JP2010187157A - Digital television broadcasting receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a digital television broadcasting receiver which enables a visually impaired person to be easily notified of whether a voice guide for a program is provided or not when viewing the program. <P>SOLUTION: The digital television broadcasting receiver 1 determines whether a main voice or a sub voice of a program broadcasted on a current channel received includes a voice for a voice guide when a main power supply is turned on or when channels are switched. The digital television broadcasting receiver 1 outputs a voice signal for notifying that the main voice or the sub voice of the program broadcasted on the channel includes the voice for the voice guide by voice when included. Then, the visually impaired person is easily notified of whether the main voice or the sub voice of the current program includes the voice for the voice guide. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a digital television broadcast receiver for receiving digital television broadcasts.

  Conventionally, television broadcast programs have been based on audio multiplex broadcasting. As is well known, an audio multiplex broadcast program is a program in which a plurality of types of audio signals (for example, Japanese audio signals and English audio signals) are multiplexed and broadcast. Audio multiplex broadcasting in analog television broadcasting has two types of audio signals (main audio and one sub audio). However, in audio multiplex broadcasting in digital television broadcasting, sub audio has increased to a plurality of types. In particular, in digital television broadcasting in Europe, there are many types of languages used in daily conversation, so there are also many types of sub-audio in audio multiplex broadcasting. Increasing the number of types of sub-audio in a program broadcast by audio multiplex broadcasting is preferable for the viewer because the types of audio that can be selected when viewing the program are widened.

  In addition, as the number of types of sub-audio in programs broadcast by audio multiplex broadcasting increases, the main audio and sub-audio are reduced in order to reduce the viewer's effort to confirm the types of audio that can be selected including the main audio. A configuration has been proposed in which broadcast stations are listed and output according to the language (see Patent Document 1).

JP 2007-201912 A

  However, in digital television broadcasting in Europe and the like, there are programs that broadcast, as sub-audio, audio (hereinafter referred to as audio description) that explains video (scenes) of the program for visually impaired people.

  In a conventional digital television broadcast receiving apparatus, it is possible to check whether a program broadcast on a channel selected by a visually impaired person (a program being viewed) is a program having audio for audio commentary. While selecting the main sound and each sub sound in turn, it was necessary to listen to the output sound and check whether the sound was a sound commentary. That is, for visually impaired people, there is a problem that it takes time and effort to confirm whether or not the program being viewed is a program having audio for audio commentary. In particular, as the number of types of sub-sound increases, the number of types of sub-sounds for confirming whether or not the commentary is a voice commentary increases for visually impaired persons, and the operation for this confirmation becomes complicated.

  The configuration described in Patent Document 1 is a configuration that outputs a list of programs that include audio commentary as sub-audio, and allows a visually handicapped person to easily confirm the presence or absence of audio commentary. is not.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a digital television broadcast receiving apparatus that allows a visually handicapped person to easily check the presence or absence of audio commentary for a program when the program is viewed.

  In order to achieve the above object, the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus of the present invention is configured as follows.

  The receiving means receives a digital television broadcast signal and extracts a stream of a program broadcast on the selected channel. In addition, the separating unit processes the stream extracted by the receiving unit, and separates and extracts the video stream related to the video of the program and the audio stream related to the audio. The video signal output means outputs a video signal corresponding to the video stream extracted by the separation means, and the audio signal output means outputs an audio signal corresponding to the audio stream extracted by the separation means. When there are a plurality of audio streams extracted by the separating means, the audio signal output means outputs an audio signal corresponding to the audio stream selected at that time.

  Further, the determining unit determines whether or not there is a program having an audio stream whose audio type is audio commentary when the separating unit extracts a plurality of types of audio streams. The audio commentary mentioned here is an audio commentary on a program video (scene) or the like for a visually impaired person or the like. In the MPEG standard (ISO / IEC 13818-1) in digital television broadcasting, there is a table for associating stream information about a channel called a Program Map Table (PMT) with a transport stream. In addition, the PMT related to the audio stream indicates language information indicating the language type (Japanese, English, etc.) of the audio and type information (normal audio, audio commentary, etc.) indicating the type of audio. ISO_639_language_descriptor is included. That is, by confirming the type information of the corresponding ISO_639_language_descriptor for each audio stream, it can be determined whether or not the audio stream is related to audio commentary.

  Further, when the determining unit determines that the program has an audio stream related to the audio commentary, the notifying unit outputs an audio signal notifying the fact from the audio signal output unit. The notification means outputs, for example, a predetermined chime sound or an audio signal such as “This program has audio explanation” from the audio signal output means to emit sound from a speaker or the like.

  Thereby, even when a visually handicapped person views a program, it can be easily confirmed whether the program is a program with audio commentary.

  Also, the determination means determines whether the program has an audio stream at the start of operation of the main unit, when channel selection is switched, or when a program broadcast on the selected channel is switched. What is necessary is just to be the structure which determines.

  Further, setting means for setting the notification means to be valid or invalid may be provided. In this case, it is preferable that when the notification unit is set to be invalid, the determination unit is also set to be invalid.

  Furthermore, an electronic program table (so-called EPG) including information indicating the presence / absence of an audio stream whose audio type is audio commentary for each program to be broadcast is multiplexed on a digital TV broadcast signal for each channel. If it is an environment to be converted, it may be configured to determine whether or not the audio stream that is the audio commentary is a program based on the electronic program guide received by the determining means.

  According to the present invention, even when a visually handicapped person views a program, it can be easily confirmed whether the program is a program with audio commentary.

It is a figure which shows the structure of the principal part of the digital television broadcast receiver which is embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining ISO_639_language_descriptor. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of a digital television broadcast receiver.

  A digital television broadcast receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a main part of a digital television broadcast receiving apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 includes a control unit 2, a receiving unit 3, a decoder 4, a video signal processing unit 5, a video signal output unit 6, an audio signal processing unit 7, an audio signal output unit 8, The operation unit 9 and the EPG processing unit 10 are provided. The control unit 2 controls the operation of each part of the main body of the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1. An antenna 20 is connected to the receiving unit 3. The receiver 3 receives a digital television broadcast signal received by the antenna 20. The receiving unit 3 is a tuner that extracts a digital television broadcast signal of a program broadcast on the channel selected at that time. The receiving unit 3 inputs the extracted digital TV broadcast signal of the channel to the decoder 4.

  The digital television broadcast signal is a transport stream (TS). The decoder 4 processes the transport stream input from the receiving unit 3 and separates it into a video stream related to the video of the program and an audio stream related to the audio of the program. The decoder 4 inputs the separated video stream to the video signal processing unit 5 and inputs the separated audio stream to the audio signal processing unit 7. The video signal processing unit 5 processes the video stream input from the decoder 4 to generate a video signal. A display device 21 is connected to the video signal output unit 6. The video signal processing unit 5 inputs a video signal to the display device 21 via the video signal output unit 6. The video signal output unit 6 may be configured to output an analog video signal, may be configured to output a digital video signal, or may be configured to output both. That is, any configuration may be used as long as it outputs a video signal corresponding to the display device 21 to be connected.

  The decoder 4 inputs an audio stream to the audio signal processing unit 7 for each type of audio. The type of voice here refers to the language of the voice (Japanese, English, etc.), the type of voice (normal voice, voice commentary, etc.), etc. The audio commentary referred to here is a sound obtained by adding a sound for explaining a video (scene) of a program to a normal sound. In other words, the audio commentary is a sound to which a viewer can imagine the scene even if the video of the program is not visible. The audio signal processing unit 7 processes an audio stream related to the type of audio selected at that time, and generates an audio signal. A speaker 22 is connected to the audio signal output unit 8. The audio signal processing unit 7 inputs an audio signal to the speaker 22 via the audio signal output unit 8. The audio signal output unit 8 may be configured to output an analog audio signal, may be configured to output a digital audio signal, or may be configured to output both. In other words, any configuration may be used as long as the audio signal corresponding to the speaker 22 to be connected is output.

  The operation unit 9 also accepts viewer input operations on the main body. The operation unit 9 includes an operation key operated by the user and a remote control receiving unit that receives a control signal for the main body transmitted from a remote control device (not shown). The operation unit 9 accepts main power on / off operations, channel selection operations, selection of types of audio to be output, volume change operations, and the like. The EPG processing unit 10 processes the electronic program guide (EPG) received by the receiving unit 3. The EPG is a program table showing the broadcast date and time of each program to be broadcast for each channel.

  Here, a transport stream (TS) in digital television broadcasting will be briefly described. The encoded video and audio are called elementary streams (Elementary Stream (ES)), and the video ES and audio ES divided into appropriate sizes and packetized are called PES (Packetized Elementary Stream). It is. TS is a format for multiplexing and transmitting this PES. In TS, a PES packet is divided into 188-byte fixed-length packets called transport packets. A series of these transport packets is a transport stream (TS).

  Each transport packet includes 13-bit information called a packet identifier (PID). This is to indicate what each transport packet is transmitting. The PIDs of the transport packets for the same program video and the same type of audio in the same program are the same. The digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 that has received the transport stream can restore the original PES (video stream or audio stream) using the PID. In digital television broadcasting, a video stream related to the video of a program and an audio stream related to the audio of the program are multiplexed and transmitted (broadcast). In the audio stream, there are separate audio streams for the main audio and each sub audio.

  In addition, in the MPEG standard (ISO / IEC 13818-1) in digital television broadcasting, there is a table for associating stream information on a channel called a Program Map Table (PMT) with a transport stream. The PMT related to the audio stream includes ISO_639_language_descriptor (see FIG. 2) indicating language information indicating the audio language and type information indicating the audio type. Thus, each audio stream can determine the language and type of audio by ISO_639_language_descriptor included in the PMT associated with that audio stream.

  Next, the operation of the digital television broadcast receiver 1 will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of this digital television broadcast receiver. The digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 starts the process shown in FIG. 3 when the main power supply of the apparatus main body is turned on, and stops the process shown in FIG. 3 when the main power supply of the apparatus main body is turned off. That is, the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 executes the process shown in FIG. 3 while the main power supply of the apparatus main body is turned on.

  First, the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 extracts a transport stream of a program broadcast on the selected channel in the receiving unit 3 (s1). The channel that was selected when the main power supply was turned on is the channel that was selected when the main power supply was turned off the last time.

  The receiving unit 3 inputs the extracted transport stream to the decoder 4. The decoder 4 processes the transport stream of the program extracted by the receiving unit 3 and separates it into a video stream related to the video of the program and an audio stream related to the audio of the program, and into the separated video stream and audio stream. Based on this, video data and audio data are decoded (s2). In s2, an audio stream is acquired for each of the main audio and sub audio of the program, and decoded audio data is obtained for each acquired audio stream.

  The digital television broadcast receiver 1 determines whether the notification function for notifying the presence / absence of audio commentary is set to valid or invalid (s3). The setting for enabling or disabling the notification function can be set by the viewer according to his / her convenience with a remote control device or the like. This setting can be performed at an arbitrary timing while the main power is on.

  If the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 determines that the notification function is set to be effective in s3, the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 determines the type of audio for each of the main audio and sub audio of the program, and whether the program has audio explanation. It is determined whether or not (s4). In s4, the audio signal processing unit 7 sets the audio_type in the ISO_639_language_descriptor included in the PMT associated with the audio stream for each of the main audio and each sub audio of the program to “visual implied community” (audio explanation). It is determined whether or not. If there is a sound whose audio_type is “visual implied commentary”), the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 determines that the program has a sound commentary.

  If the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 determines that the program has audio explanation in s4, the audio signal output unit 8 outputs an audio signal notifying that effect (s5). In s5, for example, an audio signal for emitting a chime sound may be output from the speaker 22, or an audio signal for outputting a message “This program has audio explanation” may be output.

  When the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 accepts channel switching for switching the selected channel (s6), the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 returns to s1 and performs the above-described processing on the channel selected this time. In addition, the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 is configured such that when the program being broadcast is switched on the channel being received (that is, the program that has been broadcast so far ends, and another program starts to be broadcast). (S7), the process returns to s1 and the above-described processing is repeated. The timing at which broadcasting of a new program is started may be determined using the EPG received in advance by the receiving unit 3, or may be determined based on a change in the title of the program obtained from the received transport stream. Also good.

  Note that the digital television broadcast receiving device 1 waits for channel switching at s6 or the start of broadcasting of a new program at s7, while the program is being broadcast on the channel received by the receiving unit 3. Are output from the video signal output unit 6 and the audio signal of the selected type of audio is output from the audio signal output unit 8. At this time, as in the case of a conventional digital television broadcast receiving apparatus, when an input operation related to a change in volume, selection of a sound type, or the like is accepted, processing corresponding to the operation is performed.

  As described above, in the digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1, if there is an audio commentary in either the main audio or the auxiliary audio, the fact is notified by audio. Therefore, even when a visually handicapped person views a program, it can be easily confirmed whether the program is a program with audio commentary. Thereby, the usability of visually impaired persons can be improved.

  In addition, since this notification function can be set to be valid / invalid, a user who is not visually impaired will not feel bothered by unnecessary voice notification if this notification function is set to be invalid. That is, the usability of viewers who are not visually impaired is not reduced.

  Also, if the EPG includes information indicating whether or not there is an audio comment for each program, the program broadcast on the selected channel is a program with an audio comment as follows. You may make it determine whether there exists.

  The current EPG does not include information indicating whether or not there is an audio comment for each program.

  The digital television broadcast receiver 1 receives an EPG at a predetermined time (for example, every day at midnight). The digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 determines whether or not there is a sound commentary program for each program to be broadcast during the predetermined time (for example, 24 hours) by the received EPG, and the program with the sound commentary. To extract. The digital television broadcast receiver 1 stores program information including a broadcast channel and a broadcast time in a memory (not shown) provided in the control unit 2 for each program extracted here.

  The digital television broadcast receiving apparatus 1 also performs the process shown in FIG. 3, but the process for determining whether or not the program has an audio commentary in s4 is different from the apparatus described above. Specifically, the determination in s4 is determined by program information stored in a memory provided in the control unit 2. That is, if the program information of the program whose current time is the broadcast time and the channel selected at this time is the broadcast channel is stored in the memory provided in the control unit 2, the audio explanation It is determined that there is a program.

  In this way, the processing time required for the determination of s4 can be shortened, and the usability for the visually impaired can be further improved.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1-Digital television broadcast receiver 2-Control part 3-Reception part 4-Decoder 5-Video signal processing part 6-Video signal output part 7-Audio signal processing part 8-Audio signal output part 9-Operation part 10-EPG process Part

Claims (5)

Receiving means for receiving a digital television broadcast signal and extracting a stream of a program broadcast on the selected channel;
Separating means for processing the stream extracted by the receiving means and separating and extracting a video stream related to the video of the program and an audio stream related to the audio;
Video signal output means for outputting a video signal corresponding to the video stream extracted by the separating means;
An audio signal output means for outputting an audio signal corresponding to the audio stream extracted by the separation means;
A determination unit that determines whether the separation unit is extracting a plurality of types of audio streams, and is a program having an audio stream whose audio type is audio commentary;
And a notification means for outputting an audio signal for notifying the fact from the audio signal output means when the determination means determines that the program has an audio stream that is an audio commentary.   When the channel selection is switched, the determination means is a means for determining whether there is a program having an audio stream whose audio type is audio commentary for a program broadcast on the currently selected channel. The digital television broadcast receiver according to claim 1.   3. The digital television broadcast receiver according to claim 1, further comprising setting means for setting the notifying means to be valid or invalid.   The determination unit is a unit that confirms the type of audio for each audio stream extracted by the separation unit based on audio type information associated with the audio stream. The digital television broadcast receiver as described. The receiving means has a function of receiving, for each channel, an electronic program guide that includes information indicating the presence / absence of an audio stream having a broadcast date and time and an audio type of audio for each program to be broadcast,
Based on the electronic program guide received by the receiving means, a program having an audio stream whose audio type is audio commentary is extracted, and a storage means for storing a channel on which the program is broadcast, and a broadcast date and time,
Further, the determining means determines whether or not the program broadcast on the selected channel is a program having an audio stream whose audio type is audio commentary based on the stored contents of the storage means. The digital television broadcast receiver according to claim 1, wherein

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