JP3136272B2 - Communication karaoke system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication karaoke system, and more particularly to a technique for effectively utilizing network functions to connect to new customer services.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As is well known, a widely used communication karaoke system has a host device and a number of karaoke playback terminals connected via a communication network, and distributes the karaoke playback terminal from the host device to each karaoke playback terminal. The karaoke data stored in each terminal is stored in each terminal, and the karaoke data stored in each terminal is appropriately reproduced.
When a customer performs a music selection operation using a remote control transmitter or the like attached to the karaoke playback terminal, the karaoke accompaniment music of the specified music starts to be heard from a speaker, and at the same time, a character string of lyrics with singing timing is displayed on a CRT display. Appropriate moving images and still images are displayed in the background of the lyrics.
Various service functions that are directly related to the singing operation of the customer are conceived. Have been applied.

[0003]

The communication karaoke system is a large-scale computer network in which a large number of karaoke reproducing terminals widely arranged on a nationwide scale and a host device are connected by a communication network such as a telephone network. This is a multimedia system that handles digitized music information, character information, video information, and the like. Research is actively being conducted to effectively utilize the network resources of such a communication karaoke system to add new functions or develop new applications.

An object of the present invention is to collect and analyze the karaoke usage status of regular customers by utilizing the computer network resources inherent in a large-scale communication karaoke system, and to provide trend information useful to a system operator. Or to provide a system that provides customer service according to usage conditions.

[0005]

The basic structure of a communication karaoke system according to the present invention is that a host device and a number of karaoke playback terminals are connected by a communication network, and karaoke distributed from the host device to each karaoke playback terminal. In this system, data is stored in each terminal, and karaoke data stored in each terminal is appropriately reproduced. of course,
The karaoke playback terminal includes audio output means for outputting karaoke accompaniment music and the like, and image display means for displaying a character string of lyrics corresponding to the karaoke accompaniment music and an appropriate background image on a display.

[0006] The karaoke reproducing terminal operates by receiving a music selection input from a remote controller transmitter of a predetermined standard. As a characteristic requirement of the present invention, for customers possessed individually
There are a large number of remote control transmitters, each of which is assigned a unique remote control identification code and generates a transmission signal including the remote control identification code. The karaoke reproducing terminal recognizes the remote control identification code in the input signal from the remote control transmitter.

[0007] Further, as a characteristic requirement of the present invention, in the karaoke reproducing terminal, a music identification code selected by a remote control transmitter is associated with the remote control identification code of the remote control transmitter that has selected the music. Create a song selection record book.

Further, as a characteristic requirement of the present invention,
The host device appropriately collects the music selection records for each remote control prepared by a number of karaoke playback terminals, and creates a music selection record for wide area remote control in which records about the same remote control identification code from different terminals are aggregated. I do. At the host device side, the wide area remote control music selection record book is processed into information of a predetermined format by performing a sort process or the like.

Preferably, in a system having the above-mentioned requirements, a customer list in which the remote control identification code of each remote control transmitter is associated with personal information such as a name of a person who owns each remote control transmitter is hosted. A mechanism is prepared in the apparatus side, and a mechanism for combining the customer list and the song selection record book for the wide area remote controller and processing it into output information is added.

[0010] Preferably, the karaoke reproducing terminal is provided with a scoring means for analyzing a singing signal inputted from a microphone at the time of outputting the karaoke accompaniment music by a predetermined algorithm to score good and bad singing, In the remote control song selection record, the singing score when each song is played is recorded in association with each other, and the items of the singing score are also processed in the host device by the information processing of the wide area remote control song selection record. I do.

In the above system, a function of automatically creating a direct mail addressed to each customer based on the information obtained by processing the song selection record by the wide area remote controller can be added.

[0012]

FIG. 1 shows a system configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. This diagram mainly illustrates the hardware configuration of the karaoke reproducing terminal 1. Many karaoke reproducing apparatuses 1 and host apparatuses 2 are connected by a communication network 3. The host device 2 is a high-speed, large-capacity, high-performance computer, and the central processing unit 4 in the karaoke reproducing terminal 1 is a computer of the order of a general personal computer, and these constitute a computer network.

The description will be focused on the configuration of the karaoke reproducing terminal 1. The central processing unit 4 is connected to the communication network 3 via a modem 5. The karaoke data distributed from the host device 2 to the terminal 1 includes karaoke accompaniment music data converted into a MIDI signal and lyrics data including synchronization information of the accompaniment. Karaoke data of many songs distributed from the host device 2 is stored in the hard disk device 6. In addition to storing the karaoke data of the new music distributed from the host device 2 in the hard disk device 6, the karaoke data of the old music is provided in the form of a CD-ROM, and the player that plays the CD-ROM is karaoke. The configuration provided in the reproduction terminal 1 is also general. That CD
The ROM player is omitted in FIG.

The main body of the terminal 1 has an operation panel 7 for a user interface including a display and a keyboard, and a remote control receiver 80 corresponding to the remote control transmitter 8 is also provided. The operation panel 7 and the remote control receiver 80 are coupled to the central processing unit 4 via the operation control unit 19,
The karaoke user performs various operation inputs such as music selection using the operation panel 7 of the main body or the remote control transmitter 8, and the operation contents and response information of the apparatus to the operation input are displayed on the operation panel 7.
Will be displayed.

The reproduction of the music is performed through the following route under the control of the central processing unit 4. The song data and the lyrics data of the designated song number are read from the hard disk device 6.
Performance information of music data composed of MIDI information is sequentially input to the synthesizer 9 and converted into an audio signal.
The signal is output from the speaker 11 via the audio amplifier 10. In synchronization with the audio output, the central processing unit 4 sequentially converts the lyrics data into a character string, writes the character string in the video RAM 13, and performs a process of coloring the lyrics character string to indicate the progress of the music. The contents of the video RAM 13 are displayed on the CRT display 15 by the display control unit 14. Of course, the audio amplifier 10 has a mixing function with the output of the microphone 12.

Moving picture information for background video etc. is CD-ROM
It is reproduced by the player 17. The video control unit 16 is composed of a microcomputer that operates in response to a command from the central processing unit 4, performs a process of selecting video data to be reproduced, reproduces the selected video data by the CD-ROM player 17, and The reproduction data is restored and transferred to the display control unit 14. The display control unit 14 combines the video signal from the video control unit 16 with the lyric character string in the video RAM 13 and displays it on the CRT display 15.

Needless to say, the hard disk device 6 can be replaced with another storage device,
The ROM player 17 can be replaced with another image reproducing device such as a digital video disk. Also, CD-
It is also easy to provide a signal path for reproducing an audio signal from the ROM player 17 or its alternative device, inputting the audio signal to the audio amplifier unit 10 via the control unit 16, and sounding the speaker 11. Further, a receiver for multi-channel television broadcasting of the satellite digital broadcasting system is provided, and the video of the appropriate channel received by this (preferably a channel of a video corresponding to the selected karaoke genre is selected) is transmitted to the video controller. 16. It is also possible to display the karaoke song lyrics as a background image on the CRT display 15 via the display control unit 14. As described above, the system configuration of the karaoke reproducing apparatus can be implemented in various forms.

In this embodiment, the terminal 1 has a singing score processor 20. This singing scoring processor 20
Analyzes the singing signal input from the microphone at the time of output of the karaoke accompaniment music by a predetermined algorithm to score good and bad singing, and transmits the obtained singing score to the central processing unit 4.

The remote control transmitter 8 includes a store remote control as an accessory of each terminal 1 and a personal remote control which a regular customer has. The personal remote controller is manufactured so as to generate a remote control identification code (remote control ID) for each remote controller as header information in an output signal of an infrared system or the like. At a certain terminal 1 of a certain karaoke shop, when a certain customer enters a music selection operation using his / her own personal remote controller 8, the central processing unit 4 or the operation control unit 19 of the terminal 1 analyzes a remote control input signal and executes a remote control ID. Recognize

Further, the correspondence between the personal information such as the name, address, telephone number, and age of the customer who owns each personal remote controller 8 and the remote controller ID of the personal remote controller 8 is set and input into the system by another process. A customer list in which the correspondence is aggregated is created on the host device 2 side.

The central processing unit 4 of the terminal 1 receives a music selection input from the personal remote controller 8 or the like, creates a reservation list, and reproduces the requested music in order. In parallel with the processing, the central processing unit 4 tunes the music identification code (music ID) selected by the personal remote controller 8 as shown in FIG.
The corresponding data is written in a remote-selection music record (for example, created in the hard disk device 6) in which the remote control ID of the personal remote control 8 is associated with the performance date and time when the selected music is reproduced. When the singing score processor 20 performs a scoring process when the requested music is performed, the corresponding score data is entered in the score item of the remote control-specific music selection record book.

The host device 2 uses, for example, a regular communication opportunity with the terminal 1 to download the latest data of the remote control-specific music selection book created for each terminal 1 and to transmit the same remote control from a different terminal 1. A wide area remote control music selection record book in which records of IDs are aggregated is created. In other words, when a plurality of karaoke shops that use the personal remote controller 8 are used by different persons, the usage status of the terminal 1 is entered in the remote control music selection record book of the terminal 1 of each shop, and the remote control music selection record of each terminal 1 is entered. When the books are collected by the host device 2 and collected in the wide area remote control music selection record book, the karaoke use status for each person who owns the personal remote controller 8 for a certain period is collected regardless of the store in use. The host device 2 naturally has a function of managing the identification code (terminal ID) of each terminal 1 and the identification code (store ID) of the store where the terminal 1 is installed. That information can be included.

The host device 2 obtains output information processed into various formats by adding a sort process, a select process, a projection process, a joint process, and the like to the wide-area remote-control song selection record book. At the time of this information processing, the customer list is combined with the remote control ID of the music selection record book by wide area remote control. Examples of various output information lists are shown in FIG. 3, FIG. 4, and FIG.

FIG. 3A shows a performance history list for each remote control ID. (B) is a list of the frequency of use for each remote control ID and the national ranking (ranking) of the frequency of use. (C) is a monthly ranking list of the frequency of use for each remote control ID. (D) is also an annual ranking. Based on these lists, in order to distribute discount tickets and free service tickets to customers with a certain number of usage,
The host device 2 can automatically create a direct mail.

FIGS. 3 (e), (f) and (g) are lists in which singing scores are subject to information processing. (E) is a list in which singing scores and rankings are arranged by month and year for each remote control ID. (F) is a monthly ranking list of average scores for each remote control ID. (G) is an annual ranking list of average scores for each remote control ID.
Based on these lists, the host device 2 can automatically create a certificate or direct mail in order to send a certificate to a high scorer or distribute a discount ticket or a free service ticket.

The list shown in FIG. 4 is a list using each song as a key. (A) is a performance history list of a song having a song name “Oh” with a song ID “2391-38”, and who sang (remote control ID), when (performance date and time), where (store ID), and how many singing scores were obtained. It is written in contrast.
(B) is an annual ranking list of who sang and how many times for each song. (C) is a list of the customers (remote control IDs) who have requested the best songs most frequently selected. (D) is a list that sorts out who obtained the highest singing score for each song. (E) is an annual ranking list with the highest score for each song. Based on these lists, you can send commendations to customers who have used a particular song especially, or who have a high score for a particular song,
In order to distribute discount tickets and free service tickets, a certificate of commendation and direct mail can be automatically created in the host device 2.

The list shown in FIG. 5 is a list using a region as a key. (A) is a performance history list for each prefecture.
(B) is a usage frequency ranking list for each prefecture. (C) is an annual list of the highest users in each prefecture. (D) is a list of the highest score rankings by prefecture. (E) is a list of the highest scorers for each prefecture. Such lists can be useful information for marketing in the music industry, and can also be used to run singing contests for regular karaoke customers over communication networks.

A plurality of child terminals and a parent terminal are connected to a LAN.
A system in which a parent terminal and a host device are connected by a telephone line is also well known. In this case, the usage status of each child terminal is aggregated at the parent terminal to create the remote control-specific music selection record book, which is transmitted to the host device.

[0029]

According to the present invention, the computer network resources inherent in the communication karaoke system are effectively utilized, and relatively simple software is added to the host device and the karaoke playback terminal.
By using a personal remote controller that transmits a unique ID, the usage status of karaoke of regular customers is collected and analyzed to obtain useful trend information for the system operator and to provide customer service according to the usage status. By providing new functions that have never existed before, such as by providing services, it is possible to increase customer satisfaction and build a highly topical system.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram focusing on the configuration of a karaoke playback terminal of a communication karaoke system according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a remote-controlled music selection record book in the karaoke reproducing terminal.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram of an output list created by a host device in the system.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram of another example of the output list.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram of another example of the output list.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Karaoke reproduction terminal 2 Host device 3 Communication line network 4 Central processing unit 5 Modem 6 Hard disk device 7 Operation panel 8 Remote control transmitter (personal remote control) 80 Remote control receiver 9 Synthesizer 10 Audio amplifier unit 11 Speaker 12 Microphone 13 Video RAM 14 Display Control unit 15 CRT display 16 Video control unit 17 CD-ROM player 19 Operation control unit 20 Singing scoring processor

Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-3-239298 (JP, A) JP-A-9-146563 (JP, A) JP-A-9-146754 (JP, A) JP-A-9-212181 (JP, A) JP-A-8-116576 (JP, A) JP-A-4-128795 (JP, A) JP-A-9-83467 (JP, A) JP-A-7-271388 (JP, A) 6-48000 (JP, U) Actually open Sho 63-5570 (JP, U) JP 4-68637 (JP, B2) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G10K 15/04 302

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A communication karaoke system having the following requirements (1) to (5). (1) A host device and a number of karaoke playback terminals are connected via a communication network. Karaoke data distributed from the host device to each karaoke playback terminal is stored in each terminal, and is stored in each terminal. Play the karaoke data appropriately. (2) The karaoke playback terminal includes audio output means for outputting karaoke accompaniment music and the like, and image display means for displaying a character string of lyrics corresponding to the karaoke accompaniment music and an appropriate background image on a display. (3) The karaoke playback terminal operates by receiving a music selection input from a remote controller transmitter of a predetermined standard. Customers individually
There are many remote control transmitters for possession.
Ri, respectively for each of these remote control transmitter is assigned a unique remote controller identification code, generates a transmission signal containing the remote controller identification code. The karaoke reproducing terminal recognizes the remote control identification code in the input signal from the remote control transmitter. (4) The karaoke reproducing terminal creates a remote-control-specific music selection record book in which the music identification code selected by the remote control transmitter is associated with the remote control identification code of the selected remote control transmitter. (5) The wide area remote control music selection record in which the host device appropriately collects the remote control music selection records created by a large number of karaoke playback terminals and collects the records of the same remote control identification code from different terminals. Create a book.
On the host device side, the wide area remote control music selection record book is processed into information in a predetermined format by performing a sort process or the like. 2. The client list according to claim 1, wherein the host device has a customer list in which the remote control identification code of each remote control transmitter is associated with personal information such as a name of a person who owns each remote control transmitter. A communication karaoke system wherein the customer list is combined with the wide-area remote-specific song selection record and processed into output information. 3. The karaoke reproducing terminal according to claim 1, wherein the karaoke reproducing terminal analyzes a singing signal input from a microphone at the time of outputting the karaoke accompaniment music by a predetermined algorithm, and scores the singing skill. Scoring means is provided, and the singing score at the time of playing each song is recorded in association with the remote control song selection record, and the singing score items are also recorded in the wide area remote control song selection record in the host device. A communication karaoke system, which is a target of information processing. 4. The communication karaoke system according to claim 2, wherein a direct mail addressed to an individual customer is automatically created based on information obtained by processing the music selection record for each wide area remote controller. .