JP3936304B2 - Terrestrial digital broadcast receiver - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a terrestrial digital broadcast receiver, and more particularly to a terrestrial broadcast receiver that receives a terrestrial digital broadcast signal based on a resident area.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In terrestrial digital broadcasting, which is scheduled to start in December 2003, in the three major areas (Kanto, Chukyo, Kinki), a resident area representing the viewer's place of residence is set. Based on the above, reception settings such as one-touch button assignment and branch number assignment are performed. It is considered that the resident area is set by the viewer inputting the prefecture name, zip code, area code, and the like.
[0003]
In Patent Document 1, a list of channels that can be received for each region is stored in advance, and when the viewer instructs initial setting, a channel scan is performed, and the scanned receivable channels are compared with the channel list. A receiver is described that assigns channel numbers based on regions where the receivable channels are perfectly matched.
[0004]
Patent Document 2 describes a vehicle-mounted or portable receiver including a television tuner circuit and a radio tuner circuit. In this receiver, the radio signal reception intensity is measured by a radio tuner circuit during a period in which the radio is not being received, and the regional setting of the television is corrected.
[0005]
Patent Document 3 discloses a low electric field by performing comparison and determination in the order of AGC control signal, synchronization establishment state, variance value or error rate value before correction, error rate value after inner code correction, and error rate value after outer code correction. A receiver is described that can automatically search for a receivable program in terrestrial digital broadcasting at high speed even when the intensity is low or when the C / N is low.
[0006]
Patent Document 4 describes a receiver that updates the frequency table of each channel to the latest one using region information input by a viewer or region information obtained from an automatic positioning system such as GPS. Yes.
[0007]
[Patent Document 1]
JP 2000-13699 (page 2-3, FIG. 2-3)
[0008]
[Patent Document 2]
JP 2001-237729 A (page 4-9, FIG. 1-2)
[0009]
[Patent Document 3]
JP 2002-94402 A (page 7-11, FIG. 1-3)
[0010]
[Patent Document 4]
JP 2002-218339 A (page 3-5, FIG. 1-5)
[0011]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In the receiver described in Patent Document 1, the resident area is set in an area where the scanned receivable channels completely match the channel list. However, in terrestrial digital broadcasting, channels having different broadcast start times within the same area In some cases, it is not possible to make regional settings based on a perfect match.
[0012]
In the receiver described in Patent Document 2, the regional setting cannot be corrected unless a radio tuner circuit is provided like an in-vehicle receiver, and a radio tuner circuit is added separately in a home receiver. There is a need to increase costs.
[0013]
The receiver described in Patent Document 3 is intended to speed up channel scanning, and does not specifically describe regional settings.
[0014]
Further, in the receiver described in Patent Document 4, a resident area is input by a viewer or detected by an automatic positioning system. In the case of the former, it may be difficult especially for young people and elderly people because the viewer needs to input. In the latter case, an automatic positioning system such as GPS needs to be provided separately, which may increase the cost.
[0015]
An object of the present invention is to facilitate setting of a resident area in a terrestrial digital receiver.
[0016]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The terrestrial digital broadcast receiver according to the first invention is a terrestrial broadcast receiver for receiving a terrestrial digital broadcast signal based on a resident area. In the terrestrial broadcast receiver, channel scanning means, channel number calculating means, area estimating means, And regional setting means. The channel scanning means searches for receivable channels. The channel number calculation means acquires area identification information included in the terrestrial digital broadcast signal for each receivable channel detected by the channel scanning means, and calculates the number of receivable channels for each area identification information . The area estimation means estimates the area of the area identification information having the largest number of receivable channels as a resident area. The area setting means automatically sets the estimated resident area.
[0017]
In this digital terrestrial broadcasting receiver, the resident area is estimated and automatically set based on the channel scan result, so the viewer does not need to enter the prefecture name, postal code, area code, etc. . As a result, the setting of the resident area becomes easy, and the resident area can be set easily even by young people and elderly people. In addition, the number of receivable channels is compared for each region, and a region with a large number of receivable channels is set , so even if there is no region where all channels can be received, the resident region is set. be able to.
[0018]
The terrestrial digital broadcast receiver according to the second invention is a terrestrial broadcast receiver that receives a terrestrial digital broadcast signal based on a resident area, a channel scanning means, a channel number calculating means, an area estimating means, And regional setting means. The channel scanning means searches for receivable channels. The channel number calculation means acquires area identification information included in the terrestrial digital broadcast signal for each receivable channel detected by the channel scanning means, and calculates the number of receivable channels for each area identification information. The area estimation means estimates the area of the area identification information having the largest number of receivable channels as a resident area. The area setting means displays the estimated resident area and the adjacent area, and sets the resident area by the viewer's selection from the displayed area.
[0020]
In this terrestrial digital broadcast receiver , in addition to the estimated area, an adjacent area is also displayed on the screen, and a selection from the viewer is accepted. In this case, the viewer can select the resident area from among the receivable area candidates without performing a cumbersome operation of inputting a prefecture name, a postal code, an area code, and the like.
[0027]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
(1) First Embodiment (1-1) Configuration FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a terrestrial digital broadcast receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention. This receiver includes an OFDM tuner circuit 1, a DE / MUX circuit 2, an MPEG DECODER circuit 3, a GRAPHIC circuit 4, an NTSC encoder circuit 5, a CPU 6, and memories 7 and 8. The OFDM tuner circuit 1 receives a broadcast signal based on the channel frequency set by the CPU 6. The DE / MUX circuit 2 decodes the OFDM signal into MPEG format data and outputs it to the MPEG DECODER circuit 3, and also inputs the area identification information included in the NIT to the CPU 6. The MPEG DECODER circuit 3 decodes MPEG format data. The GRAPHIC circuit 4 converts the decoded MPEG format data into an image signal. The NTSC encoder circuit 5 converts the image signal into an NTSC signal and outputs it to a display device such as a television. If the television has a D terminal, it may be input directly to the D terminal.
[0028]
The CPU 6 performs channel scanning by setting the frequency of the channel in the OFDM tuner circuit 1, and acquires area identification information included in the NIT from the DE / MUX circuit 2. The CPU 6 stores the acquired area identification information in the memory 7 in association with the channel name (broadcast station name). As a result of the channel scan, the CPU 6 totals the number of receivable channels for each area identification information, and estimates the area represented by the area identification information having the largest number of receivable channels as the resident area. In the example of FIG. 4, since the broadcasting station A is the area identification information 01, the number of receivable channels in the area identification information 01 is 1 . The number of receivable channels is 2 for the area identification information 02, the number of receivable channels is 1 for the area identification information 03, and the number of receivable channels is 1 for the area identification information 04 .
[0029]
The memories 7 and 8 are nonvolatile memories such as flash memories. As shown in FIG. 4, the memory 7 stores receivable channels and area identification information. As shown in FIG. 3, the memory 8 stores area names and area identification information in advance.
(1-2) Resident Area Setting Method A resident area setting method in the terrestrial digital broadcast receiver will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 2, when a terrestrial digital broadcast receiver is installed in Okayama, this receiver receives broadcast signals from broadcast stations (channels) in the area (Okayama), and is outside Hyogo, There are also cases where cross-border reception is received from broadcasting stations (channels) in Hiroshima and Ehime. In this case, by channel scanning, as shown in FIG. 4, all the channels that can be received by the receiver are searched and stored together with the area identification information. Then, the number of receivable channels is counted for each area identification information, Okayama, which is the area of area identification information 02 having the largest number of receivable channels, is estimated as a resident area, and the estimated resident area (Okayama) is determined. Set automatically. The estimated resident area (Okayama) and neighboring areas (Hyogo, Hiroshima, Ehime) may be displayed on the screen so that the viewer can select the area.
(1-3) Flowchart FIG. 5 is a flowchart of the resident area setting process by the terrestrial digital receiver according to the present invention.
[0030]
Step S11: It is determined whether or not to perform initial setting. Specifically, the determination is made based on whether the power is turned on for the first time after shipment from the factory or whether an instruction to start the initial setting is given from the viewer. When the initial setting is performed, the process proceeds to step S12. When the initial setting is not performed, the process proceeds to another process.
[0031]
Step S12: Channel scanning is performed for all channels, and receivable channels and area identification information are stored in the memory 7.
[0032]
Step S13: The number of receivable channels is calculated for each region.
[0033]
Step S14: An area having the largest number of receivable channels is estimated as a resident area.
[0034]
Step S15: The estimated resident area is automatically set. Note that both the estimated resident area and the neighboring area may be displayed on the screen, and the selection from the viewer may be accepted and set.
(1-4) Summary In the terrestrial digital broadcast receiver according to this embodiment, channel scanning is performed at the time of initial setting, receivable channels and area identification information are accumulated (FIG. 4), and received for each area identification information. Since the number of possible channels is aggregated and the area with the largest number of receivable channels is estimated as the resident area, the area can be set even when there is no area where all channels can be received.
[0035]
Further, since the residential area is automatically estimated when the initial setting is instructed, the resident area can be easily set without imposing a complicated operation on the viewer.
(2) Second Embodiment (2-1) Configuration The configuration of the terrestrial digital broadcast receiver according to this embodiment is different from the first embodiment except that the function of the CPU 6 for performing resident setting is different from that of the first embodiment. This is the same as in the first embodiment. The CPU 6 according to the present embodiment performs channel scanning by setting the channel frequency in the OFDM tuner circuit 1, and stores a C / N ratio and area identification information for each receivable channel as shown in FIG. 7 accumulates. Further, the CPU 6 compares the C / N ratio of each channel stored in the memory 7 and estimates the area of the area identification information of the channel having the largest C / N ratio as the resident area. In the example of FIG. 6, since the C / N ratios of the broadcasting stations D and E are both 20 and the maximum, the area of the area identification information 02 of the broadcasting stations D and E is estimated as the resident area.
(2-2) Resident Area Setting Method A resident area setting method in this terrestrial digital broadcast receiver will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 2, when a terrestrial digital broadcast receiver is installed in Okayama, this receiver receives broadcast signals from broadcast stations (channels) in the area (Okayama), and is outside Hyogo, There are also cases where cross-border reception is received from broadcasting stations (channels) in Hiroshima and Ehime. In this case, as shown in FIG. 6, all the channels are searched by channel scanning and stored together with the C / N ratio and the area identification information. Then, Okayama of the area identification information 02 of the channel having the highest C / N ratio is estimated as a resident area, and the estimated resident area (Okayama) is automatically set. The estimated resident area (Okayama) and neighboring areas (Hyogo, Hiroshima, Ehime) may be displayed on the screen so that the viewer can select the area.
(2-3) Flowchart FIG. 7 is a flowchart of the resident area setting process according to the second embodiment.
[0036]
Step S21: It is determined whether or not to perform initial setting. Specifically, the determination is made based on whether the power is turned on for the first time after shipment from the factory, or whether there is an instruction to start the initial setting from the viewer. When the initial setting is performed, the process proceeds to step S22, and when the initial setting is not performed, the process proceeds to another process.
[0037]
Step S22: Channel scanning is performed for all channels to detect the C / N ratio.
[0038]
Step S23: The area of the channel with the highest C / N ratio is estimated as the resident area.
[0039]
Step S24: The estimated resident area is automatically set. Note that both the estimated resident area and the neighboring area may be displayed on the screen, and the selection from the viewer may be accepted and set.
(2-4) Summary The terrestrial digital broadcast receiver according to the present embodiment performs channel scanning at the time of initial setting, accumulates receivable channels, C / N ratios, and area identification information (FIG. 6). Since the area with the highest / N ratio is estimated as the resident area, the area can be set even when there is no area where all channels can be received.
[0040]
In addition, if the initial setting is instructed, the residential area is automatically estimated, so that it is possible to easily set the residential area without imposing complicated operations on the viewer.
[0041]
【The invention's effect】
ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the setting of a resident area can be made easy in a terrestrial digital receiver.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a terrestrial digital broadcast receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating reception of terrestrial digital broadcasting.
FIG. 3 is a list of channels on which broadcasting has started.
FIG. 4 is a list of receivable channels and area identification information.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a resident area setting process according to the first embodiment.
FIG. 6 is a list of receivable channels, C / N ratio, and area identification information.
FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a resident area setting process according to the second embodiment.
[Explanation of symbols]
1 OFDM tuner circuit 2 DE / MUX circuit 3 MPEG DECDER circuit 4 GRAPHIC circuit 5 NTSC encoder circuit 6 CPU
7,8 memory

Claims (2)

In a terrestrial broadcast receiver that receives terrestrial digital broadcast signals based on the resident area,
Channel scanning means for searching for receivable channels;
Channel number calculating means for obtaining area identification information included in the terrestrial digital broadcast signal for each receivable channel detected by the channel scanning means, and calculating the number of receivable channels for each area identification information ;
Area estimation means for estimating the area of the area identification information having the largest number of receivable channels as a resident area;
Area setting means for automatically setting the estimated resident area;
A terrestrial digital broadcast receiver. In a terrestrial broadcast receiver that receives terrestrial digital broadcast signals based on the resident area,
Channel scanning means for searching for receivable channels;
Channel number calculating means for obtaining area identification information included in the terrestrial digital broadcast signal for each receivable channel detected by the channel scanning means, and calculating the number of receivable channels for each area identification information;
Area estimation means for estimating the area of the area identification information having the largest number of receivable channels as a resident area;
A resident area estimated by the area estimating means and a neighboring area are displayed, and an area setting means for setting a resident area by selecting a viewer from the displayed area;
A terrestrial digital broadcast receiver.

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