JP5300296B2 - Display device, server device, system, and display method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it possible to display a thumbnail quickly. <P>SOLUTION: A display system includes: a server apparatus 100 having a sharing section 101 which shares text information including link information to a scene associated with a scene of an video content among users, an extracting section 102 which extracts position information including an identifier and time that are linked to a first thumbnail and the text information corresponding to the scene from the link information, and a storing part 103 that stores a plurality pieces of position information associated with the identifier and time; and a display apparatus having a reproducing section 107 which reproduces the video content, a generating section 104 which generates the first thumbnail that is linked to the position information from the video contents, a storing section 105 that associates and stores the position information and the first thumbnail, and a display section 106 which acquires the text information from the sharing part 101, acquires a second thumbnail associated with the link information included in the text information with referring to the position information from the storing section 105, and displays the text information and the thumbnail. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&amp;INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a display device, a server device, a system, and a display method for displaying a thumbnail of a video that is a link destination when a text file having a link to multimedia data such as a video is displayed.

  Until now, when sharing a text file associated with a scene of video content, a recorded TV program or DVD has been used as the video content. There are many methods of writing comments and opinions as comments in electronic text files and publishing them on networks such as blogs and bulletin boards. Furthermore, a technique is adopted in which a link to a scene of video content is embedded in the text file so as to clearly tell the viewer which scene is the description.

These video content are not shared and must be owned by the viewer. Here, when a scene associated with the text file is displayed as a thumbnail when the text file is displayed, the thumbnail is created from the video content owned by the viewer and displayed. There is a technique for displaying thumbnails (see, for example, Patent Document 1). However, when displaying thumbnails, a viewer must have video content.
JP 2005-303743 A

  When a text file associated with a scene of video content is shared, if a user who views the text file does not own the content, even if it has previously owned, a thumbnail cannot be displayed. Even if it is owned, the thumbnail cannot be displayed unless it is owned as another medium such as a DVD and inserted into the system.

  Also, when a thumbnail is created from video content when displaying a text file, the calculation cost is high, and it takes time to display.

  The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-described circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a display device, a server device, a system, and a display method for quickly displaying thumbnails even if the video content is not owned. To do.

In order to solve the above problems, a display system of the present invention is a display system including a server device and a display device,
The server device shares the text information including the link information to the scene of the video content, and extracts the position information including the identifier of the video content and the link destination time to the scene from the text information. Means, and position information storage means for storing a plurality of the position information,
The display device includes: a reproduction unit that reproduces the video content; a generation unit that generates a thumbnail of a scene linked to the predetermined position information stored in the position information storage unit; and the predetermined position information. A thumbnail storage unit that stores the thumbnails in association with each other, text information is acquired from the sharing unit, and a thumbnail associated with link information to a scene included in the text information is referred to the predetermined position information. And display means for displaying the thumbnail information and the text information obtained from the thumbnail storage means.

  The server device of the present invention is a server device connected to a display device, sharing means for sharing text information including link information to a scene of video content, an identifier of the video content, and a link to the scene An extraction unit that extracts position information including the previous time from the text information; and a position information storage unit that stores a plurality of the position information. The display device stores a predetermined information stored in the position information storage unit. A thumbnail of a scene to be linked to the position information is generated from the video content, and the text information acquired from the sharing means and a thumbnail related to the link information to the scene included in the text information are used as the predetermined position information. It is characterized by being displayed with reference.

  The display device of the present invention extracts from the text information sharing means for sharing text information including link information to the scene of the video content, and position information including the identifier of the video content and the link destination time to the scene. A display device connected to a server device comprising a plurality of position information storage means and a plurality of position information storage means for storing the position information, the playback means for playing back the video content, and the position information storage means Generation means for generating a thumbnail of a scene linked to the stored predetermined position information from the video content, thumbnail storage means for storing the predetermined position information and the thumbnail in association with each other, and text information from the sharing means And the thumbnail related to the link information to the scene included in the text information is With reference to location information acquired from the thumbnail storage means, characterized by comprising display means for displaying the text information and the thumbnail, a.

  According to the display device, the server device, the system, and the display method of the present invention, thumbnails can be quickly displayed even if the video content is not owned. For example, when browsing a text file, even if you do not own the video content, or if you own it as another medium such as a DVD, it is not set in the DVD drive etc. so that the system can be accessed immediately Even thumbnails can be displayed. Also, by creating thumbnails in advance, it is possible to speed up thumbnail display when browsing a text file.

Hereinafter, a display device, a server device, a system, and a display method according to embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. Note that, in the following embodiments, the same numbered portions are assumed to perform the same operation, and repeated description is omitted.
The display device, server device, system, and display method of this embodiment create a thumbnail image when playing back video content, and display a thumbnail image created in advance when displaying a text file. This makes it possible to quickly display thumbnails even if the user does not own video content.

  In the present embodiment, the content is a TV program recorded by an HDD recorder or the like, or software included in a DVD, and indicates a raw video when creating a thumbnail.

(First embodiment)
A display system including a display device and a server device according to the first embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, the display system of this embodiment includes a transmission client 150, a server 100, and a display device.
The server 100 includes a text information sharing unit 101, a thumbnail position management unit 102, and a thumbnail position storage unit 103. The display device includes a thumbnail generation unit 104, a thumbnail storage unit 105, a text information display unit 106, and a video content playback unit 107.
The transmission client 150 is a device that transmits text information associated with a scene of video content to the server 100, and generally includes a plurality of terminals independent from each other.

<Text information sharing unit 101>
The text information sharing unit 101 shares text information transmitted from the transmission client 150 and associated with the scene of the video content. The shared text information is, for example, a bulletin board or blog published on the Internet. The shared text information includes related information and impressions related to video content, and corresponds to a case where a video article review article is posted as a blog article. This article is associated with a video content scene. An example of text information and an example of a screen of the display device on the transmission client 150 for creating text information are shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, the display screen of the display device on the transmission client 150 includes a content display unit 201 for browsing the content, a content playback operation, a pause operation, and an operation for changing the playback speed. 202, a text information editing unit 204 for creating text information by a user, a link insertion button 203 for inserting a link to a scene of video content in the text information, and a text information transmission button for transmitting the created text information to the text information sharing unit 101 206.
Although not shown in FIG. 2, the display device in the transmission client 150 has a text input device such as a mouse for a user to select a button or the like, and a keyboard for inputting characters for creating text information. The user of the transmission client 150 operates the playback time of the content with the content operation unit 202, displays the time at which the link to the scene is to be inserted, and selects the link insertion button 203, whereby the cursor of the text information editing unit 204 is You can insert a link to the scene at the location. This is displayed as a scene link 205 in FIG. The scene link 205 is displayed as an icon, but has a content ID (identifier) by which the content can be identified and information on the link destination time of the content. An example of information held by this scene link is shown in FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the scene link information includes, for example, a content ID 301 for uniquely identifying a scene, a representative time 302, a start time 303, and an end time 304. The representative time 302, the start time 303, and the end time 304 are, for example, times set by the user during editing. At the start time 303, articles and thumbnails are displayed. In this example, it is a link to a scene that starts from 12000 milliseconds from the beginning of the content having the content ID 1234 and ends in 20000 milliseconds from the beginning, and the representative scene is 15000 milliseconds from the beginning. I understand. The representative time that is the representative scene can be used as the time when the scene link 205 is displayed as a thumbnail of the scene instead of being displayed as an icon.

  There are still picture thumbnails and moving picture thumbnails. When the moving image thumbnail is displayed by the scene link in FIG. 3, the moving image thumbnail is displayed according to the time from the start time 303 to the end time 304. In this case, the moving image is displayed from the start time 303 to the end time 304. When the still image thumbnail is displayed by the scene link of FIG. 3, the still image thumbnail at the representative time 302 from the start time 303 to the end time 304 is displayed. In this case, a still image is displayed from the start time 303 to the end time 304. The start time 303 and the end time 304 may be automatically set, for example, N seconds before and N seconds after the representative time 302 (N: natural number), respectively.

  In the example of FIG. 3, three times of the representative time, the start time, and the end time are specified, but these may be the same time. If these are the same time, it may be used as the time to start the scene when content and comments to be described later are displayed in synchronization. In this case, the scene link information may be composed of only one of the representative time, the start time, and the end time. In the example of FIG. 3, when three times are designated, in FIG. 2, not only the link insertion button 203 but also an interface for designating three times is provided. For example, there may be three buttons for designating three times, respectively, or the three times may be directly entered as numbers.

  The moving image thumbnail and the still image thumbnail may be set so that the description of the scene link information is different. For example, when the start time 303 and the end time 304 are described as shown in FIG. 3, a moving image thumbnail is displayed, and the start time 303 and the end time 304 are not set as shown in FIG. When only the time 402 is described, a still image thumbnail may be displayed. This description is adopted in the embodiment of the present invention. In addition, although not shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, an index indicating whether it is a still image thumbnail or a moving image thumbnail may be added to the scene link information. The description of the scene link information is specified when the user writes the text information in the text information sharing unit 101.

  The text information sharing unit 101 holds a large amount of text information (including scene link information) associated with such a scene of video content and shares it among users. The user can download the text information and view it on the text information display unit 106.

<Thumbnail position management unit 102, thumbnail position storage unit 103>
The thumbnail position management unit 102 acquires the text information from the text information sharing unit 101, extracts all the scene link information from the acquired text information, and extracts the content ID and time (in some cases, the start time and end time). ) Is stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 103.

An example of the operation of the thumbnail position management unit 102 will be described with reference to FIG.
The thumbnail position management unit 102 acquires text information from the text information sharing unit 101 (step S501). When the text information stored in the text information sharing unit 101 is transmitted to the thumbnail position management unit 102, the text information sharing unit 101 receives the text information posted by the user when the text information sharing unit 101 receives the text information. The thumbnail position management unit 102 may periodically acquire the text information sharing unit 101 by crawling.

The thumbnail position management unit 102 extracts all scene link information from the acquired text information (step S502). Examples of the extracted results are shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 are examples of thumbnail position tables created from scene link information extracted from text information stored in the text information sharing unit 101. FIG. Note that the thumbnail position table is stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 103. The thumbnail position table is a table in which scene link information of various content IDs is registered. The thumbnail position information list is a part of the thumbnail position table and indicates a list of scene link information having a certain content ID.
In the example of FIG. 6, it can be seen that there is text information associated with the positions of the times 15000, 50000, and 100,000 for the video content with the content ID 1031, and the video content with the content ID 1032 is associated with the positions of the times 105000 and 155000. You can see that there is text information. This time corresponds to the above representative time. FIG. 7 shows an example in which a thumbnail position table is created from scene link information for moving image thumbnails.

  The thumbnail position management unit 102 accumulates the thumbnail position tables of FIGS. 6 and 7 in the thumbnail position accumulation unit 103 (step S503).

  In this manner, the thumbnail position management unit 102 extracts all scene link information from all text information stored in the text information sharing unit 101 and creates a thumbnail position table.

  The thumbnail position storage unit 103 stores the content ID and time (representative time) included in the scene link information extracted by the thumbnail position management unit 102.

<Thumbnail generation unit 104, thumbnail storage unit 105, video content playback unit 107>
The video content playback unit 107 plays back video content that can be played back.
The thumbnail generation unit 104 acquires the thumbnail position information of the same content ID as the video content from the thumbnail position management unit 102 in the thumbnail position table stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 103, and the thumbnail in the acquired thumbnail position information. create. The thumbnail position information indicates the representative time.

  The thumbnail accumulation unit 105 accumulates the thumbnail created by the thumbnail generation unit 104 together with the content ID and thumbnail position information.

Next, a flowchart when the thumbnail generation unit 104 generates a thumbnail is shown in FIG.
The thumbnail generation unit 104 detects whether there is reproducible video content in the video content playback unit 107 (step S801). If it is detected in step S801 that there is video content, the process proceeds to step S802. If it is not detected in step S801 that there is video content, step S801 is repeated at a predetermined cycle.

  The thumbnail generation unit 104 acquires thumbnail position information having the same content ID as the video content from the thumbnail position table stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 103 from the thumbnail position management unit 102 (step S802). For example, when the content ID of the video content of the video content playback unit 107 is 1031, the thumbnail generation unit 104 has a content ID of 1031 (1031, 15000), (1031, 50000) from the thumbnail position table of FIG. Three thumbnail position information lists of (1031, 100000) are acquired.

  The thumbnail generation unit 104 generates a thumbnail at that time while referring to the acquired thumbnail position information list (step S803). The thumbnail may be generated when the user reproduces the video content with the video content reproduction unit 107, or may be generated when the display device is idling and no other processing load is applied. In addition to playing back video content, when recording a broadcast TV program or the like, a video content recording unit is provided as a constituent element instead of the video content playback unit 107, and when video content is recorded, thumbnails are recorded. A thumbnail may be generated while referring to the position information list.

  The thumbnail generation unit 104 stores the thumbnail created in step S803 in the thumbnail storage unit 105 together with the thumbnail position information list (step S804).

  Examples of data sent from the thumbnail generation unit 104 to the thumbnail storage unit 105 are shown in FIGS. The thumbnail accumulation unit 105 accumulates all thumbnails created while referring to the thumbnail position information list downloaded from the thumbnail position management unit 102 when the video content has been reproducible.

<Text information display unit 106>
The text information display unit 106 displays the text information acquired from the text information sharing unit 101 and the thumbnails to be displayed with the text information acquired from the thumbnail storage unit 105 in association with each other.

Next, a flowchart in which the text information display unit 106 displays text information is shown in FIG.
The text information display unit 106 displays the text information held by the text information sharing unit 101, and the user selects desired text information from the displayed text information (step S1101). The selected text information is a blog article as described above, or an article described on a bulletin board. The operation in step S1101 corresponds to the user selecting this article on the Internet.

  The text information display unit 106 extracts scene link information included in the text information selected in step S1101 (step S1102). When the text information includes a plurality of scene link information, the text information display unit 106 extracts all the scene link information.

  The text information display unit 106 selects one scene link that has not been displayed yet from the extracted scene link information (step S1103).

  The text information display unit 106 searches the thumbnail storage unit 105 for a thumbnail corresponding to each scene link information included in the text information (step S1104). The search is performed based on the content ID and time of the scene link information, and the text information display unit 106 searches for a thumbnail that matches the scene link information. If the corresponding thumbnail exists in the thumbnail storage unit 105, the text information display unit 106 displays the thumbnail (step S1105). If the corresponding thumbnail does not exist in the thumbnail storage unit 105, the content corresponding to the scene link selected in step S903 is in the content playback device (video content playback unit 107, video content recording unit, etc.) in the display device. Whether or not (step S1106). If it is determined in step S1106 that there is content for which a thumbnail can be created, a thumbnail is created, the thumbnail is accumulated in the thumbnail accumulation unit 105 (step S1108), and the thumbnail is displayed (step S1105). That is, when it is possible to generate a thumbnail directly from video content, if there is no corresponding thumbnail in the thumbnail storage unit 105, a thumbnail is generated directly from the video content and displayed. If it is determined in step S1106 that there is no content for which a thumbnail can be created, it is displayed that there is no thumbnail (step S1107). The indication that there is no thumbnail may be displayed as an image prepared in advance such as “No Image” or may be displayed as an icon.

  It is determined whether the text information display unit 106 has displayed all the scene link information extracted in step S1102 (step S1109). If all the scene link information is displayed, the process ends. If there is a scene link that has not been displayed yet, the process returns to step S1103.

Next, a specific example in which YES is determined and NO is determined when the thumbnail storage unit 105 searches for a thumbnail corresponding to each scene link information included in the text information in step S1104.
(1) A user A writes text information: A user A creates text information including a scene link using the “example of screen for creating text information” in FIG. Send text information. The text information includes a scene link format shown in FIG. 4 as content link content_id = 1001 and maintime = 15000.
Is inserted.

  (2) Extracting the scene link information from the text information to create a thumbnail position table: In step S501 of FIG. 5, the thumbnail position management unit 102 uses the text information of the user A shared by the text information sharing unit 101. The scene link is extracted to create a thumbnail position table as shown in FIG.

(3) The user B displays text information of the user A on the text information display unit 106 in a state where the video content is present: a state where the user B can reproduce the video content (when the content ID is 1001 included in a DVD or the like) When the text information is to be displayed, the thumbnail position table is downloaded and the corresponding thumbnail is stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105. At this time, content_id = 1001, maintime = 15000 extracted from the text information of the user A is stored in the thumbnail position table.
Therefore, the thumbnail generation unit 104 stores the thumbnails in the thumbnail storage unit 105.

(4) User C writes text information: Like user A, user C writes text information and sends it to text information sharing unit 101. The scene link at this time is content_id = 1001, maintime = 20000
And

(5) Extracting the scene link information from the text information to create a thumbnail position table: As in (2) above, the thumbnail position management unit 102 extracts the scene link from the text information by the user C, as shown in FIG. A simple thumbnail position table. Thereby, the thumbnail position table is content_id = 1001, maintime = 15000.
content_id = 1001, maintime = 20000
Will be included. An example of a state in which a plurality of scene link information is accumulated in this way corresponds to FIG.

(6) User B displays text information of user A on text information display unit 106 without video content: User B is not always in a state where video content can be reproduced. For example, a TV program recorded by the HDD recorder may be deleted from the HDD, a rented DVD may be returned, or the purchased DVD may be held but not inserted into the player. At this time, the scene link content_id = 1001, maintime = 15000 inserted in the text information of the user A is stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105.
Since the thumbnails for are stored in (3) above, video cannot be displayed, but thumbnails can be displayed. At this time, it is determined as YES in step S1104 of FIG.

(7) User B displays text information of user C on text information display unit 106 without video content: When text information of user C is to be displayed on text information display unit 106, it is inserted into text information of user C Scene link content_id = 1001, maintime = 20000
Are not stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105. For this reason, thumbnails cannot be displayed without content. At this time, NO is determined in step S1104 of FIG.

  As described above, when the time elapses from (1) to (7), the determination in step S1104 is necessary.

Next, display examples of text information and thumbnails displayed by the text information display unit 106 will be described with reference to FIGS.
In the example of FIG. 12, 1201 and 1202 are displayed as thumbnails according to the scene link information included in the text information. In addition, since there is no thumbnail corresponding to 1203 in the thumbnail storage unit 105 and there is no content for which a thumbnail can be created, the scene link 1203 is displayed as an icon. The scene link information displayed with thumbnails and icons in FIG. 12 may be set so that video content is reproduced from the scene when selected by the user.

Next, another display example of text information and thumbnails is shown in FIG.
In the example of FIG. 13, one video content scene is associated with one text information, and is displayed like a bulletin board on the Internet. Here, the thumbnails corresponding to 1301 and 1302 are stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105 and can be displayed. However, the thumbnail corresponding to 1303 is not in the thumbnail storage unit 105 and a thumbnail can be created. Since there is no content, “No Image” is displayed. This indicates that there is no corresponding video when the thumbnail generation unit 104 creates a thumbnail, and that there is currently no content that can be played back in the moving image playback apparatus.
As described above, in the flowchart of FIG. 11 displaying text information, thumbnails can be displayed even if the video content is not owned.

According to the first embodiment described above, for example, thumbnails can be displayed even when a DVD is owned but is not inserted into the moving image playback device and cannot be played back immediately. For example, when displaying text information in which scene links associated with a plurality of DVDs are displayed, it is necessary to insert a plurality of DVDs into the system so that they can be played back in order to create and display thumbnails directly from the DVDs. However, the thumbnail display device according to the present embodiment can display a thumbnail if the DVD is owned and the thumbnail storage unit stores the thumbnail.
Also, even when a broadcast TV program is recorded but has been erased, thumbnails can be displayed. When displaying text information, if a thumbnail is created directly from video content, it takes a long time to display. However, in the case of the display method according to the present embodiment, since it is displayed from the thumbnail storage unit 105, it can be displayed immediately.

(Second Embodiment)
A display system including the display device and the server device of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. The present embodiment is different from the first embodiment in that there is a thumbnail position merging unit. Therefore, in this embodiment, the operations of the thumbnail generation unit and the text information display unit are different from those in the first embodiment. In the second embodiment, the process flowchart of the server is the same as that in FIG. 5 in the first embodiment. Therefore, the thumbnail position storage unit 103 stores the thumbnail position tables of FIGS. 6 and 7 described above.
Since this embodiment is different from the first embodiment in that the thumbnail position merging unit 1402 is provided, the thumbnail position merging unit 1402 will be mainly described.

  In the present embodiment, attention is paid to the following points. Thumbnail position information extracted from scene links attached by many users is almost the same, but there are cases where scene links are attached to places with slightly different times. In many cases, thumbnails with similar times can be substituted, and by merging thumbnail positions, it is possible to reduce the number of thumbnails to be stored. Therefore, the amount of memory required by the thumbnail storage unit 105 can be reduced.

As shown in FIG. 14, the display system of this embodiment includes a transmission client 150, a server 100, and a display device.
The display device includes a thumbnail storage unit 105, a video content playback unit 107, a text information display unit 1403, a thumbnail generation unit 1401, and a thumbnail position merge unit 1402.

  The thumbnail position merging unit 1402 obtains one thumbnail position information from the plurality of thumbnail position information in the thumbnail position information list stored in the thumbnail position accumulation unit 103 from the ones whose difference in representative time is smaller than the threshold value. The thumbnail is set as a representative, and the thumbnail of the thumbnail position information smaller than the threshold value is replaced with the representative thumbnail. More specifically, the thumbnail position merging unit 1402 selects one piece of position information from a plurality of pieces of position information stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 103 from a plurality of pieces of first position information whose time difference is smaller than a threshold value. Is set as representative position information, and the time newly included in the representative position information in the position information of the plurality of first position information is set as the merge destination time. For example, the merge destination time is included in addition to the thumbnail position information. The merge destination time is a representative time with a representative thumbnail to be replaced.

  The thumbnail generation unit 1401 generates a thumbnail corresponding to the representative time that has not been merged by the thumbnail position merging unit 1402.

  If there is no thumbnail corresponding to the scene link in the thumbnail storage unit 105, the text information display unit 1403 searches for the merged thumbnail. If there is a merged thumbnail, the text information display unit 1403 refers to the merge destination time and selects the thumbnail at this time. Display as an alternative thumbnail.

Next, a flowchart for generating thumbnails from scene link information is shown in FIG.
The thumbnail position merging unit 1402 merges the thumbnail position information lists acquired in step S802 (step S1501). Merging is performed based on time. An example of the merged thumbnail position information list is shown in FIGS. In the examples of FIGS. 16 and 17, the scene link information of the content ID 1033 indicates that the scene link information at the times 123300, 123500, and 123700 can be merged with the scene link information at the time 123000.

  The thumbnail position merging unit 1402 merges the thumbnail position information list into one time whose representative time is the vicinity. The neighborhood can be processed as a neighborhood when it is closer than 1 second, for example. As a method for selecting one representative, the representative may be merged so that the representative is used when processing the scene link information at the time near the representative as a representative in the order of processing in advance, or can be merged with the representative. It is also possible to record scene link information at a nearby time and represent the time at which the best thumbnail can be obtained in step S803 for generating a thumbnail later. The best thumbnails include the ability to obtain images with little movement and blur, and the ability to obtain images that clearly show the faces of characters. The method of evaluating the best thumbnail is not the essence of the present invention, so it will not be described here, but the method of evaluating that the image is not blurred or the method of evaluating that the face of the character is clearly shown Is possible with known techniques.

  In this way, it is possible to determine that a representative thumbnail having many merge times is an important scene to which many users have attached a scene link. As described above, a representative thumbnail having many scene links in the vicinity may be controlled so as to create a high-resolution thumbnail and display it at a large size in step S803. For example, if there are a number of merge times equal to or greater than a threshold value in the vicinity, a thumbnail having a high resolution is created in step S803.

  The thumbnail generation unit 1401 acquires the merged thumbnail position table of FIGS. 16 and 17, and generates a thumbnail for the scene link information that has not been merged (step S803). The timing of thumbnail generation is the same as in the first embodiment.

  Next, examples of thumbnails generated with reference to the merged scene link information list are shown in FIGS. In the example of FIGS. 18 and 19, thumbnails for scene link information at times 123000 and 125000 are generated, but thumbnails for times 123300, 123500, and 123700 are not generated. In step S804, the thumbnail accumulation unit 105 accumulates the merged scene link information lists in FIGS.

Next, a flowchart in which the text information display unit 1403 displays text information is shown in FIG.
If there is no thumbnail corresponding to the scene link in the thumbnail storage unit 105 in step S1104, the text information display unit 1403 searches for the merged thumbnail and determines whether there is a merged thumbnail (step S2001). The search is performed based on the content ID and time of the scene link information. When the scene link information matches, the merge destination time is referred to. For example, in the example of FIGS. 16 and 17, even if an attempt is made to display a thumbnail corresponding to the scene link information with the content ID 1033 and time 123300, no thumbnail is stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105 in step S1104. It can be seen that the thumbnail at time 123300 can be replaced with the thumbnail at time 123000 with reference to the merge destination time. In this way, searchable alternative thumbnails are performed.

  Next, an alternative thumbnail is displayed (step S2002). An example of the display of the alternative thumbnail is shown in FIG. The display of the alternative thumbnail may be displayed as it is as shown in FIG. 12, or may be displayed so as to be understood as an alternative thumbnail. For example, the thumbnail may be surrounded by a frame of a different color or a broken line, or a character such as (Yen) may be displayed on the thumbnail. Further, a deviation from the original time may be displayed. For example, when the scene link information at time 123300 is replaced with a thumbnail at time 12300, it may be displayed as “−300 milliseconds”.

  In addition, after the NO determination in step S2001 of FIG. 20, when step S1106 and step S1108 in the first embodiment are added and it becomes possible to generate a thumbnail directly from the video content, the thumbnail storage unit If there is no thumbnail corresponding to 105, a thumbnail may be generated directly from the video content and displayed.

(Modification of the second embodiment)
A display system including a display device and a server device according to this modification will be described with reference to FIG. The display device and the server device of the present modification are different from the second embodiment described above in that the thumbnail position merge unit is in the server device. Therefore, the thumbnail position accumulated in the thumbnail position accumulation unit and the operation of the thumbnail generation unit are also different from those in the first embodiment.
The display system of this embodiment includes a transmission client 150, a server 2200, and a display device as shown in FIG.
The server 2200 includes a text information sharing unit 101, a thumbnail position management unit 102, a thumbnail position merge unit 2201, and a thumbnail position storage unit 2202.

  The thumbnail position merging unit 2201 determines a content ID and time to be merged from the extracted scene link information, and determines a merge destination time corresponding to the content ID and time to be merged. As a result, the thumbnail position merging unit 2201 obtains a merged thumbnail position information list. An example of the merged thumbnail position information list is shown in FIGS. 16 and 17, for example.

  The thumbnail position accumulation unit 2202 accumulates the merged scene link information lists of FIGS. 16 and 17.

  The display device includes a thumbnail generation unit 2203, a text information display unit 1403, a thumbnail storage unit 105, and a video content playback unit 107.

  The thumbnail generation unit 2203 refers to the merged scene link information stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 2202, generates a thumbnail corresponding to the representative time that has not been merged, and merged scene link information to which the thumbnail has been added. Is stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105.

  Since the present embodiment is different from the first embodiment in that the thumbnail position merging unit 2201 is provided, the thumbnail position merging unit 2201 will be mainly described.

An example of operations of the thumbnail position management unit 102 and the thumbnail position merging unit 2201 will be described with reference to FIG.
The thumbnail position management unit 102 extracts all scene link information from the acquired text information (step S502). An example of the extracted result is a thumbnail position table, an example of which is shown in FIGS.
The thumbnail position merging unit 2201 determines the content ID and time to be merged from the scene link information extracted in step S502, and determines the merge destination time corresponding to the content ID and time to be merged. As a result, the thumbnail position merging unit 2201 obtains a merged thumbnail position information list. Similar to the thumbnail position merging unit 1402, the thumbnail position merging unit 2201 merges the thumbnail position information list into one time whose representative time is the vicinity (step S2501). Then, the thumbnail position merging unit 2201 accumulates the merged thumbnail position information list in the thumbnail position accumulating unit 2202 (step S2302). That is, the thumbnail position storage unit 2202 stores the content ID and time (representative time) included in the scene link information in association with information including the merge destination time.

  According to the second embodiment described above, in addition to the effects of the first embodiment, the amount of memory necessary for the thumbnail storage unit 105 can be reduced by displaying the merged thumbnail.

(Third embodiment)
A display system including the display device and server device of the third embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. The display device and server device of this embodiment differ from the first embodiment in that there is a thumbnail selection unit 2401. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the operation of the thumbnail selection unit 2401 will be mainly described. The operations up to the flowchart for generating and storing the thumbnails of FIG. 15 in the first embodiment are the same.

  In the first embodiment and the second embodiment, when a thumbnail can be generated from video content, a thumbnail is generated with reference to the time of thumbnail position information stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 103. Therefore, there is a possibility that thumbnails for scene link information included in articles created thereafter are not stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105.

As shown in FIG. 24, the display system of the present embodiment includes a transmission client 150, a server 100, and a display device.
The display device includes a thumbnail generation unit 104, a thumbnail storage unit 105, a thumbnail selection unit 2401, a text information display unit 2402, and a video content playback unit 107.

  The thumbnail selection unit 2401 receives the scene link information extracted by the text information display unit 2402 and selects a thumbnail corresponding to the scene link information from the thumbnail storage unit 105. In the case of an article created after a thumbnail in the thumbnail accumulation unit 105 is created, the thumbnail selection unit 2401 selects a thumbnail that is an alternative to the thumbnail corresponding to this article from the thumbnail accumulation unit 105.

  The text information display unit 2402 acquires text information from the text information sharing unit 101, extracts scene link information included in the text information, and passes it to the thumbnail selection unit 2401. Then, the text information display unit 2402 displays the thumbnail selected by the thumbnail selection unit 2401 and the text information.

  In the present embodiment, when a thumbnail for scene link information included in an article created after generating a thumbnail is to be displayed, the thumbnail selection unit 2401 selects a substitutable thumbnail from the thumbnail storage unit 105. For example, the thumbnail of FIG. 9 or FIG. 10 is stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105, and the text information display unit 2402 includes the scene link of the content ID 1031 and the time 15500, and the thumbnail is displayed as an example in FIG. This will be described with reference to a flowchart for displaying text information.

  The thumbnail of the content ID 1031 and the time 15500 is searched in the thumbnail accumulation unit 105. However, since there is no corresponding thumbnail in the thumbnail of FIG. 9 or 10, the process proceeds to step S2501 (step S1104). The text information display unit 2402 searches the thumbnail storage unit 105 for substitutable thumbnails (step S2501).

  As a method of selecting a substitutable thumbnail, it can be determined that substituting is possible when the time is near. When the time is close, for example, it is possible to determine that a thumbnail within one second from the time of a thumbnail necessary for display is close and that it can be replaced. More specifically, the thumbnail selection unit 2401 determines whether or not the thumbnail storage unit 105 has thumbnail position information including a second time whose difference from the first time corresponding to a thumbnail for which there is no corresponding one is smaller than a threshold value. If it is determined that there is thumbnail position information including the second time, a thumbnail corresponding to the position information including the second time with the smallest difference between the first time and the second time is selected from the thumbnail storage unit 105 To do. In the example of FIG. 9, the thumbnail with the content ID 1031 and the time 15000 corresponds to the thumbnail that can be substituted for the scene link information with the content ID 1031 and the time 15500. When a substitutable thumbnail is searched, the process proceeds to step S2002. The alternative thumbnail searched in step S2501 is displayed (step S2002). This method is similar to the method in the second embodiment, but differs in the following points. In the second embodiment, the thumbnail accumulation unit 105 stores the merged scene link information to which the representative thumbnail is added and displays the representative thumbnail, but in this embodiment, the thumbnail accumulation unit 105 merges the scene link merged. Alternative thumbnails can be displayed without storing information.

  In this way, alternative thumbnails can be displayed even when they are not stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105.

  As another method of selecting a substitutable thumbnail, it can be determined that substituting is possible when the descriptions in the vicinity of the text information associated with the scene are similar. In this case, in the flowchart of the processing of the thumbnail position management unit 102 of FIG. 5 described in the first embodiment, not only the scene link information but also the nearby text information is held by the scene link extraction in step S502. As a means for extracting neighboring text information from the text information associated with the scene link, when a scene link is inserted in a description such as a blog article as shown in FIG. Is possible by extracting. Alternatively, it is possible to extract one sentence including the scene link. When the description and the scene are associated as in the bulletin board shown in FIG. 13, it is possible to extract all the associated descriptions. The thumbnail position management unit 102 selects a thumbnail having the highest similarity between certain characters before and after as a substitute thumbnail.

  Examples of the scene link information extracted in this way and nearby text information are shown in FIGS. The thumbnail position information obtained in this way is stored in the thumbnail position storage unit 103 in step S503 in FIG.

  The method for generating the thumbnail may be according to the flowchart of FIG. 8 of the first embodiment, or may be according to the flowchart of FIG. 15 of the second embodiment. However, the information stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105 at this time is stored as a set with the text information in the vicinity of FIGS. Examples of thumbnails, content IDs, thumbnail position information, and neighboring text information stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105 are shown in FIGS.

  As a method for generating thumbnails, it is possible to determine the resolution of thumbnails with reference to nearby text information. The thumbnail generation unit 104 in FIG. 24 holds a resolution determination rule, and generates a high-resolution thumbnail as necessary according to the resolution determination rule. For example, the thumbnail generation unit 104 holds, as a rule, an expression described in nearby text information when a high resolution is required as shown in FIGS. 30 and 31, and the notation corresponding to this is a nearby text If it is described in the information, a high-resolution thumbnail is generated. If there is no corresponding notation, a normal-resolution thumbnail is generated. Thereby, it is possible to display a sufficient thumbnail even for text information that is depicted in detail.

  In addition, the thumbnail generation unit 104 may adopt the number of pieces of association information with a scene at a nearby time as a resolution determination rule. The thumbnail generation unit 104 determines the resolution of the first thumbnail according to the number of pieces of position information existing in a period in which the difference from the time linked to the first thumbnail is smaller than the first threshold. For example, when the number of pieces of position information existing during this period is equal to or greater than a threshold value, a thumbnail having a higher resolution than the normal resolution may be created. That is, the importance level of the scene is determined based on the number of association information, and the resolution of the thumbnail is determined. For example, in the examples of FIGS. 16 and 17, four people attach the same content ID within one second. In this case, the thumbnail generation unit 104 creates a thumbnail at the content ID 1033 and the time 123000 with a higher resolution than usual. As a modification, the resolution may be increased in proportion to the number associated.

Next, a method for selecting a substitutable thumbnail using neighboring text information in step S2501 of the flowchart of FIG. 25 will be described.
For example, the thumbnail of FIG. 28 is stored in the thumbnail storage unit 105, the text information display unit 106 includes a scene link with content ID 1034 and time 200000, and the text information in the vicinity of this scene link is “Mr. An example of displaying a thumbnail when “Recent” has been described will be described. This thumbnail is not close in time to any thumbnail in FIG. 28 and has a different content ID. In this case, the thumbnail selection unit 2401 calculates the similarity of neighboring text information (step S2501). The similarity of text can be scored by including many of the same words. When a thumbnail having neighboring text information having a sufficiently high score is searched in the thumbnail storage unit 105, it can be determined that the thumbnail can be replaced.

  The searched alternative thumbnail is displayed as a thumbnail on the text information display unit 2402 (step S2002). The display method may be the display method in the first embodiment, or may be displayed so that it is an alternative thumbnail as described with reference to FIG. 21 of the second embodiment, or a nearby text The information may be displayed so that it can be seen that the information is similar. As a method for indicating that the neighboring text information is similar, as shown in FIG. 32, it may be displayed as (similar), or the same word included in the neighboring text information is displayed as a hit word. Also good. In this example, the text information near the scene link to be displayed “Mr. XX's recent” and the text information in the vicinity of the thumbnail at the content ID 1031 and time 100000 in FIG. The hit word “Mr. XX” can be displayed as shown in FIG.

  According to the third embodiment described above, by displaying a substitutable thumbnail, the user can view the thumbnail even in a situation where video content cannot be used when displaying text information. More specifically, an article that does not exist at the time the thumbnail is created by selecting from the thumbnail accumulation part a thumbnail that is an alternative to the thumbnail corresponding to the article created after the thumbnail in the thumbnail accumulation part is created. An alternative thumbnail can be displayed.

  According to the embodiment described above, when displaying a text file by creating a thumbnail image in advance or acquiring a thumbnail image optimal for the corresponding text from the created thumbnail image, the thumbnail image is displayed. The thumbnails can be displayed quickly even if the video content is not owned.

  Note that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment as it is, and can be embodied by modifying the constituent elements without departing from the scope of the invention in the implementation stage. In addition, various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of components disclosed in the embodiment. For example, some components may be deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment. Furthermore, constituent elements over different embodiments may be appropriately combined.

1 is a block diagram of a display system according to a first embodiment. The figure which shows an example of the screen of the display apparatus of the transmission client of FIG. The figure which shows an example of scene link information. The figure which shows an example of scene link information. 6 is a flowchart showing an example of the operation of the thumbnail position management unit in FIG. 1. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a thumbnail position table created from the scene link information extracted in step S502 of FIG. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a thumbnail position table created from the scene link information extracted in step S502 of FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of the operation of the thumbnail generation unit in FIG. 1. The figure which shows an example of the data which the thumbnail storage part of FIG. 1 accumulate | stores. The figure which shows an example of the data which the thumbnail storage part of FIG. 1 accumulate | stores. The flowchart which shows an example of operation | movement of the text information display part of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the display of the text information display part of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the display of the text information display part of FIG. The block diagram of the display system of 2nd Embodiment. 15 is a flowchart illustrating an example of operations of the thumbnail generation unit and the thumbnail position merging unit in FIG. 14. The figure which shows an example of the scene link information list merged by the thumbnail position merge part of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the scene link information list merged by the thumbnail position merge part of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the scene link information list merged with the thumbnail accumulate | stored in the thumbnail storage part of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the scene link information list merged with the thumbnail accumulate | stored in the thumbnail storage part of FIG. The flowchart which shows an example of operation | movement of the text information display part of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the alternative thumbnail displayed by step S2002 of FIG. The block diagram of the display system of the modification of 2nd Embodiment. 23 is a flowchart showing an example of the operation of the display system of FIG. The block diagram of the display system of 3rd Embodiment. The flowchart which shows an example of operation | movement of the display system of FIG. The figure which shows an example of the scene link information which the thumbnail position storage part of FIG. 24 accumulate | stores, and the text information of the vicinity. The figure which shows an example of the scene link information which the thumbnail position storage part of FIG. 24 accumulate | stores, and the text information of the vicinity. The figure which shows an example of the thumbnail, content ID, thumbnail position information, and neighborhood text information which the thumbnail storage part of FIG. 24 accumulate | stores. The figure which shows an example of the thumbnail, content ID, thumbnail position information, and neighborhood text information which the thumbnail storage part of FIG. 24 accumulate | stores. The figure which shows an example of the resolution determination rule which the thumbnail production | generation part of FIG. 24 hold | maintains. The figure which shows an example of the resolution determination rule which the thumbnail production | generation part of FIG. 24 hold | maintains. The figure which shows an example of the alternative thumbnail displayed by FIG.25 S2002.

Explanation of symbols

100, 2200 ... server, 101 ... text information sharing unit, 102 ... thumbnail position management unit, 103, 2202 ... thumbnail position storage unit, 104, 1401, 2033 ... thumbnail generation unit, 105 ... Thumbnail storage unit 106, 1403, 2402 ... Text information display unit 107 ... Video content playback unit 150 ... Transmission client 201 ... Content display unit 202 ... Content operation , 203 ... Link insertion button, 204 ... Text information editing section, 205 ... Scene link, 206 ... Text information transmission button, 302 ... Representative time, 303 ... Start time, 304 ... End time, 402 ... Representative time, 1402, 2201 ... Thumbnail position merge unit 2401, Thumbnail selection unit.

Claims (11)

A display system comprising a server device and a display device,
The server device
A sharing means for sharing text information including link information to a scene of video content;
Extraction means for extracting position information including an identifier of the video content and a time of a link destination to the scene from the text information;
Position information storage means for storing a plurality of the position information,
The display device
Playback means for playing back the video content;
Generating means for generating a thumbnail of a scene linked to predetermined position information stored in the position information storage means from the video content;
Thumbnail storage means for storing the predetermined position information and the thumbnail in association with each other;
Text information is acquired from the sharing means, a thumbnail related to link information to a scene included in the text information is acquired from the thumbnail storage means with reference to the predetermined position information, and the text information and the thumbnail are acquired. And a display means for displaying the display. The display device sets one piece of position information as representative position information from a plurality of pieces of position information stored in the position information storage unit, from a plurality of pieces of first position information whose time difference is smaller than a threshold value. And setting means for setting the time newly included in the representative position information as the merge destination time in the position information of the plurality of first position information,
The generation means generates a representative thumbnail linked to the representative position information from the video content,
The thumbnail storage means stores the representative position information and the representative thumbnail in association with each other,
2. The display unit according to claim 1, wherein, when the merge destination time is included in the predetermined position information, the display means displays a representative thumbnail associated with the representative position information corresponding to the merge destination time. Display system described. The server device sets one piece of position information as representative position information from a plurality of pieces of position information stored in the position information storage unit, from a plurality of pieces of first position information whose time difference is smaller than a threshold value. And setting means for setting the time newly included in the representative position information as the merge destination time in the position information of the plurality of first position information,
The location information storage means stores the merge destination time in association with a plurality of the first location information,
It said generating means generates among the position information stored in the previous SL-position location information storing unit, a representative thumbnail that links to the representative position information merge destination time is not granted from the video content,
The thumbnail storage means stores the representative position information and the representative thumbnail in association with each other,
2. The display unit according to claim 1, wherein, when the merge destination time is included in the predetermined position information, the display means displays a representative thumbnail associated with the representative position information corresponding to the merge destination time. Display system described.   The display means includes selection means for selecting a substitutable thumbnail when thumbnails related to link information to a scene included in the text information are not stored in the thumbnail storage means. The display system according to 1. The extraction means extracts a fixed character before and after the text corresponding to the time indicated by the position information extracted from the text information;
The position information storage means stores the fixed front and rear characters in association with the identifier and the time,
5. The display system according to claim 4, wherein the selection unit selects a thumbnail having the highest similarity between the front and rear fixed characters from the thumbnail storage unit.   The selection means has position information including a second time in which a difference from a first time corresponding to a thumbnail related to the link information to the scene included in the text information is smaller than a threshold value in the thumbnail storage means. If it is determined that there is position information including the second time, a thumbnail corresponding to the position information including the second time with the smallest difference between the first time and the second time is stored in the thumbnail. 5. The display system according to claim 4, wherein the display system is selected from means.   The generation unit is configured to determine the predetermined position information according to the number of position information existing in a period in which a difference from a time linked to a thumbnail of a scene linked to the predetermined position information is smaller than a first threshold value. The display system according to claim 1, further comprising a determining unit that determines a resolution of a thumbnail of a scene linked to the scene. It said generating means, the resolution of hexa thumbnails before in accordance with the position information difference between the time that links to the scene thumbnails that links to the predetermined position information is present in less time than the first threshold value The display system according to claim 1, wherein a rule for determination is held. A server device connected to the display device,
A sharing means for sharing text information including link information to a scene of video content;
Extraction means for extracting position information including an identifier of the video content and a time of a link destination to the scene from the text information;
Position information storage means for storing a plurality of the position information,
The display device generates a thumbnail of a scene linked to predetermined position information stored in the position information storage unit from the video content, and obtains text information acquired from the sharing unit and a scene included in the text information. A server apparatus, wherein thumbnails related to the link information are displayed with reference to the predetermined position information. Sharing means for sharing text information including link information to a scene of video content, extraction means for extracting position information including an identifier of the video content and a link destination time to the scene from the text information, and the position A display device connected to a server device comprising a location information storage means for storing a plurality of information,
Playback means for playing back the video content;
Generating means for generating a thumbnail of a scene linked to predetermined position information stored in the position information storage means from the video content;
Thumbnail storage means for storing the predetermined position information and the thumbnail in association with each other;
Text information is acquired from the sharing means, a thumbnail related to link information to a scene included in the text information is acquired from the thumbnail storage means with reference to the predetermined position information, and the text information and the thumbnail are acquired. And a display means for displaying the display. Prepare a sharing means to share text information including link information to scenes of video content,
Extracting the position information including the identifier of the video content and the link destination time to the scene from the text information;
Preparing position information storage means for storing a plurality of the position information;
Playing the video content,
Generating a thumbnail of the scene linked to the predetermined position information stored in the position information storage means from the video content;
Preparing thumbnail storage means for storing the predetermined position information and the thumbnail in association with each other;
Text information is acquired from the sharing means, a thumbnail related to link information to a scene included in the text information is acquired from the thumbnail storage means with reference to the predetermined position information, and the text information and the thumbnail are acquired. A display method characterized by displaying.

Images