JP2011109413A - Television system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To facilitate a channel selection operation when a plurality of pictures are displayed (hereinafter called as multi-display) in a television in which a plurality of programs can be simultaneously watched. <P>SOLUTION: When buttons of a plurality of selected channels are depressed by a user, a remote control unit 122 is notified of the depressed buttons via button detection units 121-1 to 121-n. The remote control unit 122 independently detects a plurality of channel numbers corresponding to the depressed buttons, and detects an input order of them. On the basis of this detection, a remote control signal is transmitted from a remote control signal transmission unit 123 to a television set 100. In a television control unit of the television set 100, channel setting of the plurality of notified channel numbers is performed on the basis of the input order of them. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a television system for selecting a program to be viewed using a remote controller when selecting a program to be viewed on a television capable of simultaneously viewing a plurality of programs.

  With the spread of digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasting and the spread of cable TV, more TV programs can be viewed.

  At the same time as the transition from CRT televisions to liquid crystal televisions / plasma televisions has progressed, television screens have become larger. A large-screen television can obtain a sufficient size even if it is divided into two or four. Therefore, there is a technology that includes a plurality of tuners and displays a plurality of television programs at a time, such as a television with a built-in W tuner.

  The operation when a plurality of screens are displayed at once includes a technique for performing an operation in a two-screen mode with a two-screen button and a technique for selecting a channel using a cursor.

  Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for selecting a channel selection channel by operating an index button or a two-screen button on a remote controller. Patent Document 2 discloses a technique for selecting a program to be viewed from a program list by a cursor operation.

JP 7-107410 A (published April 21, 1995) JP-A-6-54267 (published February 25, 1994)

  However, in the prior art of Patent Document 1 or Patent Document 2, in the operation of the two-screen button or the operation with the cursor, a plurality of operations are required when selecting a channel, and the operation for the user becomes complicated. is there.

  In the present invention, the channel selection operation when displaying a plurality of screens (hereinafter referred to as “multi-display”) and the switching operation of the normal display when one station is selected from the multi-display are simplified. With the goal.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, the present invention provides a television system including a television device that includes a plurality of tuners and that can simultaneously display a plurality of channels, and a remote control device that operates the television device. The apparatus can independently detect an operation input unit for a user to select and input a channel and a plurality of channel numbers input from the operation input unit, and can input a plurality of channel numbers selected and input. An input detection unit capable of detecting the order; a signal transmission unit configured to transmit a plurality of channel numbers detected by the input detection unit and the input order to the television set as remote control signals; The apparatus includes a signal receiving unit that receives the remote control signal, and a plurality of channel numbers notified in the remote control signal. Based on the input order of the is characterized by comprising a channel setting unit that sets a channel to be received by each of the plurality of tuners.

  According to the above configuration, in channel selection when a plurality of channels are simultaneously displayed on the television device, the user slightly inputs a plurality of channel numbers to be displayed from the operation input unit (for example, button keys). It is only necessary to input the information by shifting the input to the user, and the operation for the user is simplified. For example, when the television apparatus performs two-screen display of the main channel and the sub-channel, when the user presses the button for setting the main channel, and then presses the button for setting the sub-channel while pressing the button. good. In this operation, the input detection unit detects that two channel buttons have been pressed and their order. The detection result is transmitted from the remote control device to the television device via the signal transmission unit and the signal reception unit. The channel setting unit performs channel setting for the main channel and the sub channel. In this operation, unlike the conventional channel selection, the operation of the two-screen buttons and the operation with the cursor before the channel number input are not required.

  When returning from the 2-screen display to the 1-screen display, the user selects one channel, does not select the second channel corresponding to the sub-channel, and releases the selected channel button. As a result, the display is switched from the two-screen display to the one-screen display. As a result, similarly to the remote control operation when selecting a channel in a normal television system, switching from the multi display to the single screen display can be performed, and the operation of canceling the multi display becomes unnecessary.

  In the television system, the input detection unit detects a channel number input by the storage unit that sequentially lists and stores a plurality of channel numbers input from the operation input unit, and the input detection unit. A memory control unit that compares the channel number in which the input is detected with the channel number stored in the storage unit and changes the channel number stored in the storage unit according to the comparison result. The memory control unit deletes the channel number for which no input is detected from the channel numbers stored in the storage unit from the list of the storage unit, and among the channel numbers for which input is detected, A channel number not stored in the storage unit is stored at the end of the list of the storage unit, and a channel number by the input detection unit is stored. After input detection can be configured to transmit the channel number stored in the list of the storage unit and the storage order as the remote control signal to the television device.

  According to the above configuration, when an input of a channel number is detected by the input detection unit, a channel number for which no input is detected is deleted from the channel numbers stored in the storage unit, and the input is detected. Of the channel numbers that are set, channel numbers that are not stored in the storage unit are stored in the storage unit. Thereby, after the channel number input is detected by the input detection unit, the channel number stored in the list of the storage unit is a plurality of channels stored in the input order, and the input detection unit in the present invention can be easily realized. .

  In the television system, the television device and the remote control device have a wireless communication function, and can transmit program guide information from the television device to the remote control device by wireless communication. It can be set as the structure which has the image display part which displays program schedule information, and the touchscreen which functions as the said operation input part and the said input detection part.

  According to the above configuration, in the remote control device, the program guide information transmitted from the television device by wireless communication can be displayed on the image display section, and the user can touch the touch panel while viewing the displayed program guide information. The selected channel can be input at.

  Further, in the television system, channel information selected by the television device can be transmitted from the television device to the remote control device by wireless communication in addition to the program guide information. The display unit can be configured to display the program guide information together with the channel information selected by the television apparatus.

  According to said structure, the user can recognize the channel which the television apparatus selected through the said image display part.

  The present invention is a television system comprising a television device having a plurality of tuners and capable of simultaneously displaying a plurality of channels, and a remote control device for operating the television device. The remote control device allows a user to select and input a channel. And an input detection unit capable of independently detecting a plurality of channel numbers input from the operation input unit and detecting an input order of the plurality of channel numbers selected and input. And a signal transmission unit that transmits the plurality of channel numbers detected by the input detection unit and the input order thereof to the television apparatus as a remote control signal, and the television apparatus receives the remote control signal. A plurality of channel numbers notified in the signal receiving unit and the remote control signal based on the input order; It is configured to and a channel setting unit that sets a channel to be received by each of the number of tuners.

  Therefore, in channel selection when a plurality of channels are simultaneously displayed on the television device, the user inputs a plurality of channel numbers to be displayed from the operation input unit (for example, button keys) while slightly shifting the input timing. It is only necessary to do this, and the operation for the user is simplified.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of the present invention, where (a) is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a television device according to Embodiment 1, and (b) is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a remote control device. It is a flowchart which shows the processing content in the said remote control apparatus. (A)-(c) is a figure which shows the structure of the remote control signal produced | generated by the said remote control apparatus. It is a flowchart which shows the processing content in the said television apparatus. (A) is a figure which shows the example of a display image when two channels are selected, (b) is a figure which shows the example of a display image when one channel is selected. 4A and 4B show another embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. 4A is a block diagram showing a configuration of a television device according to Embodiment 2, and FIG. 4B is a block diagram showing a configuration of a remote control device. (A), (b) is a figure which shows the example of a display of the program information in the remote control apparatus which concerns on Embodiment 2. FIG.

[Embodiment 1]
Embodiment 1 of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1A is a block diagram showing a configuration of television device 100 according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 1B is a block diagram showing a configuration of remote control device 120 for operating television device 100. In the first embodiment, the television device 100 and the remote control device 120 constitute a television system capable of channel selection by the remote control.

<Configuration>
The television apparatus 100 includes two tuners, first and second tuners 101 and 103, two image and sound processing units such as first and second image and sound processing units 102 and 104, a television control unit 105, and remote control signal reception. A unit 106, an image display unit 107, and a speaker 108 are provided.

  In addition, the remote control device 120 includes N button detection units 121, a remote control control unit 122, and a remote control signal transmission unit 123.

  Signals transmitted from the broadcast station are received by the antennas 109 a and 109 b, and the received signals are input to the first tuner 101 and the second tuner 103. The first tuner 101 and the second tuner 103 extract the signals of the channel selection channels designated by the television control unit 105, respectively.

  The signal extracted by the first tuner 101 is input to the first image / audio processing unit 102, and the signal extracted by the second tuner 103 is input to the second image / audio processing unit 104. The first image / audio processing unit 102 and the second image / audio processing unit 104 separate the input signal into an image data signal and an audio data signal.

  The image data signal extracted by the first image / audio processing unit 102 is input to the television control unit 105 as the image data signal A, and the audio data signal is input as the audio data signal A. Similarly, the image data signal extracted by the second image / audio processing unit 104 is input to the television control unit 105 as the image data signal B and the audio data signal is input as the audio data signal B.

  The remote control signal receiving unit 106 receives a remote control signal sent from the remote control device 120 and passes the remote control signal to the television control unit 105. The TV control unit 105 includes a CPU, a memory, and the like (not shown), processes the remote control signal received from the remote control signal receiving unit 106, and designates the channel selection to the first tuner 101 and the second tuner 103. .

  The TV control unit 105 processes the image data signal A, the image data signal B, the sound data signal A, and the sound data signal B sent from the first image sound processing unit 102 and the second image sound processing unit 104. And the processed display image signal and audio signal are output. That is, the television control unit 105 outputs a display image signal created from the image data signal A and the image data signal B to the image display unit 107, and the audio signal created from the audio data signal A and the audio data signal B is output to the speaker. It outputs to 108.

  The remote control device 120 has N button detection units 121-1 to 121-n, and the remote control unit 122 independently detects whether or not a button is pressed for each of the N buttons. It can be done.

  If there is a pressed button, the button detection unit 121 corresponding to the button notifies the remote control unit 122 of the button number assigned to each button. As a result, the remote control unit 122 detects the currently pressed button.

  At this time, if two buttons are pressed simultaneously, two button numbers can be detected. The remote control control unit 122 creates a remote control signal based on the detected button number recording and the already recorded button number information, and passes this remote control signal to the remote control signal transmission unit 123. The remote control signal transmission unit 123 transmits the remote control signal thus generated to the remote control signal reception unit 106 of the television.

<Processing>
First, the processing contents in the remote control device 120, that is, the processing flow of the remote control unit 122 will be described with reference to FIG.

  The remote controller control unit 122 has a storage unit (not shown) (hereinafter referred to as “PUSH list”), and stores the number of the pressed button of the remote controller as the button number. In addition, the recorded order is stored together with the button number in the PUSH list.

  When the processing flow is started, in ST302, it is confirmed based on a signal detected by the button detection unit 121 whether one or more buttons are pressed. When no button is pressed, the process proceeds to ST303, and when any button is pressed, the process of ST304 is performed.

  In ST303, the PUSH list is emptied. In ST304, button numbers included in the PUSH list but not included in the currently pressed button number are deleted from the PUSH list.

  After the process of ST304, in ST305, a button number that is currently pressed and is not included in the PUSH list is added to the PUSH list. At this time, when there are a plurality of button numbers to be added to the PUSH list, a rule is determined in ascending order or descending order of the button numbers so that the button numbers are added to the PUSH list one by one.

  After ST305, in ST306, the top two button numbers of the push list added by the above procedure are extracted and passed to the remote control signal transmitter 123. However, when the button number of the PUSH list is one, only one button number is passed to the remote control signal transmission unit 123.

  When receiving the button number from the remote control control unit 122, the remote control signal transmission unit 123 generates a remote control signal and transmits it to the remote control signal reception unit 106 of the television apparatus 100. Generally, infrared communication is used in a remote control such as a television. Further, a remote control signal in which a code signal for identifying a manufacturer and a control data signal are combined is used so that home appliances of other companies do not malfunction.

  Next, the configuration of the remote control signal in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. The code signal for identifying the manufacturer of the remote control signal is the same as the conventional code signal. The creation of the data signal is described below.

  When the remote control signal transmission unit 123 receives one channel number (button number), the selected channel number is used as a data signal. The remote control signal in this case is shown in FIG.

  When the remote control signal transmission unit 123 receives two channel numbers, it handles a signal indicating that a plurality of channels have been selected (multi-selection) and the two received channel numbers as data signals. The remote control signal in this case is shown in FIG.

  When the remote control signals shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B are used, the data amount of the data signal when one channel is selected is different from that of the data signal when two channels are selected. However, there is a method of transmitting a fixed-length remote control signal instead of a method of transmitting a variable-length remote control signal as shown in FIGS. In this case, when one channel is selected, a sufficiently long fixed-length remote control signal as shown in FIG. 3C is preferably used instead of the remote control signal shown in FIG. .

  Remote control device 120 repeats the remote control processing flow of ST301 to ST307 shown in FIG.

  Next, a processing flow in the television apparatus 100 when a remote control signal is received from the remote control signal receiving unit 106 will be described with reference to FIG. The television control unit 105 includes a memory (not shown) (hereinafter referred to as a channel selection channel A and a channel selection channel B).

  When the remote control signal is received, processing from ST201 is started. In ST202, it is confirmed whether the received remote control signal includes a plurality of channel selection channels. When there is one channel selection channel, the process of ST204 is performed, and when there are two channel selection channels, the process of ST203 is performed.

  In ST203, channel number A of the remote control signal is set to channel selection channel A, and channel number B of the remote control signal is set to channel selection channel B. In ST204, the channel number of the remote control signal is set to channel selection channel A, and channel selection channel B is left without channel designation.

  In ST203 or ST204, channel numbers are set for channel selection channel A and channel selection channel B, and in ST205, a series of processing when a remote control signal is received ends.

  Also, the television control unit 105 repeatedly performs the following processing regardless of whether or not a remote control signal is received. That is, the television control unit 105 designates the recorded channel selection channel A as the channel selection channel of the first tuner 101, and designates the recorded channel selection channel B as the channel selection channel of the second tuner 103. To do.

  By designating channel selection channels to the first tuner 101 and the second tuner 103, the image data signal A and the audio data signal A are input to the television control 105 from the first image / audio processing unit 102. Similarly, the image data signal B and the audio data signal B are input from the second image / audio processing unit 104 to the television control unit 105.

  The TV control unit 105 displays the display image signal in which the image data signal A and the image data signal B are arranged as shown in FIG. Is generated and passed to the image display unit 107. When the channel B is not designated, the image data signal A is used as a display image signal and passed to the image display unit 107. At that time, as shown in FIG. 5B, the image data of the channel selection channel A is output to the image display unit.

  Further, in the generation of the audio signal of the television control unit 105, only the audio data signal A is passed to the speaker 108 as an audio signal without using the audio data signal B. The television control unit 105 repeats the above processing.

  As described above, since the audio data signal B is not used, the second image / audio processing unit 104 generates the audio data signal B and transfers the data to the television control unit 105 with respect to the input second channel selection signal. If not, the amount of processing can be reduced.

  In step ST204, the channel B is not designated. When the channel selection channel is not designated, the signal passed from the second tuner 103 to the second video / audio processing unit 104 and the video data signal B input from the second video / audio processing unit 104 to the television control unit 105 are indefinite. It will be something. However, in this case, there is no particular problem because this data is not used.

  In addition, when the channel selected for the second tuner 103 is not designated, the power consumption of the second tuner 103 can be reduced by not performing the tuner process. Similarly, if the processing of the second image / audio processing unit 104 is not performed, the power consumption can be further reduced.

  By the above method, the operation at the time of two-screen display can be easily performed by the remote control device 120 capable of detecting the simultaneous pressing of a plurality of buttons and the television device 100 including two tuners.

  In addition, the sound of the main channel and the sub channel can be operated only by the operation of the channel selection button by the remote control device 120.

  Furthermore, in the television system according to the present embodiment, when returning from the two-screen display to the one-screen display, the user selects a channel and selects a channel without selecting the second channel corresponding to the sub-channel. Release the channel button to switch from 2-screen display to single-screen display. By such an operation, switching from multi-display to single-screen display can be performed as in the case of remote control operation when selecting a channel in a normal television system, so that an operation of canceling the multi-display becomes unnecessary.

[Embodiment 2]
Embodiment 2 of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 6A is a block diagram showing a configuration of television device 400 according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 6B is a block diagram showing a configuration of remote control device 420 for operating television device 100.

<Configuration>
The television apparatus 400 includes two tuners, first and second tuners 401 and 403, two image and sound processing units such as first and second image and sound processing units 402 and 404, a television control unit 405, and remote control signal reception. A unit 406, an image display unit 407, and a speaker 408 are provided. Since these are the same configurations as those of the television device 100 according to the first embodiment, detailed description thereof is omitted. Furthermore, the television apparatus 400 includes an Internet I / F 410, a program information processing unit 411, and a television wireless communication unit 412 for performing wireless communication.

  In addition, the remote control device 420 includes a remote control wireless communication unit 426 for performing wireless communication, a remote control control unit 422 for controlling the entire remote control device, a remote control display device 425, a touch panel 424, and a remote control signal to the television device 400. And a remote control signal transmission unit 423 for transmitting to.

<Processing>
The television device 400 and the remote control device 420 according to the second embodiment can perform channel setting from an electronic program guide sent from the Internet or a broadcasting station. Hereinafter, processing when channel setting is performed using an electronic program guide will be described.

  The Internet I / F 410 is an interface for connecting the television device 400 and the Internet. The program information processing unit 411 uses the Internet I / F 410 to acquire an electronic program guide such as iEPG from the Internet network 413. The electronic program guide acquired by the program information processing unit 411 is not limited to iEPG using the Internet, but may be an electronic program guide (EPG) sent from a broadcasting station.

  The television device 400 transmits the program information acquired from the program information processing unit 411 to the remote control device 420 via the television control unit 405 from the television wireless communication 412. The remote control device 420 passes the program information received from the remote control wireless communication unit 426 to the remote control control unit 422.

  In the second embodiment, IEEE802.11, Bluetooth, or the like can be used for wireless communication between the television set 400 and the remote control device 420. In wireless communication, it is common to perform authentication with a communication partner in order to avoid crosstalk with other wireless communication devices. Therefore, bidirectional communication is performed between the TV control unit 400 and the TV wireless communication unit 412 in FIG. 6A and between the remote control control unit 422 and the remote control wireless communication unit 426 in FIG. 6B. .

  The remote control control unit 422 processes the program information sent from the television apparatus 400, creates display image data for remote control, and passes it to the image display unit 425 for remote control. The remote control image display unit 425 displays the received remote control display image data. The display image data for remote control is displayed, for example, as shown in FIG.

  As the touch panel 424 of the remote controller 420, a touch panel that can detect a plurality of touches is used. For example, there is a type in which photodiodes are arranged on each pixel of a liquid crystal panel, a touched image is scanned, and coordinates are detected by image processing. Such a remote control image display unit 425 and touch panel 424 may be integrated.

  In the first embodiment, a program is selected by assigning a channel number to each button and pressing a button corresponding to the channel number to be selected. In the second embodiment, the program information acquired by television device 400 is transmitted to remote control device 420, and the program name and channel number are displayed on remote control image display unit 425.

  The user who operates the remote control device can directly select the channel to be viewed without checking which button the channel is assigned to by checking the channel of the program to be viewed. Also, you can select the program you want to watch directly without having to convert it to a channel.

  Basic processing of television apparatus 400 and remote control apparatus 420 of the second embodiment is the same as that of television apparatus 100 and remote control apparatus 120 of the first embodiment. That is, the remote control unit 422 has a storage unit (hereinafter referred to as “PUSH list”) not shown, and stores the channel number selected by the touch panel 424. In the PUSH list, the recorded order is stored together with the channel number. For example, when the user selects channel “4” as channel selection channel A and selects channel “10” as channel selection channel B, the user touches the display area of channel “4” on touch panel 424, The display area of channel “4” may be touched while the display area of channel “10” is subsequently touched.

  Further, the television control unit 405 records information on the selected channel in a memory (not shown) (hereinafter referred to as a selected channel A and a selected channel B). Thereby, the process along the control flow of FIG. 2 and FIG. 4 demonstrated in Embodiment 1 can be performed.

  In the second embodiment, information on channel selection channel A and channel selection channel B recorded in television control unit 405 is also transmitted to remote control device 420 using television wireless communication unit 412 simultaneously with program information. . The remote control wireless communication unit 426 receives the program information, the channel selection channel A, and the channel selection channel B, and passes them to the remote control unit 422.

  The remote control control unit 422 adds information indicating the channel selection channel A and information indicating the channel selection channel B to the remote control display image data created from the program information, and passes the information to the remote control image display unit 425. A display example of the remote control image display unit 425 in this case is shown in FIG. In this example, the channel and program name are surrounded by a solid line as information indicating the selected channel A, and the channel and program name are surrounded by a dotted line as information indicating the selected channel B.

  In the above description, the television apparatus has two tuners as an example. However, the television apparatus may have three or more tuners. In this case, the remote control device is configured to be able to independently detect a plurality of channel numbers input by a remote control button or a touch panel and to detect an input order of the plurality of input channel numbers. Accordingly, it is possible to set which of the plurality of tuners receives the plurality of channel numbers notified from the remote control device based on the input order.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications are possible within the scope shown in the claims, and embodiments obtained by appropriately combining technical means disclosed in different embodiments. Is also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

  The present invention is a technique that makes it easy to select a TV program by an intuitive user interface, and can be used in a TV apparatus that includes a plurality of tuners and can display a plurality of TV programs at a time.

100, 400 Television apparatus 101, 401 First tuner 102, 402 First image / audio processor 103, 403 Second tuner 104, 404 Second image / audio processor 105, 405 Television control unit (channel setting unit)
106,406 Remote control signal receiver (signal receiver, memory, memory controller)
107,407 Image display unit 108,408 Speaker 109,409 Antenna 120 Remote control device 121 Button detection unit (input detection unit)
122, 422 Remote control unit (input detection unit)
123, 423 Remote control signal transmitter (signal transmitter)
410 Internet I / F
411 Program information processing unit 412 Wireless communication unit for TV 424 Touch panel (operation input unit)
425 Image display unit for remote control (image display unit)
426 Wireless communication unit for remote control

Claims (4)

A television system comprising a plurality of tuners and capable of simultaneously displaying a plurality of channels, and a remote control device for operating the television device,
The remote control device is
An operation input unit for the user to select and input a channel;
An input detection unit capable of independently detecting a plurality of channel numbers input from the operation input unit, and capable of detecting an input order of the plurality of channel numbers selected and input;
A signal transmission unit that transmits a plurality of channel numbers detected by the input detection unit and the input order to the television apparatus as remote control signals;
The television apparatus is
A signal receiver for receiving the remote control signal;
A television system, comprising: a channel setting unit that sets a channel to be received by each of the plurality of tuners based on an input order of the plurality of channel numbers notified in the remote control signal. The input detection unit is
A storage unit that sequentially lists and stores a plurality of channel numbers input from the operation input unit;
When an input of a channel number is detected by the input detection unit, the channel number at which the input is detected is compared with the channel number stored in the storage unit, and stored in the storage unit according to the comparison result. And a memory control unit for changing the channel number.
The memory control unit
Of the channel numbers stored in the storage unit, the channel number for which no input is detected is deleted from the list of the storage unit,
Of the channel numbers for which input has been detected, channel numbers that are not stored in the storage unit are stored at the end of the list in the storage unit,
2. The channel number stored in the list of the storage unit and its storage order are transmitted to the television apparatus as a remote control signal after the input of the channel number is detected by the input detection unit. Television system. The television device and the remote control device have a wireless communication function, and can transmit program guide information from the television device to the remote control device by wireless communication.
The remote control device is
An image display unit for displaying the program guide information;
The television system according to claim 1, further comprising a touch panel that functions as the operation input unit and the input detection unit. From the television device to the remote control device, in addition to the program guide information by wireless communication, channel information selected by the television device can be transmitted,
4. The television system according to claim 3, wherein the image display unit of the remote control device can display the program guide information together with channel information selected by the television device.

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