JPH0332275B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION <Industrial Application Field> The present invention relates to a device for transmitting television broadcast signals using a communal viewing and viewing device.

<Prior Art> Conventionally, as a device for transmitting a television broadcast signal, there is, for example, a device for transmitting a pay television broadcast signal in a hotel or the like. In this system, a general television broadcast signal from a broadcasting station received by an antenna and multiple pay television broadcast signals from a VTR, etc. are mixed at the head end and sent to the TV in each room via the transmission line of the communal viewing device. The signal is supplied to the terminal device connected to the digital receiver. Then, the central device calls each terminal device in turn, and when the called terminal device is receiving a pay television signal, it transmits to the central device which pay television signal it is receiving. Accordingly, the central device calculates the fee for receiving pay television.

<Problems to be solved by the invention> By the way, in hotels, etc., guests in each room are asked to come to the front desk because they have someone to visit, or they have received a message and are asked to come to the front desk. Sometimes it is necessary to communicate information. In such cases, conventionally, a telephone call was made to the guest's room to provide information, but this would interfere with the guest's ability to watch television if he or she was watching it. Therefore, it is possible to display information on the television receiver, but with the above-mentioned device, it is possible to know that the TV is being watched in the room where the information needs to be sent, but it is possible to display information on the television receiver. I couldn't just send information.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a device that can transmit specific information only to a television receiver in a specific room without substantially damaging the broadcast that is currently being viewed.

<Means for Solving the Problems> The present invention includes one central device and a plurality of terminal devices, each of which is assigned a different address.

The central device includes means for transmitting a plurality of television broadcast signals of different frequencies to each of the terminal devices, means for sequentially generating address signals corresponding to each of the addresses, and means for transmitting the address signals to each of the terminal devices. and means for generating a reception instruction signal for instructing which of the television broadcast signals to receive, and a central device side transmitting means for transmitting the signals, and each of the terminal devices has means for generating a reception instruction signal for instructing which of the television broadcast signals to receive; a converting means for converting a television broadcast signal into a predetermined frequency; a receiving means for receiving each of the address signals; and a determining means for determining whether the received address signal matches an address assigned to itself. , terminal device side transmitting means for transmitting the reception instruction signal to the central device when the determining means determines that the transmitted address signal and its own address signal match, and the central device is configured to transmit the reception instruction signal to the central device. a display means for receiving and displaying a reception instruction signal transmitted from each terminal device, and said television broadcasting being received by a specific terminal device among said terminal devices determined based on the display of said display means; means for demodulating the signal into a baseband signal, means for generating an information signal consisting of a video signal or an audio signal to be transmitted to the specific terminal device, and a superimposed signal obtained by superimposing the baseband signal and the information signal. a superimposing means for generating a superimposed signal, a modulating means for modulating the superimposed signal into a superimposed television broadcast signal having a frequency different from that of each of the television broadcast signals, and transmitting the modulated signal to each of the terminal devices; means for supplying a frequency information signal representing the frequency of the superimposed television broadcast signal to the central device side transmitting means together with an address signal of the specific terminal device to be sent to the central device side; When the receiving means receives the address signal of the specific terminal device transmitted together with the signal, and the determining means determines that the address signal matches the address assigned to itself, the converting means transmits the address signal to the converting means based on the frequency information signal. The apparatus further comprises means for giving an instruction to the converting means to convert the superimposed television broadcast signal to the predetermined frequency.

[Operation] According to the present invention, a plurality of television broadcast signals are transmitted from the central device to each terminal device, and the conversion means of each terminal device converts the television broadcast signal specified by the reception instruction signal to a predetermined frequency. do. On the other hand, an address signal is sequentially transmitted from the central device to each terminal device via the central device side transmission means, and each terminal device receives the address signal by the receiving means and assigns the received address signal to itself. When the determining means determines that the received address matches the specified address, the terminal side transmitting means transmits a reception instruction signal to the central device side.

In the central device, in response to the reception instruction signal transmitted by the terminal-side transmitting means, the display means displays which terminal device is receiving which television broadcast signal. Based on this display, the television broadcast signal being received by a specific terminal device is determined, and the demodulating means demodulates the television broadcast signal being received by this specific terminal device into a baseband signal. On the other hand, the information signal generating means generates an information signal consisting of a video signal or an audio signal to be sent to a specific terminal device, and the superimposing means superimposes this information signal and the baseband signal. and,
A modulation means converts the superimposed signal into a television broadcast signal having a completely different frequency from each of the above-mentioned television broadcast signals, and sends it to each terminal device. At the same time, a frequency information signal representing the frequency of the superimposed signal is generated by the information generating means, and is transmitted to each terminal device along with the address signal of the specific terminal device by the central device side transmitting means.

In each terminal device, the receiving means receives an address signal representing the transmitted address of the specific terminal device and a frequency information signal representing the frequency of the superimposed signal, and the received address signal is transmitted to the determining means. If it matches the address assigned to itself, that is, in a specific terminal device, the conversion means:
Based on the frequency information signal, the converting means converts the superimposed signal to a predetermined frequency instead of the television broadcast signal that is currently being converted to a predetermined frequency. Therefore, a specific terminal device can obtain a signal in which an information signal is superimposed on a television signal having the same content as that previously received.

<Example> This example has one central device 2 and a plurality of terminal devices 4, as shown in FIG. The central device 2 is installed at the front desk of a hotel, for example,
Each terminal device 4 is installed in each room of the hotel. The central device 2 and each terminal device 4 are connected via a transmission path 6 for a joint viewing device.

The central device 2 divides the output signal from the head end 8 into two parts using a distributor 10 and supplies one of the divided outputs to the transmission line 6 via the mixer 12 . The output signal from the head end 8 is a general television broadcast signal from each broadcast station received by the antenna 14,
It is a mixture of pay television broadcast signals from a VTR (not shown), etc.

The output signal from the head end 8 supplied to the transmission line 6 is passed through the splitter 16 in each terminal device 4.
The signal is supplied to the PLL converter 18. The PLL converter 18 selects the television broadcast signal of the channel (frequency) instructed by the CPU 20 from among the supplied television broadcast signals, and
Converting to a television signal of a predetermined channel different from the above television broadcast signals,
A television receiver (not shown) is supplied. Therefore, the television signal supplied to the television receiver is always the television signal of the predetermined channel even if the content changes. CPU2
0 generates a channel instruction signal according to instructions from the channel selection switch 22.

The control device 24 of the central device 2 sequentially supplies address signals representing different addresses assigned to each terminal device 4 to the FSK transmitter 26.
The FSK transmitter 26 frequency-shift modulates these address signals and sends the frequency-shifted signals to the mixer 12.
and is supplied to each terminal device 4 via the transmission line 6.

In each terminal device 4, the supplied frequency shift signal is supplied to the receiver 28 via the duplexer 16, where it is demodulated into an address signal and supplied to the CPU 20. The CPU 20 determines whether the demodulated address signal and the address set by the deep switch 30 (this differs depending on each terminal device 4) match, and if they match, the current
A signal representative of the channel being selected by PLL converter 18 is provided to transmitter 32 . Transmitter 3
2 is supplied to the control device 24 via the transmission line 6 and the mixing section 12 as a data signal representing the supplied signal. If the supplied signal represents a pay television broadcast signal, the control device 24 performs charge calculation and displays a display (not shown).
Displays which television broadcast signal is selected by each terminal device. And the control device 24
supplies the next address signal to the FSK transmitter 26, and so on.

In this state, if a special message is to be transmitted to a certain room, a drawing depicting this message is imaged by the imaging device 34 and a video signal is supplied to the caption device 36. On the other hand, the television broadcast signal selected by the terminal device 4 in a certain room is confirmed on the display, and a signal representing the television signal is given to the control device 24 using a keyboard (not shown). This causes the control device 24 to control the demodulator 3
8 to select the designated television broadcast signal from the output of the head end 8 distributed by the distributor 10. Demodulator 38 demodulates the selected television broadcast signal into a baseband signal and supplies it to ticker device 36. The telop device 36 superimposes the baseband signal from the demodulator 38 and the imaging signal from the imaging device 34 and supplies it to the modulator 40 . The modulator 40 converts this superimposed signal into a television broadcast signal of a different channel from each television broadcast signal from the head end 8 and supplies it to each terminal device 4 via the mixer 12 and the transmission line 6. At the same time, the control device 24
supplies the FSK transmitter 26 with an address signal of the terminal device 4 that is to receive the television broadcast signal from the modulator 40 and a frequency information signal representing the channel of the television broadcast signal from the modulator 40 . The FSK transmitter 26 frequency-shift modulates these supplied signals and supplies them from the mixer 12 to each terminal device 4 via the transmission path 6.

In each terminal device 4, the frequency shift signal from the FSK transmitter 26 is demodulated into an address signal and a channel display signal by the receiver 28, and the signals are supplied to the CPU 20. The CPU 20 determines whether the demodulated address signal and the address signal from the deep switch 30 match, and if they match (they match only for a specific terminal device), the signal modulated by the modulator 40 is If there is no channel change instruction, the PLL converter 18 continues to select the channel television broadcast signal currently selected. Also, when there is a channel change instruction, the CPU 20
A channel instruction signal is supplied to the PLL converter 18. As a result, the PLL converter 18
The television broadcast signal from the modulator 40 is converted into a television broadcast signal of a predetermined channel and supplied. The television broadcast signal from the modulator 40 is obtained by superimposing the image signal of the screen imaged by the imaging device 34 on the television broadcast signal previously selected by the specific terminal device 4 as a telop. Text information is displayed on the television receiver connected to the terminal device 4 without damaging the television broadcasts that have been received.

In the above embodiment, the specific information is displayed in characters, but the modulator 40 removes the audio signal of the television broadcast signal that has been received and superimposes the audio signal representing the specific information. may be supplied to In addition, in the above embodiment, only one device was able to transmit specific information, but if a plurality of demodulators, telop devices, and modulators are provided as shown in FIG. Different information can be transmitted to different terminal devices 4.

<Effects> As described above, according to the present invention, a television broadcast signal received by a specific terminal device is demodulated into a baseband signal, and an information signal consisting of a video signal and an audio signal is superimposed on the baseband signal. , this superimposed signal is transmitted to each terminal device as a superimposed television broadcast signal with a frequency different from that of each television broadcast signal, and a frequency information signal representing the frequency of the superimposed television broadcast signal is transmitted to each terminal device along with an address signal of a specific terminal device. Send to terminal device. In a specific terminal device, when the transmitted address signal matches its own address, the conversion means converts the superimposed television broadcast signal to a predetermined frequency based on the frequency information signal. Therefore, the television receiver connected to this terminal device can not only watch programs with the same contents as those previously received, but also be able to know the contents of the information signal and communicate with other terminals. No information signals are supplied to the device.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a television broadcast signal transmission apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a part of another embodiment of the same apparatus. 2...Central device, 4...Terminal device.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. It has one central device and a plurality of terminal devices to which different addresses are assigned, and the central device transmits a plurality of television broadcast signals of different frequencies to each of the terminal devices. a means for sequentially generating address signals corresponding to each of the addresses, and a central device-side transmitting means for transmitting the address signal to each of the terminal devices, each of the terminal devices having the above-mentioned means for generating a reception instruction signal for instructing which of the television broadcast signals to receive; conversion means for converting the television broadcast signal instructed by the reception instruction signal into a predetermined frequency; and each of the address signals. a receiving means for receiving the received address signal; a determining means for determining whether the received address signal matches an address assigned to the self; and a determining means for determining whether the transmitted address signal and the self address signal match. terminal device side transmitting means for transmitting the reception instruction signal to the central device when the determination is made; the central device has display means for receiving and displaying the reception instruction signal transmitted from each of the terminal devices; means for demodulating the television broadcast signal received by a specific terminal device among the terminal devices determined based on the display of the display means into a baseband signal; means for generating an information signal consisting of a video signal or an audio signal; a superimposing means for generating a superimposed signal by superimposing the baseband signal and the information signal; a modulating means for modulating the superimposed television broadcast signal of different frequencies and sending it to each of the terminal devices, and an address signal of the specific terminal device that is sent to the terminal device via the transmitting means, and the superimposed television broadcast signal. means for supplying a frequency information signal representing a frequency to the transmitting means on the central device side, and each of the terminal devices uses the receiving means to receive an address signal of the specific terminal device transmitted together with the frequency information signal. When the determining means receives the received address and determines that the address matches the address assigned to itself, the converting means instructs the converting means to convert the superimposed television broadcast signal to the predetermined frequency based on the frequency information signal. What is claimed is: 1. A television signal transmission apparatus comprising: means for providing a means for transmitting a television signal;