contents of the program-linked data contents are generally updated when the program being broadcast ends, and even if the program is being broadcast, It is expected that the update frequency will be higher than linked content. When data content is stored in the receiver's content memory in preparation for reuse when changing channels, it is important to store up to high-update content such as program-linked content in the receiver's memory. It is disadvantageous in terms of utilization efficiency.

  In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to determine the expiration date of data content based on program information being broadcast in a terrestrial digital broadcast receiver, thereby reducing the possibility of reusing program-linked content and the like. It is to provide a data content management means for preventing the content from being stored in the memory of the receiver.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has the following features.

  Terrestrial digital broadcast receiving means, data broadcast receiving means for acquiring data content from broadcast waves received by the terrestrial digital broadcast receiving means, data content storage means for storing data content acquired by the data broadcast receiving means, Program information acquisition means for acquiring program information being broadcast from the digital broadcast reception means, and an expiration date of the data content stored in the data content storage means based on the program information acquired by the program information acquisition means This is achieved by providing content memory management means for determining.

  As described above, according to the present invention, by providing means for determining the expiration date of data content stored in a digital broadcast receiver in association with program information, comparison of update frequencies such as program-linked data content is performed. High data content can be stored unnecessarily, and the memory of the digital broadcast receiver can be used efficiently.

  Hereinafter, a digital broadcast receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration when the digital broadcast receiver 211 of the digital broadcast receiver receives a digital broadcast. The digital broadcast receiver / receiver 211 includes a digital broadcast receiver tuner 111 and a TS (Transport Stream) decoder 112. The digital broadcast receiving tuner 111 receives TS from a terrestrial digital television broadcast station and a terrestrial digital audio broadcast station. TS is a signal in which data such as video and audio is multiplexed. The TS received by the digital broadcast receiving tuner 111 is separated by the TS decoder 112 into an audio PES (Packeted Elementary Stream), a video PES, a data section, a PSI (Program Specification Information), and an SI (Service Information). The PES is a data format that includes time stamp information and can reproduce characters such as video and audio while synchronizing the time. The PSI 116 is called program identification information and includes information related to the program content and the broadcast station (broadcast station name, remote control key ID, service identification information, area identification information, etc.). The audio PES is output to the speaker 118 by the audio PES processing unit 113. The video PES, data section, PSI, and SI are respectively stored in the video PES processing unit 114, the data section processing unit 115, the PSI processing unit 116, and the SI processing unit 117, respectively. Acquired and displayed on the display 119 as a digital broadcast reception screen.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the digital broadcast receiver 200 according to the embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 2, a digital broadcast receiver 200 includes a digital broadcast receiver 211, a data content receiver 212, a program information receiver 213, a data content storage unit 214, a program information storage unit 215, a content memory management unit 216, and a data content management. An information storage 217, a control unit 218, an operation unit 219, and a display unit 220 are provided.

  The digital broadcast receiving unit 211 receives a digital broadcast from a digital broadcast provider. The data content receiving unit 212 decomposes the data content multiplexed in the DSMCC (Digital Media Storage Command and Control) section format from the digital broadcast wave received by the digital broadcast receiving unit 211 into module units, and stores it in the data content storage unit 214. Remember. The program information acquisition unit 213 acquires information about a program broadcast on the service being received from the digital broadcast wave received by the digital broadcast reception unit 211 and stores the information in the program information storage unit 215. The content memory management unit 216 associates the data content stored in the data content storage unit 214 with the program information stored in the program information storage 215 and stores it in the data content management information storage unit 217 as data content management information. . When the content memory management unit 216 receives an operation instruction such as channel switching from the control unit 218, the content memory management unit 216 stores the data content management information in the data content storage unit 214 based on the data content management information stored in the data content management information storage unit 217. Execute processing such as deletion and acquisition of stored data contents. The control unit 218 executes processing according to a user operation from the operation unit 219. The operation unit 219 provides a user interface for performing operations such as channel switching from the user. The display unit 220 displays the data content stored in the data content storage unit 214.

  FIG. 3 shows a configuration example of program information stored in the program information storage unit 215. The program information includes an identifier for identifying each program, a service ID for identifying a service on which the program is broadcast, start and end times, and information indicating whether the program is a data-linked program. These pieces of information are acquired from SI.

  FIG. 4 shows a configuration example of the data content management information stored in the data content management information storage unit 217. The data content management information indicates the correspondence between the data content stored in the data content storage unit 214 and the program information stored in the program information storage unit 215. The determination of whether the data content is a program-linked type or a non-program-linked type and the association with the program information when the data content is a program-linked data content is the identification information of the program broadcast at the time when the data content is received. This is performed by obtaining from the storage unit 215.

  Next, with reference to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, the operation when the digital broadcast receiver 200 according to the present invention receives data broadcast content will be described as an example. 5 is a flowchart executed when the digital broadcast receiver receives data broadcast content, and FIG. 6 is a flowchart executed when channel switching is performed in the digital broadcast receiver 200.

  In FIG. 5, the digital broadcast receiving unit 211 of the digital broadcast receiver 200 receives the program information and stores it in the program information storage unit 215 (step S11). Next, the digital broadcast receiving unit 211 receives the data content and stores it in the data content storage unit 214 (step S12). Next, the content memory management unit 216 searches the program information storage unit 215 based on the time when the data content is received, and acquires the program information broadcast when the data content is received. (Step S13). The content memory management unit 216 acquires an identifier for identifying a program from the acquired program information and determines whether the program is a data-linked program or a data-unlinked program (step S14). Next, the content memory management unit 216 associates the received data content with the information acquired in step S14 and stores it in the data content management information storage unit 217 (step S15).

  It should be noted that the general event message function of DSMCC may be used to determine whether or not it is program-linked data content. For example, when transmitting data content, information on whether or not the program is linked to the general event message is embedded in the general event message, and the receiver determines whether or not the program is linked to the program when the general event message is received. The information may be read to determine whether the corresponding data content is program-linked.

  Next, receiver processing when channel switching is executed will be described. In FIG. 6, when the user's channel switching request is received from the operation unit 219, the control unit 218 executes channel switching processing. The control unit 218 notifies the content memory management unit 216 of channel switching (step S21). The content memory management unit 216 searches the data content management information storage unit 217 and acquires data content management information corresponding to the data content already received in the service being viewed (step S22). Next, the content memory management unit 216 determines whether the received data content is a program-linked content in the service being viewed (step S23). If it is determined that the content is program-linked content, the content memory management unit 216 deletes the data content that has been received in the viewing service from the data content storage unit 214 (step S24). Next, the content memory management unit 216 deletes the information related to the data content already received in the viewing service from the data content management information storage unit 217 (step 25). If it is determined that the content is not program-linked content, the data content and the data content management information are not deleted, and are prepared for reuse in the switching destination channel.

  In this embodiment, the timing for deleting the data content is set when the channel switching is executed. However, the data content and the data content management information are not changed until the linked program is ended even when the channel switching is executed. May be configured not to be deleted.

  As described above, according to the present invention, by providing means for determining the expiration date of data content stored in a digital broadcast receiver in association with program information, comparison of update frequencies such as program-linked data content is performed. High-quality data content can be stored unnecessarily, and the memory of the digital broadcast receiver can be used efficiently.

  The present invention relates to a digital broadcast receiver that supports data broadcasting, and in particular, a digital broadcast receiver that can retain received data content without deleting it from the storage device of the receiver for reuse of the data content. Useful for.

The block diagram which showed the structure of the digital broadcast receiver 211 when a digital broadcast receiver receives a digital broadcast 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a digital broadcast receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention. The figure which shows the structural example of the program information which a digital broadcast receiver preserve | saves in the program information storage part 215 The figure which shows the structural example of the data content information which a digital broadcast receiver preserve | saves in the data content management information storage part 217. The flowchart in case the digital broadcast receiver which concerns on embodiment of this invention memorize | stores data content A flowchart executed at the time of channel switching in the digital broadcast receiver according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

111 Digital Broadcasting Reception Tuner 112 TS Decoder 113 Audio PES Processing Unit 114 Video PES Processing Unit 115 Data Section Processing Unit 116 PSI Processing Unit 117 SI Processing Unit 118 Speaker 119 Display 211 Digital Broadcasting Reception Unit 212 Data Content Reception Unit 213 Program Information Reception Unit 214 Data content storage unit 215 Program information storage unit 216 Content memory management unit 217 Data content management information storage unit 218 Control unit 219 Operation unit 220 Display unit

Claims (2)

A digital broadcast receiving unit that receives terrestrial digital broadcasts, a data content receiving unit that acquires data content from broadcast waves received by the terrestrial digital broadcast receiving unit, and data that stores data content acquired by the data content receiving unit Content storage unit, program information acquisition unit for acquiring program information being broadcast from the digital broadcast reception unit, and data stored in the data content storage unit based on the program information acquired by the program information acquisition unit A digital broadcast receiving apparatus, comprising: a content memory management unit that determines an expiration date of content. 2. The digital broadcast receiving apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the content memory management unit determines an expiration date of the data content based on whether or not the data content stored in the data content storage unit is linked to a program being broadcast. A digital broadcast receiver characterized by that.

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