JP2015053608A - Program-related information processing apparatus and program-related information processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a program-related information processing apparatus and a program-related information processing method capable of improving convenience for a user.SOLUTION: A program-related information processing apparatus comprises: a receiver for receiving broadcast waves; a display detector which detects whether a program of the broadcast waves received by the receiver is displayed on a display; a related information acquisition unit which selectively collects information related to the displayed program from an external server apparatus; and an accumulation unit which accumulates the related information. Consequently, it is easy to browse program-related information viewed by a user, which improves convenience.

Description

  The present invention relates to a program related information processing apparatus and a program related information processing method.

  With the background of the digitization of broadcasting and the spread of broadband, television devices (so-called smart TV devices) having both functions of viewing broadcast programs and connecting to the Internet are beginning to spread (Non-Patent Document 1).

  The smart TV device can receive broadcast waves having a huge number of channels transmitted by digital broadcasting, and provides a user with many program options. Program information is provided by an electronic program guide (EPG). In digital broadcasting, transmission standards for electronic program guides are defined (Non-Patent Document 2), and a program guide can be viewed on a display screen corresponding to the standards. In addition, video recorders having a capacity capable of recording a large number of channels and programs in a wide range of time have begun to spread.

  In addition, the smart TV apparatus provides a high-speed Internet connection to the user through a broadband line using an optical fiber or the like. The user can search and browse desired information as needed in addition to viewing a broadcast television program.

“Basic strategy for promoting smart TV, June 2012” Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, [Search August 26, 2013], Internet <URL: http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/joho_tsusin/hyojun /smart.html> “Program Arrangement Information Standard ARIB STD-B10 Used for Digital Broadcasting” The Japan Radio Industry Association, [Search August 26, 2013], Internet <URL: http://www.arib.or.jp/ english / html / overview / doc / 2-STD-B10v4_7.pdf>

  However, for many users, scenes where the convenience of the smart TV device can be enjoyed are limited.

  In the aspect of viewing a broadcast program, for example, the user may want to take notes such as recipe information in a cooking program, route information or information on a travel program. However, the time during which such information is displayed is short, and the user may not be able to take notes when the information is being displayed, so the user may not be able to take notes. In addition, the user is not always watching the TV, and often the TV is turned on nearby while doing something else. However, the program information remains somehow conscious and may require detailed information later. Even in an environment where a large-capacity video recorder can be used, there is little possibility that a recording reservation for a program containing the desired information is always made, and information that is necessary even if recording suddenly from a certain point in time It is difficult to record. Furthermore, even if the program can be recorded, the desired information is not the entire program, but key information such as recipes, routes, and lodging information, so it is not necessary to review the program over time. A means for confirming information is desired.

  In terms of Internet connection, for example, users (especially elderly people) who are unaccustomed to searching for information on the Internet cannot enjoy the convenience of the Internet connection function.

  The objective of this invention made | formed in view of the above problems is providing the program related information processing apparatus and program related information processing method which can improve a user's convenience.

  One aspect of the present invention for solving the above problems is a receiving unit that receives a broadcast wave, and a display detection unit that detects whether a program included in the broadcast wave received by the receiving unit is displayed on the display unit; The program-related information processing apparatus includes a related information acquisition unit that selectively collects related information of a displayed program from an external server device, and a storage unit that stores the related information.

  The present invention can be realized as a method, a program, and a storage medium recording the program substantially corresponding to the apparatus of the above aspect, and it should be understood that these are also included in the scope of the present invention. Note that each step of the method or program uses an arithmetic processing unit such as a CPU or a DSP as necessary in data processing, and the input data, processed / generated data, etc. are stored in an HDD, memory, etc. Is stored in the storage device.

  For example, in a program-related information processing method realized as a method of the present invention, in a device for receiving a broadcast wave of a program, a step of receiving the broadcast wave, and a program included in the broadcast wave received by the receiving unit is displayed on the display unit. A step of detecting whether the program is displayed; a step of selectively collecting related information of the displayed program from an external server device; and a storage step of storing the related information.

  According to the said aspect, the program relevant information processing apparatus and program relevant information processing method which can improve a user's convenience are provided.

It is a block diagram of the program related information processing apparatus in this embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the example of an operation | movement procedure of a program related information processing apparatus. It is a figure which shows the example of program relevant information. It is a flowchart which shows the example of an operation | movement procedure of a program related information processing apparatus. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of program relevant information. It is a figure which shows the structure of the program relevant information processing apparatus in a modification. It is a figure which shows the example of the program relevant information in a modification. It is a flowchart which shows the example of an operation | movement procedure of the program related information processing apparatus in a modification. It is a flowchart which shows the example of an operation | movement procedure of the program related information processing apparatus in a modification.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below.

  FIG. 1 shows a configuration diagram of a program-related information processing apparatus in the present embodiment. In FIG. 1, a configuration example of a smart TV device 10 is shown as an example of a program-related information processing device. The smart TV device 10 is connected to the server 12 via the network 11. The network 11 is a public communication line network such as the Internet, and provides broadband data communication using an optical line or the like. The server 12 is, for example, a web content server that stores various web contents.

  The smart TV device 10 includes a tuner unit 101, a network access unit 102, a display unit 103, a program display detection unit 104, a program identification unit 105, a Web content search unit 106, a related content storage unit 107, a related information list display unit 108, a related information An information display unit 109 and an operation input unit 112 are included.

  The tuner unit 101 includes a receiving circuit that receives a broadcast wave, and a signal processing circuit that performs broadcast wave signal processing and extracts data from the broadcast wave. In the present embodiment, the tuner unit 101 corresponds to a “reception unit”. The received broadcast wave is, for example, terrestrial digital broadcast or BS / C digital broadcast, and may include analog broadcast. For example, in the case of digital broadcasting, the signal processing circuit decodes data such as broadcast programs and program information transmitted after being compressed and multiplexed, and extracts these data from broadcast waves.

  The network access unit 102 has an interface for connecting to the network 11 by wire or wirelessly.

  The display unit 103 includes a display device such as a liquid crystal display that displays and outputs received broadcast wave video and program information and information acquired via the network 11 and a control unit thereof.

  The operation input unit 112 includes an input unit that receives a user operation input. The operation input unit 112 includes a push button, a touch panel incorporated in the display unit 103, a receiving device that receives a control signal from a remote controller, and the control unit.

  The program display detection unit 104, the program specification unit 105, the Web content search unit 106, the related content storage unit 107, the related information list display unit 108, and the continuous information display unit 109 are, for example, programs for realizing the functions of the respective units. It is composed of one or a plurality of microcomputers provided with a memory for storing them and a CPU that operates according to a program.

  The program display detection unit 104 detects whether or not the program received by the tuner unit 101 is displayed on the display unit 103. The program specifying unit 105 specifies the broadcast program selected by the tuner unit 101. Based on the program information of the broadcast program specified by the program specifying unit 105, the Web content searching unit 106 searches the server 12 via the network 11 for Web content related to the program by the network access unit 102. The related content storage unit 107 includes a memory that collects and stores information on the searched content, that is, program related information, when the Web content search unit 106 searches for Web content. The related information list display unit 108 causes the display unit 103 to display a list of program related information stored in the related content storage unit 107 in response to an instruction input from the operation input unit 112 that receives an instruction from the user. . When the program related information selected by the user from the list displayed by the related information list display unit 108 is input to the operation input unit 112, the related information display unit 109 displays the content of the selected program related information. To display.

  Here, an example of the smart TV device 10 is shown as an example of the program-related information processing device, but the program-related information processing device may be a set-top box device that does not have the display unit 103, for example. In this case, the display unit 103 corresponds to a television receiver or an information processing apparatus having a display function that is connected to the program-related information processing apparatus as an external device.

  FIG. 2 shows a processing procedure for accumulating program related information. The procedure in FIG. 2 is executed, for example, when the power of the smart TV device 10 is turned on.

  First, the program display detection unit 104 detects whether the display unit 103 is displaying a program received by the tuner unit 101 (S200). The program display detection unit 104 receives program data input from the tuner unit 101 and detects program display, for example. At this time, the program display detection unit 104 further detects whether or not video display by external input or information acquired from the network 11 is being displayed. For example, the program display detection unit 104 receives input from the network access unit 102 and detects whether data has been acquired from the network 11. When the display unit 103 displays the program received by the tuner unit 101 instead of the information acquired from the external input or the network 11 (YES in S200), the process proceeds to step S202 and subsequent steps.

  Based on the input from the tuner unit 101, the program specifying unit 105 specifies the currently displayed program, that is, the program received by the tuner unit 101, and detects program information of the program (S202). The program specifying unit 105 specifies a program, for example, together with a broadcast program or from metadata transmitted as a program information by broadcast waves. Alternatively, the program specifying unit 105 may specify a program from the information on the channel selected by the tuner unit 101, the time, and the broadcast wave and / or information on the program table acquired from the network 11. The detected program information is a program title, a keyword of broadcast content, URL information itself, or information including any of these.

  Next, based on the program information detected by the program specifying unit 105, the Web content search unit 106 searches the network access unit 102 for related content published for the program, that is, program related information via the network 11. (S204).

  When the Web content search unit 106 can search for the program related information (“Yes” in S206), the related content storage unit 107 records and stores the program related information (S208). The program related information stored in the related content storage unit 107 may be, for example, multimedia content data itself or address information of a website on which the content is posted. In addition to the content itself, the program title, channel, broadcast time, keyword, and the like may be stored.

  FIG. 3 is an example of program related information stored in the related content storage unit 107. FIG. 3 schematically shows the stored program related information as a table. This table 300 has records 302, each record 302 has a program name as “program identification information 1”, a keyword indicating the contents of the program as “program identification information 2”, and broadcasts the program. “Broadcasting station” and “Broadcasting time”, and “Related content location information 1 and 2” include the URL of the server that holds the related content. The “related content location information 1, 2” may be addresses of various multimedia data stored in the related content storage unit 107.

  Returning to FIG. When the program display detection unit 104 detects that the displayed program has been changed (YES in S210), steps S202 to S208 are executed for the changed program. If it is not detected that the displayed program has been changed (NO in S210), and if no further program display is detected (NO in S212), this process ends. For example, when the program display is stopped, for example, when the mode is changed to the sleep mode, this processing ends. On the other hand, while the program display is detected (YES in S212), the display program change detection process (step S210) is repeatedly executed.

  By the above procedure, the program related information of the displayed program can be accumulated without bothering the user.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining an operation procedure when browsing program-related information. The procedure of FIG. 4 is executed when an instruction to display the program related information list is given to the operation input unit 112 from the user.

  The related information list display unit 108 reads the program related information stored in the related content storage unit 107 (S400), lists it (S402), and displays it (S404). The list to be displayed may be one in which all the accumulated information is displayed from the newest in chronological order, or may be displayed by narrowing down with a keyword representing the genre of the program, for example, in response to a request given by the user. Good. Further, the contents of the displayed list may be the titles and broadcast times of the programs, and furthermore, the contents summarized with the representative image may be extracted and displayed from the program related information.

  When the user selects program related information that the user wants to see from the displayed list of program related information and inputs it to the operation input unit 112 (S406), the related information display unit 109 is stored in the related content storage unit 107. The content of the selected program related information is displayed (S408). When the program related information stored in the related content storage unit 107 is URL information, the related information display unit 109 acquires the corresponding content from the URL via the network access unit 102, and the content Is displayed.

  FIG. 5 is a display example of a program related information list. FIG. 5 shows an example in which the program-related information 500 is displayed on the display unit 103 as a list 502 arranged in the horizontal direction. Each related information 500 includes program information 504 and a program image (may be a still image or a moving image) 506. The program information 504 includes information such as program name, broadcast date and time, and broadcast station. The program image 506 includes images such as a character string indicating the content of the program, an explanatory note, and a keyword.

  When the operation input unit 112 is configured by a touch panel integrated with the display unit 103, when the user selects and touches a display area of content to be viewed from the list 500, the content is selected. At this time, the selected content is highlighted (illustrated by a thick frame 508). Then, the selected content is displayed.

  According to the above-described embodiment, the user can select desired content from a list of related content including only television programs that have been displayed by selecting a channel. Therefore, even if an operation such as Internet search is unfamiliar, it is possible to reach necessary information without performing a procedure for performing a search by considering the search conditions.

  Also, since the program information displayed as a list is only information related to the program that the user has selected and displayed on the display unit 103, the psychological resistance that complicated information is displayed and the selection is difficult. The related content can be selected.

  The program specifying unit 105 has a function of not collecting a program whose displayed time is shorter than a predetermined time (a time that can be arbitrarily set, for example, several tens of seconds to several minutes). May be. Alternatively, the smart TV device 10 is provided with an infrared sensor or the like for detecting the presence of a person in front of the screen, and a function for determining whether or not the user is watching the program based on the detection result is a program display detection unit. 104 may have. In this case, the program display detection unit 104 not only displays information about whether or not the program received by the tuner is displayed, but only programs when the user is in front of the display unit 103, that is, programs that are likely to be viewed. May be the accumulation target.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of the smart TV device 10 according to the modification. In the modification, the smart TV device 10 is different from the configuration of FIG. 1 in that it includes a viewer detection unit 111 and a viewer identification unit 110, but the other configurations are the same.

  The viewer detection unit 111 includes, for example, an imaging device for imaging the user's face in front of the display unit 103. The viewer identifying unit 110 is configured by a microcomputer or DSP (Digital Signal Processor) that acquires a captured image and identifies the user by image processing such as face recognition. Or the viewer detection part 111 may be comprised with the receiver which receives the electromagnetic wave from a user's wireless tag, and the viewer identification part 110 may identify a user from a received electromagnetic wave.

  In the modified example, the related content storage unit 107 acquires the user information identified from the viewer identification unit 110, and stores the program related information for each user. For example, a table of program related information as shown in FIG. The table 700 includes records 702. Each record 702 includes “program identification information 1” (program name), “program identification information 2” (keyword indicating the contents of the program), and programs for each “viewing user”. It has “broadcast station”, “broadcast time”, and “related content location information 1 and 2” (URL of a server that holds the related content).

  Returning to FIG. 6, the related information list display unit 108 displays a program related information list for each user. The related information list display unit 108 acquires the user identified from the viewer identification unit 110 and displays a program related information list corresponding to the user. Alternatively, the related information list display unit 108 may display a program related information list corresponding to the user specified by the user from the operation input unit 112.

  FIG. 8 shows an example of the operation procedure of the smart TV device in the modification. The procedure of FIG. 8 is the same as that of FIG. 2 except that step S800 is inserted before step S200 in the procedure of FIG. In step S800, the viewer identification unit 110 identifies the user. Step S800 may be executed once when the procedure of FIG. 8 is activated, or may be periodically executed in a predetermined cycle (for example, every several seconds).

  In the modification, in step S208, the related content storage unit 107 stores program-related information for each user.

  FIG. 9 shows an example of the operation procedure of the smart TV device in the modified example. 9 differs from FIG. 4 in that step S900 is inserted before step S400 in the procedure of FIG. 4, but the other steps are the same as those in FIG. In step S900, the viewer identifying unit 110 identifies the user. Step S900 may be executed once when the procedure of FIG. 9 is activated, or may be periodically executed in a predetermined cycle (for example, every several seconds). In step S900, the user may be identified in accordance with the user input.

  In the modified example, in step S404, the related information list display unit 108 displays program related information for each identified user.

  Note that the timing at which steps S800 and S900 shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 are executed is an example, and may be after another step.

  According to the above-described embodiment, related information of a program is collected without a special operation just by viewing a desired television program, so that only the information of the program viewed by the user can be looked back when necessary. In particular, it is often only the program that the user has been watching (or simply turned on) that remains in the impression of the user, and the information that is required later is limited to the information contained in the program. By leaving the program information of only the programs that have been or have been turned on, the number of search objects can be reduced and the convenience of the user can be improved. Since the program itself is not recorded, the memory capacity of the program-related information processing apparatus can be saved, and when the user browses the searched program-related information, only the main contents can be confirmed quickly.

  However, in the above example, only the program related information of the program displayed on the display unit 103 is collected. However, the program information of a plurality of channels and / or a plurality of time zones received by the tuner unit 101 is shown. The program specifying unit 105 may store the information in a memory, mark only those programs that have been viewed, and search for program-related information of the marked programs.

  Although the present invention has been described based on the drawings and examples, it should be noted that those skilled in the art can easily make various modifications and corrections based on the present disclosure. Therefore, it should be noted that these variations and modifications are included in the scope of the present invention. For example, the functions included in each means, each step, etc. can be rearranged so that there is no logical contradiction, and a plurality of means, steps, etc. can be combined or divided into one. .

10 Smart TV device,
11 network,
12 server 12,
101 Tuner,
102 network access unit,
103 display unit,
104 program display detection unit,
105 Program identification part,
106 Web content search unit,
107 related content storage unit,
108 related information list display section,
109 related information display section,
112 Operation input section

Claims (5)

A receiver for receiving broadcast waves;
A display detection unit for detecting whether a program included in the broadcast wave received by the reception unit is displayed on the display unit;
A related information acquisition unit that selectively collects related information of a displayed program from an external server device;
A storage unit for storing the related information;
A program-related information processing apparatus comprising: In claim 1,
A program-related information processing apparatus further comprising a related information display unit that displays the stored related information on the display unit. In claim 1 or 2,
An identification unit for identifying the user;
The storage unit stores the related information for each identified user.
Program-related information processing device. In claim 2 or 3,
The related information display unit displays the related information for each identified user on the display unit. A program-related information processing method by a device that receives broadcast waves of a program,
Receiving a broadcast wave;
Detecting whether the program included in the broadcast wave received by the receiving unit is displayed on the display unit;
Selectively collecting relevant information of the displayed program from an external server device;
An accumulating step for accumulating the related information;
A program related information processing method comprising:

Images