JPH07131774A - Video conference equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent an output of a level other than an optimum voice signal level from being outputted to a speaker by presetting an optimum reception sound volume control variable automatically based on information of a communication destination so as to compensate automatically a change in a reception voice signal level in a conference thereby eliminating the reception sound volume adjustment operation. CONSTITUTION:A coded signal from a destination multiplexed and sent via a communication line 13 is received by a multiplexer/-demultiplexer section 11 through a communication line interface 12. The coded signal is demultiplexed into a picture signal, a voice signal, data and a conference control signal by the demultiplexer section 11. The voice signal is given via an amplifier circuit 6 to a control section 7, which collates a communication destination number stored in a communication destination information storage section 8 with a destination during the conference at present and when the destination is a destination party storing an optimum sound volume control variable, the optimum sound volume control variable is set to the circuit 6, and when the party is a new party, the optimum sound volume control variable predicted based on the communication destination number is set to the circuit 6. The sound volume adjustment at the start of communication is not required by the automatic preset function.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a video conference apparatus for transmitting and receiving image signals, audio signals, data and conference control signals to and from other stations via a communication line.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional video conference apparatus conducts a video conference between two points or multiple points while transmitting and receiving image signals, audio signals, data and conference control signals via a communication line. At the time of starting, the received voice signal level is set to the value previously set and the communication is performed. Also, during communication,
There is no means for automatically setting the received voice signal level to the optimum voice signal level.

[0003]

As described above, in the conventional video conference apparatus, the reception voice signal level is set to the previously set value at the time when communication is started,
Further, there is no means for automatically setting the received voice signal level to an optimum level even during communication. Therefore, if the received audio signal level was previously set to an extremely high level or an extremely low level, the received volume output from the speaker will be an extremely high volume or an extremely low volume, and the received volume at the start of the conference It is necessary to adjust the volume to the optimum level. Alternatively, even if the previously received voice signal level is not an extreme level, the communication path (communication medium and communication distance between the cities, inter-city or international), communication device is used if the communication partner is different from the previous one. ,
Since the microphone is not the same as before, if the reception volume deviates from the optimum volume, it is necessary to adjust the reception volume to the optimum volume. Also, other than when the reception is started, the speaker changes during the conference, and the volume of the voice with the previous person, the relative position to the microphone, etc. may change, so the reception volume received at the receiving side may change significantly,
Also in this case, the operation of adjusting the reception volume to the optimum volume must be performed.

As described above, in the conventional video conference apparatus, the characteristics of the communication partner (communication path, communication device, microphone, relative position between speaker and microphone, difference in loudness of speaker, etc.) are ignored. If these changes cause a significant fluctuation in the received voice signal level, not only an extra operation is required to adjust the received voice signal level to the optimum volume, but also the received volume fluctuations are extremely large. If it is too large, the conference participants may even feel discomfort. Further, since the conventional video conference apparatus does not have a means for detecting and compensating the level of the received voice signal, there is a problem that the optimum received volume cannot always be provided.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and the received sound volume is controlled to the optimum sound volume according to the other party of communication without any extra operation, and the received sound is comfortable. An object is to provide a video conference device capable of holding a conference.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the video conference apparatus of the present invention transmits and receives image signals, audio signals, data and conference control signals to and from its own station and other stations via a communication line. Then, the communication destination information and the optimum reception volume control value at the time of communication are stored, and the means for presetting the stored optimum reception volume control value according to the communication partner at the start of communication, and the input audio signal level. And a means for compensating the detected audio signal level to an optimum audio signal level.

[0007]

In the video conference apparatus of the present invention configured as described above, the reception volume control value or the predicted value is preset on the basis of the stored destination information and the optimum reception volume value, and the communication is started and the communication is started. Even if the other party is different from before or if the volume was set to an extremely high or low volume before, the reception is automatically controlled to the optimum reception volume value. In addition, even if the input voice signal level changes due to a change in the talking speaker or changes in the other party's conditions, the voice signal level is always detected and automatically compensated to the optimum voice signal level. Thus, reception is continued at the optimum reception volume without requiring a special reception volume adjustment operation.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining the function of one embodiment of the video conference apparatus of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is an image signal input / output device, and 2 is an image signal encoding / decoding unit. Normally, a camera is used as an image signal input device and a monitor is used as an output device. Reference numeral 3 is a speaker for outputting a voice signal, and 6 is a voice signal decoding unit including a reception voice amplification circuit (hereinafter referred to as a reception voice amplification circuit). 9
Is a microphone for inputting an audio signal, 10 is an audio signal encoding unit, 11 is a multiplexing / separating unit for multiplexing and separating image signals, audio signals, data and conference control signals,
Reference numeral 12 is a communication line interface, and 13 is a communication line. The configuration and function of each of the devices 1 to 3, 6 and 9 to 13 and the circuit portion are basically the same as those in the conventional video conference apparatus.

In the present embodiment, in addition to the configuration of the conventional video conference apparatus described above, a voice signal level compensating unit 4, a voice signal level detecting unit 5, a voice signal level control unit 7, and a communication partner information storage unit. 8 are provided. The communication partner information storage unit 8 is a storage device composed of a nonvolatile memory such as EEPRO, and stores communication partner information and an optimum volume control value (described later). The voice signal level detection unit 5 detects the voice signal level set by the reception voice amplification circuit 6 and the communication partner information storage unit 8. The audio signal level compensating unit 4 compensates the audio signal level detected by the audio signal level detecting unit 5 to the optimum audio signal level (described later) and outputs it to the speaker 3. The voice signal level control unit 7 monitors and controls the entire communication partner information storage unit 8, the voice signal level detection unit 5, and the voice signal level compensation unit 4 in order to control the volume output from the speaker 3. It is a control device.

Here, the optimum voice signal level is the maximum voice signal level (the voice signal level output to the speaker 3 that is acceptable for the participants of the conference to hear the voice output from the speaker 3). Maximum allowable audio signal level)
A voice signal level that does not exceed the above and is equal to or higher than the minimum allowable voice signal (maximum allowable voice signal level). Also,
The optimum sound volume control value is a control value of the reception sound amplification circuit 6 that outputs the above optimum sound signal level to the speaker 3.

Next, the operation of the video conference apparatus configured as described above will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the flow of reception volume control in the video conference apparatus of the present invention. First, the coded signal from the destination that is multiplexed and sent via the communication line 13 is input to the multiplexing / separating unit 11 via the communication line interface 12.
The demultiplexing unit of the demultiplexing / demultiplexing unit 11 demultiplexes the coded signal into an image signal, a voice signal, data, and a conference control signal. The audio signal separated here is decoded and amplified by the reception audio amplifier circuit 6. At this time, the audio signal level control unit 7 is currently in a meeting with the communication partner number stored in the communication partner information storage unit 8. (Step 1), and if the party has previously held a meeting and the optimum volume control value has been stored, the stored optimum volume control value is set in the reception voice amplifier circuit 6 (STEP 1).
2) If it is the first partner, the optimum volume control value predicted based on the communication partner number is set in the reception voice amplifier circuit 6 (STEP 3).

As the information of the communication partner, the communication channel (communication medium and communication distance between cities, inter-city or international), hardware such as communication devices and microphones hardly change, and these information are Generally, the communication partner number is sufficient in practice because it is difficult to understand at the start of communication. Further, since this communication partner number corresponds to the communication path and the communication device, even if the communication partner number does not exist in the communication partner information storage unit 8, the optimum volume control predictive value distinguished by the communication partner number is stored in advance. It is registered and that value is set as the optimum volume control predicted value at the start of communication.

The above auto-preset function eliminates the need for adjusting the reception volume at the start of communication, and even when the volume control value is set to an extremely large value or an extremely small value, the volume control value becomes extremely small. You will no longer hear loud or extremely low received audio.

Further, countermeasures will be described below in the case where the loudness of the voice of the person in front of the speaker and the relative position with respect to the microphone change during the conference and the reception sound volume received at the reception side changes significantly.

The audio signal level according to the volume control value set by the received audio amplifier circuit 6 is detected by the audio signal level detecting section 5.
Entered in. The audio signal level detection unit 5 compares the input audio signal level with the maximum allowable audio signal level and the minimum allowable audio signal level, and the result of the comparison (the audio signal level exceeds the maximum allowable audio signal level). In this case, if it is less than the minimum permissible voice signal level, below the maximum permissible voice signal level and above the minimum permissible voice signal level) and its voice signal level are output to the voice signal level compensator 4. The audio signal compensating unit 4 to which the result of the comparison (one of ,, and) and the audio signal level have been input performs the following processing according to the result of the comparison (STEP 4).

When the result of the comparison is, when the volume control value currently set in the reception voice amplification circuit 6 is changed so that the voice signal level becomes small, the volume control value becomes the minimum allowable volume control value (described later). ) The above is compared (STEP 5), and if it is above, the volume control value of the reception audio amplification circuit 6 is changed so that the audio signal level becomes small (STEP 6), and the current audio signal level is output to the speaker 3. If not, the received voice amplification circuit 6 determines that the situation is uncontrollable and cuts off the output to the speaker 3 (STEP 7). Here, the minimum permissible sound volume control value means the lowest sound control value with which the normal sound input level can be attenuated and controlled by the reception sound amplification circuit 6.

When the result of the above comparison is, when the voice control value currently set in the reception voice amplifying circuit 6 is changed so that the voice signal level becomes high, the volume control value becomes the maximum allowable volume control value (described later). ) The following is compared (STEP8, STEP9), and if it is below, the volume control value of the reception voice amplification circuit 6 is changed so that the volume signal level is increased (STEP10), and the current voice signal level is set to the speaker 3 If it is not below, it is determined that the speech is suspended and the current audio signal level is output to the speaker 3 as it is. Here, the maximum permissible volume control value is the maximum volume control value with which the reception voice amplification circuit 6 can control the amplification of a normal voice input level.

If the comparison result is, the sound volume control value (optimum sound volume control value) currently set in the reception sound amplification circuit 6 and the communication partner number are notified to the sound signal level control unit 7 and stored. , The current audio signal level is directly output to the speaker 3 (STEP8, STEP1
1).

By the above operation, the reception volume output to the speaker 3 is always controlled to the optimum volume.

The maximum permissible voice signal level and the minimum permissible voice signal level used in the voice signal level detecting unit 5, and the minimum permissible volume control value used in the voice signal level compensating unit 4,
The maximum permissible sound volume control value and the offset value of the sound volume control value may be set as constant values specific to the circuit configuration, and some values may be selected by a changeover switch. Further, the offset value of the voice control value can be set adaptively in accordance with the difference between the voice signal level input by the voice signal level detection unit 5 and the optimum voice signal level.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of another embodiment of the video conference apparatus of the present invention. This embodiment has the same configuration as that of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 except that the sound signal level detecting unit 5 and the sound signal level compensating unit 4 of the embodiment of FIG. 1 are omitted, but these sound signal level detecting unit 5 Also, the functions of the audio signal level compensating unit 4 are integrated in the audio signal level control unit 7 to reduce the number of circuits.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the flow of reception volume control in the video conference apparatus of the present invention. The procedure of the process shown in this flowchart is as described above in detail. However, in the case of the embodiment of FIG. 1, the detection and compensation of the audio signal level output from the speaker 3 is performed by the audio signal level detection unit 5 and the audio signal. This is performed by the signal level compensator 4, and in the case of the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, by the audio signal level controller 7.

[0024]

As is apparent from the above description, the video conference apparatus according to the present invention is configured to automatically preset the optimum reception volume control value based on the information of the communication partner, and Even if the volume control value was previously set to an extremely high level or an extremely low level, it will be automatically released, so there is no need to adjust the reception volume before or at the start of the conference. You can enter the meeting smoothly.

Further, even if the received voice signal level changes during the conference, the optimum voice signal level is automatically compensated, so that the conference participants do not need to adjust the reception volume.
Furthermore, even when the received voice signal level suddenly increases, the level change is detected and the voice signals other than the optimum voice signal level are not output to the speaker. The effect is that you can concentrate on.

As described above, the present invention can realize a convenient and highly reliable video conference apparatus that always provides an optimum received sound volume without requiring any adjustment operation of the received sound volume.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing an embodiment of a video conference apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing another embodiment of the video conference apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the flow of reception volume control in the video conference apparatus of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 image signal input / output device 2 image signal encoding / decoding unit 3 speaker 4 audio signal level compensation unit 5 audio signal level detection unit 6 audio signal decoding unit (received audio amplification circuit) 7 audio signal level control unit 8 communication partner Destination information storage unit 9 Microphone 10 Voice signal encoding unit 11 Multiplexing / separating unit 12 Communication line interface 13 Communication line

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim: What is claimed is: 1. In a video conferencing apparatus for transmitting and receiving image signals, audio signals, data, and conference control signals at a local station and a multi station via a communication line, communication partner information and an optimum reception volume control value at the time of communication are set. A means for storing and presetting the stored optimum reception volume control value according to the communication partner at the start of communication, and detecting the input voice signal level, and setting the detected voice signal level to the optimum voice signal level. A video conferencing apparatus comprising: means for compensating.