JP3809572B2 - Receiver - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a receiving apparatus that receives program information superimposed and transmitted on a television broadcast signal and displays a program guide, and a television receiver equipped with the receiving apparatus.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In recent years, in digital broadcasting using a communication satellite or the like, program information for displaying a program guide or the like on the screen of a television receiver has been sent together with video information of the program. This program information includes information on the title, detailed information, broadcast time, channel, program category (movie, sports, drama, etc.) of each program.
[0003]
On the other hand, a receiver of a television receiver that receives a television broadcast on which such program information is superimposed represents a list of broadcast statuses and broadcast schedules of a plurality of programs based on the program information received together with the video information. Create a program guide and display it on the screen. Thus, the viewer can obtain program guide information on what channel and what kind of content is broadcast from what time. This program table is displayed on the screen in a table format based on the time axis and the axis of the broadcasting station or a list format for each program category, for example.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
Data broadcasts such as program information are usually transmitted by superimposing digital signals in the vertical blanking period, but the number of horizontal scanning periods that can be superimposed is such that there is already a maintenance signal for broadcasting equipment, etc. In consideration of compatibility of the receiver, only a limited range can be used, so that data such as program information has a limited transmission speed. For this reason, when there is a large amount of data that must be broadcast in real time, a method of periodically transmitting information having a small number of real time elements such as program information using a certain time in a certain time zone can be considered. The time required for transmission depends on the amount of data. If only local program data needs to be transmitted, such as a terrestrial broadcasting station, it can be transmitted in a relatively short time. It takes a long time to use and transmit nationwide wide area data.
[0005]
An object of the present invention, even if a national broadband data using satellite broadcasting has been transmitted, is to provide a receiving equipment that can receive program information in a short time.
[0006]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, for example, channel setting means for setting a reception channel for program information, area data setting means for setting desired area data from a plurality of area data, and setting by the area data setting means Receiving means for receiving program information corresponding to the desired area data, and when the receiving channel is a satellite broadcast channel, broadcasting of the program information corresponding to the area data set by the area data setting means is started. Broadcast start time data indicating the time at which the program information is received is set as reception start time data indicating the time at which the reception of the program information is started. When the reception channel is a terrestrial broadcast, Broadcast start time data indicating the time at which broadcast starts is received reception indicating the time at which reception of the program information is started. A reception start time setting means for setting the time data, characterized by having a control means for receiving the program information from the receiving channel using the received start time data set by the reception start time setting means Yes.
[0007]
According to the above configuration, when viewing the program information related to the specific region data, the viewer designates the specific region, so that the program is based on the reception start data of the program information according to the reception channel of the program information. Information is received. Thereby, even in the case of wide area data, only necessary data can be received in accordance with the transmission time, and data transmission can be performed in a short time.
[0009]
According to the above configuration, when the reception channel is a satellite broadcast channel, the program information is received with the broadcast start time data of the program information of one region obtained from the region information data corresponding to the region number as the reception start time of the program information. Since it is received, only the necessary data can be received in accordance with the transmission time even in the wide area data as described above, and data transmission in a short time becomes possible.
[0017]
Further, an electronic component with a program information processing function on which the above-described receiving apparatus or television receiver is mounted can also be the present invention .
[0018]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 shows the system configuration of a television receiver equipped with the receiving apparatus of the present invention. This television receiver receives program information superimposed on a television broadcast signal and transmits a program table. Can be displayed. As shown in FIG. 1, the receiving apparatus of the present invention includes tuners 2 and 3 connected to an antenna 1, IFs (interfaces) 4 and 5, a signal switching unit 8, a video signal processing unit 9, and a synchronization signal processing unit 10. , A video synthesis unit 11, a video output unit 12, a deflection circuit 13, a channel selection processing unit 15, 16, a control input unit 17, a control processing unit 18, a screen display processing unit 19, a memory 20, and a program information processing unit 21 are provided. ing. The signal switching unit 8 is provided with external input terminals 6 and 7. If a CRT (CRT) 14 is connected to the video output unit 12 and the deflection circuit 13, a television receiver can be configured.
[0019]
In the receiving apparatus configured as described above, various control information is stored in the memory 20, and the control processing unit 18 including a microcomputer or the like uses the control information in the memory 20 to input operation units such as an operation panel and a remote controller. Each part is controlled according to the command information from 17.
[0020]
When the antenna 1 receives the signal, the received signal is taken into the tuners 2 and 3, and the tuners 2 and 3 have the channels corresponding to the channel selection signals of the channel selection processing units 15 and 16 controlled by the control processing unit 18. Select a television signal. The selected television signal is subjected to processing such as amplification and detection at IFs 4 and 5 and demodulated into a video signal, and then supplied to the signal switching unit 8 or the program information processing unit 21. Here, the tuner 3 is a tuner for receiving program information, and normally operates independently of the tuner 2 to be viewed. Although not shown, the tuner 3 can also be used as a sub-screen tuner for multi-screens such as two screens other than when receiving program information.
[0021]
The signal switching unit 8 is controlled by the control processing unit 18 and can selectively output a video signal from the IF 4 or any one of the external input terminals 6 and 7 as a video signal. The video signal output from the signal switching unit 8 is processed by the video signal processing unit 9, passes through the screen synthesis unit 11, is amplified by the video output unit 12, and is supplied to the CRT 14. On the other hand, the video signal output from the signal switching unit 8 is also sent to the synchronization signal processing unit 10 where the horizontal / vertical synchronization signal is separated and supplied to the deflection circuit 13 to form a deflection wave of the CRT 14. The
[0022]
FIG. 2 shows details of the internal configuration of the program information processing unit 21. Inside the program information processing unit 21, a signal separation unit 22, a data extraction unit 23, a clock device 24, a data storage unit 25, a display data creation unit 26, and a memory 27 are provided. A signal is input from the IF 5 in FIG. 1 to the signal separation unit 22, and a signal is output from the display data creation unit 26 to the image synthesis unit 11 in FIG. 1.
[0023]
The program information processing unit 21 is input with a terrestrial broadcast received by the antenna 1 or a signal transmitted through a satellite broadcast such as CS or BS (not shown in this example). For example, the transmission signal is obtained by superimposing program information, which is data for creating a program guide, in the form of a digital signal in a vertical blanking period of a video signal constituting a video of a program. This program information includes broadcast station identification data to be classified for each broadcast station, channel information such as broadcast channel number and broadcast station name, regional information representing the region covered by the program information, and broadcast start of program information for each regional information. It includes time data, broadcast date and time for each program, program title, program information, program category, and the like. Character information indicating a program title or the like is represented by a 2-byte character code defined by JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) used in a personal computer or the like. For example, the character code representing the English letter “A” is “2341”, and the character code representing the hiragana “na” is “244A”. The program category information is also added to each program broadcast as an identification code representing the type of “movie”, “news”, “drama”, etc. for each program, and the channel information and the like are the same.
[0024]
When a signal is input from the IF 5 to the signal separation unit 22 of the program information processing unit 21, the signal separation unit 22 separates data information including various program information from the input signal, and the data information is sent to the data extraction unit 23. Output. The data extraction unit 23 extracts and decodes program information from the data information output from the signal separation unit 22 and outputs the program information to the data storage unit 25. The data storage unit 25 accumulates program information from the data extraction unit 23 and outputs it to the display data creation unit 26 as program guide information when creating image data of the program guide. The display data creation unit 26 creates and outputs program guide image data based on the program guide information output from the data storage unit 25. At this time, the display data creation unit 26 refers to the character code dictionary stored in the memory 27 and converts the character code included in the program information into the corresponding character display data. The program table image data output from the display data creation unit 26 is input to the image composition unit 11.
[0025]
The data storage unit 25 is a format in which broadcast time for each channel is represented using one axis as time and the other axis as a channel, as shown in newspapers and magazines, or a category in which programs are classified for each category regardless of the channel. Program information is stored in the form of a separate program list. The display form of the program guide displayed on the screen is determined by this storage form.
[0026]
The image synthesis unit 11 combines the video signal output from the video signal processing unit 9 and the image data of the information program guide output from the display data creation unit 26 in the program information processing unit 21 into one image. Output. The output video is captured by the video output unit 12 and further output from the video output unit 12 to the CRT 14 and displayed on the screen on the CRT 14.
[0027]
The control processing unit 18 controls the video signal processing unit 9 and the program information processing unit 21 in response to a command input from the control input unit 17 such as a remote control operated by the viewer. For example, the video signal processing unit 9 is controlled for image display size and image quality correction. In addition, the program information processing unit 21 performs control, editing, and search of program information accumulation, and display mode control and processing for each channel or category.
[0028]
FIG. 3 shows a remote control for a television receiver. When a command for displaying the program guide is transmitted from, for example, the remote control 28 in FIG. 3 (the control input unit 17 in FIG. 1), the display data creation unit 26 refers to the time information representing the current time from the clock device 24 and The program being broadcast and thereafter is displayed on the screen of the CRT 14 according to a predetermined format as shown in FIG. The command is issued, for example, by pressing the program guide button 35 of the remote controller 28.
[0029]
4, 5, and 6 show examples of channel setting menus on the television side. When the menu button 29 of the remote controller 28 is pressed, a program information reception channel setting screen is selected from several menus. Fig. 4 shows the channel setting that allows you to easily set the receiving channel by simply entering the area number by dividing each area in the country into several blocks and assigning channels that can be received in that area in advance to each area number. A menu screen is shown. In this example, when “8” and “0” are input by the channel selection button 36 and the determination button 34 is further pressed, the area number “80” is set.
[0030]
FIG. 5 shows an example of a channel setting menu on the television side in an area where 4ch of the key station is converted to UHF54ch and retransmitted. When the menu button 29 of the remote controller 28 is pressed, a channel setting screen is selected from several menus. In this example, a channel automatically set by inputting “80” as the area number is shown. “Button number” is a number corresponding to the channel selection button 36 of the remote control, “Channel” is the channel actually received, “Display” is the number displayed on the screen when the channel selection button 36 is selected, “ The “broadcast station identification number” is a number assigned in advance for each broadcast station obtained from the program information.
[0031]
In FIG. 5, when “4” of the channel button 36 on the remote controller is pressed, 54 channels are selected and “4” is displayed on the screen. Further, in FIG. 5, when the broadcast station identification data obtained from the program information is 123, it means that the setting is made so as to associate that the reception channel on the television side corresponds to 4ch. The same is set for the other channels.
[0032]
The control processing unit 18 stores the setting content in the memory 20 and transmits data in which the display number of each channel button is associated with the broadcast station identification number to the program information processing unit 21. When the program information processing unit 21 receives the program information, the program information corresponding to the broadcast station identification number is broadcast from the program information for each channel, with one axis as a time and the other axis as a channel as shown in FIG. Display time. The channel number displayed at this time, for example, by displaying a number corresponding to the “display” set above, the program content selected by the user and the reception channel are associated with each other.
[0033]
FIG. 6 shows a menu screen for program broadcast station setting. “Reception channel” is a channel of a broadcasting station that broadcasts program information, and “reception start time 1” or “reception start time 2” is a time at which program information is received first. In this example, 2 It shows that you can set up to four. “Priority reception” is a setting menu for setting whether or not the reception tuner is forcibly canceled when receiving tuners are used for other purposes such as a multi-screen. It is.
[0034]
Next, a case where program information is received for the first time will be described. When receiving for the first time, the “reception start time 1” or “reception start time 2” set in advance becomes valid, and the tuner 3 broadcasts the preset program information when a certain time before this time comes. Tuned to the channel to be entered and enters a program information reception standby state. Since the actual broadcast time may be delayed due to other real-time data broadcasts, etc., wait for a certain time even after the start time, and if the broadcast starts within the time of this reception range, as the regular program information Start receiving. Further, once the program information is received, the receiving operation can be performed when the reception start time is automatically reached based on the broadcast start time information from the broadcast station.
[0035]
The time required for transmission of broadcast program information depends on the amount of data, and when only program data in a certain area needs to be transmitted, such as a terrestrial broadcast station, transmission can be performed in a relatively short time. However, it takes a long time to transmit wide-area data nationwide using satellite broadcasting. For this reason, when using satellite broadcasting or the like, a region set from a plurality of program information broadcast start time data assigned in advance for each region by the region number set in the region number setting menu screen of FIG. The program information broadcast start time data corresponding to the number is obtained, and the program information can be received using this data as the broadcast reception start time. Thereby, even in the case of wide area data, only necessary data can be received according to the transmission time, and data transmission can be performed in a short time. In the case of a terrestrial broadcast station, program information is received using one program information broadcast start time data allocated for terrestrial broadcast as broadcast reception start time.
[0036]
On the other hand, while program information is being transmitted, it may take longer than the regular broadcast time, such as when it is temporarily interrupted by another real-time data broadcast. Since the tuner 3 can be used as a sub-screen tuner for multi-screens such as two screens except when receiving program information, it is not preferable to occupy the tuner 3 for a long time for receiving program information. Therefore, although it is preferable to end the forced reception, for this purpose, it is necessary to set a time having a margin more than the transmission time when the regular transmission is performed as the maximum waiting time. However, such a difference in the amount of program information is generally difficult for the user to understand, and it is troublesome for the user to set the maximum waiting time. For this reason, the maximum waiting time may be automatically set when the program information receiving channel is terrestrial, and the maximum waiting time may be automatically set for satellite broadcasting with a relatively large amount of data.
[0037]
In the above embodiment, the program information is transmitted by being added to the television broadcast. However, as shown in FIG. 8, the program information processing unit 21 is provided with a modem 30 and the program information is sent to the modem via a telephone line. It can also be configured to capture in 30. With this configuration, the influence of noise can be reduced.
[0038]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, even when transmitting nationwide data using satellite broadcasting or the like, only necessary data can be received, so that data transmission in a short time is possible. Become.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a receiving apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a program information processing unit according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is an external view of a remote controller used in the receiving apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display example of a menu area number setting screen according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a view showing a display example of a menu channel setting screen according to the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a view showing a display example of a program broadcast station setting screen of a menu according to the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display example of a program guide according to the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing another example of a receiving apparatus according to the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
2, 3 Tuner 8 Signal switching unit 9 Video signal processing unit 10 Synchronization signal processing unit 11 Image composition unit 14 CRT
15, 16 Channel selection processing unit 17 Control input unit 18 Control processing unit 19 Screen display processing unit 20 Memory 21 Program information processing unit 22 Signal separation unit 23 Data extraction unit 24 Clock device 25 Data storage unit 26 Display data generation unit 27 Memory 30 modem

Claims (4)

Channel setting means for setting a reception channel for program information;
Area data setting means for setting desired area data from a plurality of area data;
Receiving means for receiving program information corresponding to desired area data set by the area data setting means;
When the reception channel is a satellite broadcast channel, reception of the program information is started with broadcast start time data indicating a time at which broadcast of program information corresponding to the regional data set by the regional data setting means is started. If the reception channel is terrestrial broadcasting, broadcast start time data indicating the time at which broadcast of one program information assigned in advance is started is received. Reception start time setting means for setting as reception start time data indicating the time when the
A receiving apparatus comprising: control means for controlling to receive program information from the reception channel using reception start time data set by the reception start time setting means . The receiving device according to claim 1,
The control means controls the receiver to enter a reception standby operation before the time indicated by the broadcast start time data. The receiving device according to claim 2,
The receiving apparatus is characterized in that the control means performs control so that a standby operation is continued until a predetermined time has elapsed from the broadcast start time data. Channel setting means for setting a reception channel for program information;
Area data setting means for setting desired area data among a plurality of area data;
Receiving means for receiving program information corresponding to desired area data set by the area data setting means;
Display means for displaying the program information received by the receiving means;
When the reception channel is a satellite broadcast channel, the reception of the program information starts with broadcast start time data indicating the time at which the broadcast of the program information corresponding to the regional data set by the regional data setting means is started. If the reception channel is terrestrial broadcast, broadcast start time data indicating the time at which broadcast of one program information assigned in advance is started is set in the program information. A reception start time setting means for setting as reception start time data indicating a time at which reception is started;
A receiving apparatus comprising: control means for controlling to receive the program information from the reception channel using reception start time data set by the reception start time setting means .

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