JPH05199328A - Master slave television telephone system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the convenience of a video telephone set by using a radio wave for the transmission reception between a master set and plural slave sets and multiplexing an identification signal onto an audio signal and a picture signal so as to use the plural slave sets. CONSTITUTION:A master set identification signal generating circuit 9 of a master set 1 generates an identification signal for the master set 1 and a master set multiplexer circuit 17 multiples the identification signal onto a picture signal and an audio signal received from a telephone line. A master set transmission circuit 7 sends the master set signal multiplexed by the circuit 17 to a slave set by a radio wave. A master set reception circuit 8 receives the radio wave from the slave set and demultiplexes the slave set signal. A master set identification circuit 6 demultiplexes the slave set identification signal from the slave set signal demultiplexed by the circuit 8 to identify a slave set based on the slave set identification signal. Since plural slave sets are used, the slave sets are freely placed on plural locations and plural persons use them.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a parent-child videophone system, and more particularly to transmitting and receiving a video signal, a voice signal and an identification signal of a videophone between a master unit and a plurality of slave units by radio signals. It is related to parent-child videophone.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a cordless video telephone is composed of a master unit and a slave unit connected to a public telephone line as shown in JP-A-1-168154, and radio waves are transmitted and received between them. .. Therefore, the master unit has a function of transmitting and receiving radio waves, and the slave unit also has a built-in radio wave transmitter and receiver. That is, the image and voice of the other party are converted from the electric signal into the radio signal by the parent device and sent to the child device. On the contrary, the image signal and the audio signal by the radio wave from the child device are converted from the radio wave signal into the electric signal by the device and sent to the other party. Therefore, the cordless video telephone is not restricted by a cord or the like, and can talk with the other party and see the image from the other party at any place in the room.

[0003]

However, the above cordless video telephone has only one master unit and one slave unit and cannot have a plurality of slave units. Naturally, it was also difficult to carry out communication between the slaves with a plurality of slaves.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and makes it possible to use a plurality of slave units by multiplexing an identification signal on a transmission radio wave of a cordless video telephone. .. Furthermore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a parent-child videophone system capable of constructing a simple videoconference system between the parent device and a plurality of child devices.

[0005]

In order to achieve this object, the present invention is a videophone for transmitting and receiving an image signal and an audio signal through a telephone line, and a base unit identification for generating an identification signal of the base unit. A master unit multiplexing circuit that multiplexes a signal generating circuit, its identification signal, an image signal and an audio signal received from a telephone line, and a parent unit that transmits the master unit signal multiplexed by the master unit multiplexing circuit to a slave unit by radio waves. A transmitter circuit and a master receiver circuit that receives the radio wave from the slave unit and separates the slave signal,
A master unit having a master unit identification circuit that separates the slave unit identification signal from the slave unit signal separated by the master unit reception circuit, and identifies the slave unit from the slave unit identification signal, and the master unit or another child unit. A handset transceiver circuit for transmitting and receiving radio signals to and from the device, a switching circuit that selectively switches between the image signal and the audio signal received by the handset transceiver circuit, and a control circuit that selectively controls the switching circuit, The slave unit includes a slave unit / identification signal generation circuit that generates its own identification signal, and a slave unit that includes a slave unit multiplex circuit that multiplexes the identification signal on an image signal and an audio signal to be transmitted.

[0006]

In the master unit of the parent-child videophone system of the present invention having the above structure, the master unit identification signal generating circuit generates the master unit identification signal, and the master unit multiplexing circuit calls the identification signal and the telephone. The image signal received from the line and the audio signal are multiplexed.
The master transmission circuit transmits the master signal multiplexed by the master multiplexing circuit to the slave by radio waves. The master receiver circuit is
Receives radio waves from the handset and separates the handset signal. The master unit identification circuit separates the slave unit identification signal from the slave unit signal separated by the master unit reception circuit, and identifies the slave unit from the slave unit identification signal.

In each slave unit, the slave transmission / reception circuit transmits / receives radio signals to / from the master unit and other slave units.
The switching circuit selectively switches between the image signal and the audio signal received by the slave transmission / reception circuit. The control circuit selectively controls the switching circuit. The cordless handset / identification signal generation circuit generates the identification signal of its own self. The slave unit multiple circuit is
The identification signal is multiplexed with the image signal and the audio signal to be transmitted.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

First, the overall configuration of the parent-child videophone will be described with reference to FIGS. First, the configuration of the master unit will be described with reference to FIG.

The master unit 1 inputs a telephone circuit 3 for transmitting and receiving an image signal and an audio signal through the telephone line 2, an image signal from the camera 12 and an audio signal from the microphone 13, and system-controls the audio signal and the image signal. Input interface 5 that outputs to circuit 4 and master identification circuit 6 that identifies the received signal
And receiving radio wave signals from a plurality of slave units 20, converting the radio wave signals into electric signals in consideration of the signals from the base unit identification circuit 6, and then outputting the electric signals to the system control circuit 4. The master device receiving circuit 8, the telephone circuit 3, the input interface 5, and the image signal and the audio signal sent from the master device receiving circuit 8 are selectively switched, and the image driver 10 and the audio driver 11 are selected. And a system control circuit 4 for outputting to the master device transmission circuit 7 and an image driver 10 for displaying an image signal on the monitor 14.
A voice driver 11 for outputting the voice signal to the speaker 15, a master identification signal generation circuit 9 for generating an identification signal of the master 1 and a master transmitter circuit of the system control circuit 4 for the identification signal. A master unit multiplexing circuit 17 that multiplexes the output to 7; a master unit transmission circuit 7 that converts an electric signal obtained by multiplexing the master unit identification signal into a radio signal and sends the radio signal; and an antenna 16 that sends a radio signal. It is composed of.

The configuration of the slave unit 20 will be described with reference to FIG. The child device 20 includes an antenna 21 for transmitting and receiving radio waves with the parent device 1 and other child devices, a child device transmitting / receiving circuit 22, and an identification signal of the other party from the signal received by the child device transmitting / receiving circuit 22. A control circuit 23 that separates the received radio wave signals and controls the switching circuit 24, a switching circuit 24 that switches the output signal to a target partner, and an image output circuit 25 that displays 27 an image on a monitor. , Audio output circuit 26 for outputting audio from speaker 28
A monitor 27 for displaying an image, a speaker 28 for outputting an audio, an image input circuit 31 for inputting an image captured by the camera 29, an audio input circuit 32 for inputting audio collected by the microphone 30, and a child. A slave unit identification signal generation circuit 33 that generates an identification signal of the slave unit 20 and a slave unit transceiver circuit 22 that multiplexes the slave unit identification signal with the image signal and the audio signal.
And a multiplex circuit for outputting to.

Next, the operation of the parent-child videophone system of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

In the parent device 1 of the parent-child videophone system shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, the telephone circuit 3 receives a telephone signal sent from the telephone line 2 as in an ordinary telephone, and an image signal and an audio signal. To separate. The image signal and the audio signal are input to the system control circuit 4. The image captured by the camera 12 and the sound collected by the microphone 13 are converted into an image signal and an audio signal by the input interface 5 and input to the system control circuit 4. Further, the radio wave signal from the slave unit 20 is received by the antenna 16 and input to the master unit receiving circuit 8. At that time, only the handset identification signal is first separated. At the same time, the base unit identification circuit 6 generates an identification signal of the radio wave signal to be received.

The slave unit identification signal and its parent unit identification circuit 6
The master unit identification circuit 6 compares the identification signals generated in 1. and when they match, the master unit reception circuit 8 converts the radio wave signal in which the image signal and the audio signal are modulated into an electric signal, and the system control is performed. The image signal and the audio signal are output to the circuit 4. The system control circuit 4 is selectively switched according to the usage status of the line, and the telephone circuit 3, the input interface 5, and the image signal from the master receiver circuit 8 are input to the system control circuit 4. The audio signal is output to the image driver 10 and the audio driver 11.

Further, the image signal and the audio signal are sent to the master unit multiplexing circuit 17 and the telephone circuit 3. That is, when the line is connected only to the telephone line 2 and the master unit 1, the system control circuit 4 sends the image signal from the input interface 5 to the telephone circuit 3, the image driver 10 and the audio driver 11. When the line is connected to the master unit 1 and the slave unit 20, the system control circuit 4 causes the telephone circuit 3, the image driver 10 and the voice driver 11 to connect to the slave unit 20. Base unit receiving circuit 8 from
Outputs the received image signal and audio signal, and outputs nothing to the telephone circuit 3. The image driver 10 displays the image signal on the monitor 14 for image display. For example, the image signal is sent to the image driver 1
0 is converted into a composite video signal which is a general video signal and output to the monitor 14. The audio driver 11 also outputs an audio signal to the speaker 15. On the other hand, the master unit multiplexing circuit 17 multiplexes the image signal, the audio signal, and the master unit identification signal and outputs them to the master unit transmission circuit.

The base unit transmission circuit 7 converts the multiplexed signal of the image signal, the audio signal and the base unit identification signal into a radio wave signal and sends it out from the antenna 16. Further, the image signal and the voice signal sent to the telephone circuit 3 are converted into a telephone signal,
It is sent to the telephone line 2.

In the slave unit 20 shown in FIGS. 2 and 4, the radio wave signal transmitted from the antenna 16 of the master unit 1 is transmitted to the slave unit 20.
Is received by the antenna 21, and detected by the slave transmission / reception circuit 22 of the slave 20 and converted into an electric signal. further,
The electric signal is separated into an image signal, an audio signal and an identification signal. The image signal and the audio signal are sent to the switching circuit 24. Further, the identification signal is sent to the control circuit 23.
The control circuit 23 compares the set identification signal with the identification signal sent from the slave transmission / reception circuit 22 and, if they match, sends the image signal to the image output circuit 25 to cause the audio signal to be output. The signal is sent to the audio output circuit 26. The image output circuit 25 displays an image on the monitor 27. Further, the audio output circuit 26 drives the speaker 28 to output audio.

On the other hand, the image signal photographed by the camera 29 of the child device 20 is input as an electric signal by the image input circuit 31, and the voice signal collected by the microphone 30 is inputted by the voice input circuit 32. Is entered as. Further, the handset identification signal generation circuit 33 generates a handset identification signal set for each handset 20. The slave unit identification signal, the image signal, and the audio signal are frequency-multiplexed by the slave unit multiplexing circuit 34 and sent to the slave unit transmitting / receiving circuit 22. The slave transmission / reception circuit 22 converts the frequency-multiplexed signal into a radio signal and transmits it from the antenna 21.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.

Transmission and reception of signals between the master unit 1 and the slave unit 20 are not limited to radio waves, and light or the like may be used.

Further, a home television may be substituted for the monitors 14 and 27 and the speakers 15 and 28 of this patent.

[0022]

As is apparent from the above description, the parent-child videophone of the present invention has the function of the ordinary videophone and, in addition to the function of the ordinary videophone, the identification signal is multiplexed in the transmission / reception signals of the parent device and the child device. Because you can use multiple cordless handsets,
The slaves can be freely placed in multiple places, and can be used by multiple people, which is even more convenient. further,
A simple video conference system can be configured depending on how to use the parent device and the child device.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a parent device used in a parent-child videophone system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a child device used in the parent-child videophone system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an external view of a parent device used in the parent-child videophone system of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an external view of a child device used in the parent-child videophone system of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Master Unit 2 Telephone Line 6 Master Unit Discriminating Circuit 7 Master Unit Transmitting Circuit 8 Master Unit Receiving Circuit 9 Master Unit Identification Signal Generating Circuit 17 Master Unit Multiple Circuit 20 Slave Unit 22 Slave Unit Transceiver Circuit 23 Control Circuit 24 Switching Circuit 33 Slave Unit Identification signal generation circuit 34 Handset multiplex circuit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a videophone for transmitting and receiving an image signal and an audio signal via a telephone line, a base unit identification signal generating circuit for generating an identification signal of a base unit, and the identification signal and the telephone line are received. A master unit multiplex circuit that multiplexes an image signal and an audio signal, a master unit transmitter circuit that transmits the master unit signal multiplexed by the master unit multiplex circuit to a slave unit by radio waves, and a radio wave from the slave unit is received. Then, the master unit receiving circuit for separating the slave unit signal, and the master unit identifying circuit for separating the slave unit identification signal from the slave unit signal separated by the master unit receiving circuit, and identifying the slave unit from the slave unit identification signal And a slave unit for transmitting and receiving a radio wave signal between the master unit and the other slave unit, and selectively switches the image signal and the audio signal received by the slave unit transceiver circuit. Switching circuit and selective control of the switching circuit And a control circuit, and the child device-identification signal generating circuit for generating an identification signal of their own,
A parent-child videophone system comprising: a slave unit having a slave unit multiplex circuit for multiplexing the identification signal on an image signal and an audio signal to be transmitted.