JP2661564B2 - Remote reception device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a remote reception apparatus, and more particularly to a remote reception apparatus comprising a plurality of stations capable of remotely controlling a television camera and the like in a partner station.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a remote reception apparatus of this type is constituted by a plurality of stations, and the stations are connected to each other via a line to realize a video conference system.

There is no problem when the system elements such as the television camera and the microphone in each of the plurality of stations are common, but when the system elements are different for each station, the control items of the system elements in other stations are not unified. Become. Therefore, conventionally, all the system elements of another station are registered in a memory of a certain station in advance.

[0004] For example, in addition to a fixed type television camera, pan, tilt, and zoom (z) are used.
oo)), and the items to be controlled are different. Therefore, if it is not known which type of television camera is provided in each station, remote control cannot be performed. Therefore, control item information indicating a control item for an information input device in the own station is registered in another station in advance. As a result, in the own station, the control item information of all other stations is registered in the memory.

With the above-described configuration, when a video conference system is realized by connecting to another station via a line,
Since the television camera and microphone in the connection partner station can be remotely controlled, the conference can be smoothly advanced if these are properly operated.

[0006] Here, in a video conference system, a configuration for remotely controlling a television camera of the other party is also described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-114485. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-263885 discloses a configuration in which a photographing range can be designated while viewing the display on a remote operation panel. Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-373386 discloses a configuration in which a television camera on the other side is controlled by operating a touch sensor type switch on a television monitor.

[0007]

The above-described conventional remote reception apparatus has a disadvantage that the contents of the system elements registered in each station must be changed one by one whenever the system elements of another station are changed. . There is also a disadvantage that the memory storage capacity for registering system elements of each station increases as the number of stations increases.

[0008] These disadvantages cannot be solved by the known techniques described in the above publications.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a remote reception apparatus which does not increase the storage capacity of a memory provided in each station.

[0010]

A remote reception device according to the present invention is controlled by control information and sends predetermined information to a master station.
Connected to the master station via a line.
A plurality of slave stations, and the predetermined information from the plurality of slave stations.
An information output device to output, and information input to each of the plurality of slave stations.
Operating switches for controlling the power devices,
The information input device is controlled according to the operation of a switch group.
A remote reception apparatus comprising: a single master station transmits control information for each of said slave station and the master station control item information indicating a control item of the information input device of the self station and means for transmitting to said master station during circuit connection, the master station further comprising means for enabling state only necessary among the switches of the operation switch group in accordance with the control item information Features.

[0011]

One station transmits control item information indicating a control item for an information input device in its own station to the station when the line is connected to the connection partner station. The connection partner station that has received the control item information enables only necessary switches among the switches of the operation switch group according to the control item information,
Control information for controlling the information input device is transmitted according to the operation of the switch group. Based on the transmitted control information, the information input device of the station which has transmitted the control item information is controlled, and the information obtained as a result is transmitted to the connection partner station.

[0012]

Next, the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of a remote reception apparatus according to the present invention. Referring to the figure, a remote reception apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a master station 200, and the master station 200 and an INS (Information Net).
It is configured to include N (N is a positive integer) slave stations 1 to N which are alternatively connected via a work system (net) network 300. That is, the master station 200 is connected to any of the slave stations 1 to N via the INS network 300, thereby constituting a video conference system.
Since the present apparatus does not register the control item information of each slave station in advance, but sends the information to the connection partner station every time a line is connected, the storage capacity of the memory provided in the own station does not increase. is there. This will be described in detail below.

The parent station 200 in the figure includes a television camera 10 for photographing a conference participant, a microphone 20 for collecting the speech contents of the conference participant, and a video transmitted from a connection partner station. It is configured to include a television monitor 30 for projecting and a speaker 40 for outputting audio transmitted from a connection partner station.

The master station 200 encodes a video signal from the television camera 10 and an audio signal from the microphone 20, multiplexes the encoded signal with control data from the control device 60, and transmits the multiplexed signal to the connection partner station via the INS network 300. A video encoding device 50, an operation panel 70 that displays an operation screen in accordance with an instruction from the control device 60, and notifies the control device 60 of the contents of the operation of the responder; And a control device 60 that instructs the display of an operation screen corresponding to the system element of (1) and outputs control data to the slave station in accordance with the operation of the operation panel 70.

On the other hand, each of the slave stations 1 to N in the figure includes pan, tilt,
Television cameras 100-1 to 100-n (n is an integer of 2 or more) for photographing a conference participant and the like, and a microphone 110 for collecting the speech contents of the conference participant, etc. And a television monitor 120 for projecting an image transmitted from the connection partner station, and a speaker 130 for outputting audio transmitted from the connection partner station.

Each slave station separates and decodes a video signal and an audio signal received from the master station 200 via the INS network 300 and control data, and outputs a video signal to the television monitor 120 and an audio signal to the speaker 130, respectively. And outputs control data to the control device 90, and further encodes video signals from the television cameras 100-1 to 100-n and audio signals from the microphone 110 and multiplexes them with control data from the control device 90. A video encoding device 80 for transmitting to the master station 200 via the INS network 300;
Immediately after being connected to the INS network line 300, the information of the system element registered in advance in the own station is notified to the master station 200 via the video encoding device 80 by the control data, and the control data received from the master station 200 And a control device 90 for controlling the television cameras 100-1 to 100-n of the own station.

In such a configuration, the moving picture coding device 50 in the master station 200 codes the video signal from the television camera 10 and the audio signal from the microphone 20 and multiplexes them with control data from the control device 60 to INS. The data is transmitted to the child station via the network 300. The slave station receiving this receives the encoded video signal and audio signal and the control data, separates and decodes them, and outputs the video signal to the television monitor 30 and the audio signal to the speaker 40, respectively.

The control device 60 in the master station 200 is connected to an arbitrary one of a plurality of slave stations 1 to N having different control items such as the number of television cameras and control items such as pan, tilt, and zoom as system elements to be controlled. When responding, immediately after the connection of the INS network line, information of system elements registered in advance in the slave station of the connection partner is received by control data. Further, the control device 60 instructs the operation panel 70 to display an operation screen corresponding to the system element of each slave station, and outputs control data to the slave station in accordance with the operation of the operation panel 70. The operation panel 70 displays an operation screen according to an instruction from the control device 60, and notifies the control device 60 of the contents of the operation of the respondent (slave station side).

A moving picture coding apparatus 80 in the slave station of the connection partner
Separates and decodes the video signal and the audio signal received from the master station 200 via the INS network 300 and the control data, and outputs the video signal to the television monitor 120 and the audio signal to the speaker 130, respectively. Also, the moving picture coding device 80 codes one of the video signals from the television cameras 100-1 to 100-n and the audio signal from the microphone 110, multiplexes it with control data from the control device 90, and multiplexes the data.
The data is transmitted to the parent station via the NS network 300.

Immediately after the connection to the INS network, the control unit 90 notifies the master station of the information of the system elements registered in advance for each slave station by the control data via the moving picture coding apparatus 80 and receives the information from the master station. The TV camera of the own station is controlled by the control data thus obtained.

Here, for example, the television camera 1 in the slave station 1
00-1 is a TV camera capable of controlling pan, tilt, and zoom, TV camera 100-2 is a fixed TV camera,
It is assumed that the television camera 100-3 is a television camera capable of controlling pan, tilt, and zoom.

It is assumed that the system elements of the own station are registered in advance in the control devices 90 of the slave stations 1 and 2 respectively.

A touch panel type operation panel 70 is a group of switches provided on the screen of the television monitor 30. The display contents of the operation screen are system elements received from the slave stations each time the slave stations 1 and 2 are connected. Is controlled so as to be changed and displayed according to. In other words, of this switch group,
Only necessary ones are enabled, and by operating this, the remote control of the television camera can be performed.

Here, the number of slave stations increases, and N
Consider the case of one. In the conventional device, it is necessary to register the information of the system element about the added slave station in the memory in the master station, so that the storage capacity of the memory must be increased. On the other hand, according to the present invention, since the information is transmitted to the partner station when connected to the partner station via the line, there is no need to increase the storage capacity of the memory. Further, even when the system element is changed while the number of slave stations remains unchanged, there is no need to rewrite the storage contents of the memory.

Next, the operation panel 70 in FIG. 1 will be described. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an operation screen on the operation panel 70. The operation panel is generally provided independently of the television monitor or provided on the screen of the television monitor in consideration of its operability.

FIG. 2A shows a slave station 1 and a television camera 10.
A display example of the operation panel 70 when 0-1 is selected, and a display example of the operation panel 70 when the slave station 2 and the television camera 100-2 are selected are shown in FIG. This operation panel includes a well-known touch panel type switch group. In the following description, it is assumed that each switch is turned on by touching a button.

First, in FIG. 2A, for example, by touching the button display section of the slave station 1 on the operation screen, the slave station 1 is connected, and the color of the button display section 21 changes. In the figure, this change in color is indicated by oblique lines. Furthermore, by touching the button display section 23 of the television camera 100-1, the television camera 100-1 is selected, and the color of the button display changes. Similarly, the color change is indicated by diagonal lines.

The television camera 100-1 of the slave station 1 is a pan,
Since the television camera is capable of controlling tilt and zoom, characters "zoom" and "pan / tilt" are displayed together with the respective operation buttons 27 to 31. Here, the operation buttons 26 and 27 are the zoom button, the operation button 28
And 29 are pan buttons, and the operation buttons 30 and 31 are tilt buttons. By operating these buttons, the television camera 100-1 of the slave station 1 can be controlled on the master station 200 side.

On the other hand, FIG. 2B shows a state where the mobile station 2 is connected to the mobile station 2. In this state, the color of the button display of the mobile station 2 is changed (shaded area). Further, by selecting the TV camera 100-2, the color and the like of the button display of the TV camera 2 change (hatched portion). here,
The television camera 100-2 is a fixed type and cannot control pan, tilt, and zoom. Therefore, unlike the case of FIG. 11A, the operation buttons and the characters “zoom” and “pan / tilt” are not displayed.

As described above, only necessary ones of the operation buttons are enabled and displayed. That is, when the master station responds to a plurality of slave stations having different system elements, each system element is registered in advance in each slave station, and information of the system elements of the slave station is established when the master station is connected via the INS network. By notifying the parent station,
The screen display of the operation panel can be changed for each connected slave station.

When a plurality of microphones are provided in the slave station as well as the television camera, it is apparent that the master station can control the on / off and input levels of the microphones. When the microphone is also controlled, the operation panel is different from that shown in FIG. That is, the screen display content is changed depending on the control target.

In the above embodiment, the description has been given of the case of an apparatus composed of a master station and an arbitrary slave station. Clearly what you can do.

Further, it is clear that the present invention can be applied not only to a video conference system but also to a video telephone system. In short, the present invention has an information output device that outputs information from a connection partner station and an operation switch group for controlling an information input device in the partner station, and controls the information input device according to the operation of the switch group. A first station for transmitting the control information of the first station, and a second station having an information input device controlled by the control information and transmitting the information to the first station and connected to the first station via a line. It can be widely applied to remote reception devices including

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention, the control item information of another station is not registered in advance, but the information is sent to the connection partner station every time a line is connected, so that the control station information is provided in the own station. This has the effect that the storage capacity of the memory to be increased does not increase.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a remote reception apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are diagrams illustrating display examples of an operation panel. FIG. 2A illustrates a state in which a slave station 1 is selected, and FIG. 2B illustrates a state in which a slave station 2 is selected.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10, 100-1, 100-n Television camera 20, 110 Microphone 30, 120 Television monitor 40, 130 Speaker 50, 80 Video encoding device 70 Operation panel

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Agency reference number FI Technical display location H04Q 9/00 371 H04Q 9/00 371B

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined information is controlled by control information, and
It has an information input device to send to the station and communicates with the master station via a line.
A plurality of slave stations to be connected, and information output for outputting the predetermined information from the plurality of slave stations
Controlling devices and each information input device in the plurality of slave stations
Operation switch group for operating the switch group.
Control information for controlling the information input device in accordance with
A remote reception apparatus including a single master station for transmitting, to each of the slave station the control item information indicating a control item of the information input device of the self station when the line connection between the master station
And means for transmitting to the master station, the master station comprising means to enable state only necessary among the switches of the operation switch group in accordance with the control item information remotely Reception device. 2. The remote reception device according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined information is image information, the information input device is a television camera, and the information output device is a television monitor. 3. The remote reception device according to claim 2, wherein the operation switch group is a touch panel type switch group provided on a screen of the television monitor. 4. The remote reception device according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined information is audio information, the information input device is a microphone, and the information output device is a speaker.