JPH08115568A - Signal recording and reproducing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To prevent the reproduction and to protect the copyright in the case where a recording medium is illegally lent or traded. CONSTITUTION: A first identification signal which has been generated by an identification signal generating means 3 is added to an input signal by an identification signal adding means 2 so as to be recorded in a recording/reproducing means 7. At the time of reproduction, an identification signal is separated from the signals reproduced by the recording/reproducing means 7 by the identification signal separating means 5. This second identification signal is compared with the first identification signal by a comparison means 4. When these two identification signals are different from each other, a control means 6 suspends signal reproduction of the recording/reproducing means 7. Through this, the recording medium on which another signal recording/reproducing device with a different identification signal has recorded cannot be reproduced, and accordingly the illegal trade or loan of recording mediums can be prevented.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is mainly for consumer digital VTRs for recording and reproducing compressed digital video signals.
In particular, the present invention relates to a recording / reproducing device suitable for copyright protection.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art At present, various broadcasting formats such as satellite broadcasting using communication satellites and cable television are widely used. In addition, with advances in digital technology and image compression technology,
There has been proposed a method of delivering a number of programs at the same time or providing a program in response to a user's request.

In such broadcasting, pay broadcasting is mainly used only for viewers who have made a predetermined contract. Therefore, it is necessary to have a configuration in which a person who does not have a contract cannot illegally receive. In order to support pay broadcasting, a predetermined scramble (encryption) is applied to the video signal and audio signal, and the descrambler owned by the viewer who has the contract restores the scrambled video signal and audio signal. Is taking.

Each descrambler has a unique user number (ID), and whether or not restoration is possible is controlled by this identification number and the viewing permission information distributed from the broadcasting station together with the program. As a result, only the person who owns the descrambler and has a contract can view it, and the copyright can be protected.

Techniques relating to video signal encryption, decryption and billing methods are described in, for example, the Television Society Journal Vol. 46, No. 1, p3.
1 to 39 (January 1992).

[0006]

It is desired to record and reproduce programs by VTR even in the above-mentioned pay broadcasting.

[0007] On the other hand, since this program is a pay broadcast, there is no problem for the contractor to personally record and reproduce using the VTR, but if the tape on which the program is recorded is illegally bought or sold or rented, it will be broadcast. The business will lose the profit it should have originally obtained. In particular, so-called pirated copies, which are illegally copied and sold at low cost, have become a social problem.

In the conventional analog VTR such as VHS (registered trademark), a strict regulation for prevention of duplication has not been determined, but it is regarded as a particular problem because the image quality is deteriorated by recording and reproducing. There wasn't.

However, in the digital VTR, since image quality deterioration due to copying hardly occurs, there is a possibility that a large number of copies will be made unless restrictions on copying are applied.

The object of the present invention is to achieve VT even in pay broadcasting.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a signal recording / reproducing apparatus capable of recording / reproducing to / from R and preventing illegal sale or loan of a video tape.

[0011]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides an identification signal generating means for generating an identification signal and an identification signal adding means for adding an identification signal to an externally input signal. A recording / reproducing means for recording and reproducing a signal, an identification signal separating means for separating an identification signal and an input signal from the signal reproduced by the recording / reproducing means, and a first identification signal generated by the identification signal generating means. And a comparison means for comparing the second identification signal obtained by the identification signal separation means, and further, a control means for controlling the recording / reproducing means by the output of the comparison means, or an output of the comparison means. An output control means for controlling the output is provided.

[0012]

The first identification signal generated by the identification signal generating means is added to the signal input by the identification signal adding means and recorded in the recording / reproducing means. At the time of reproduction, the identification signal separation means separates the identification signal from the signal reproduced by the recording / reproduction means. The second identification signal separated by the identification signal separation means is compared with the first identification signal by the comparison means, and the control means controls the recording / reproducing means or the output control means controls the output signal according to the result. To do.

According to the present invention, since the signal recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention has the unique first identification signal, the signal recording / reproducing apparatus used for recording the signal and the signal recording / reproducing apparatus used for the reproduction. If the reproduction device is different, reproduction is stopped or signal output is stopped. As a result, reproduction can be prevented and copyright can be protected when a recording medium such as a video tape incorporated in the recording / reproducing means is illegally sold or rented.

[0014]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a digital broadcast receiving apparatus using a broadcasting satellite. In FIG. 2, 21 is an antenna for receiving broadcasts, 22 is a tuner for selecting a desired program from the received radio waves, 23 is a descrambler for descrambling signals by a predetermined process, 24 is a digital VTR according to the present invention, Reference numeral 25 is a decoder for demodulating a compressed digital video signal into a video signal, and 26 is a monitor for displaying video.

Radio waves from broadcast satellites are received by the antenna 21 and input to the tuner 22. The tuner 22 selects a program corresponding to the channel or program number designated by the user from the received radio waves and outputs it as digital data. This digital data is scrambled (encrypted) to a digital video signal so that only the authorized contractor can view the program. In addition to the above, the digital data includes a code number of a subscriber who can view the program, a descramble code, and the like.

The descrambler 23 stores a user code unique to itself, compares the contractor code received with the program with the user code stored in the descrambler itself, and the right of viewing is confirmed. If so, it descrambles based on the descramble code. Although various methods have been proposed for this descrambling method, they will not be described in detail because they are not directly related to the gist of the present invention.

The digital video signal descrambled by the descrambler 23 is input to the digital VTR 24 according to the present invention to be recorded / reproduced. In this embodiment, a digital VT is used as the recording / reproducing device.
Although R is taken as an example, this is not limited to a VTR as long as it is a device capable of recording and reproducing a signal. For example, an optical disk, a magnetic disk, a semiconductor memory, etc. can be mentioned. At the time of reproduction, the digital data reproduced by the digital VTR 24 is input to the decoder 25 and subjected to predetermined demodulation processing. The decoder 25 is, for example, MPEG (Motion P).
icture ExpertsGroup) system, which is intended to demodulate a video signal into a video-compressed signal using image compression technology. The demodulated video signal is displayed on the monitor 2
It is supplied to 6 and an image is displayed.

In the above example, a digital broadcast receiving apparatus using a broadcasting satellite has been described, but digital broadcasting can also be performed by a cable television using an optical fiber or a coaxial cable, a communication line using an ISDN, or the like. Further, in addition to broadcasting, there are a reproducing device using a recording medium such as a CD-ROM and a digital VTR as an input signal source, but the essence of the present invention is not limited to the input signal.

FIG. 1 is applied to a digital VTR as a first embodiment of the VTR 24 of FIG. 2 according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a signal input terminal for inputting a recording signal, 2 is an identification signal adding means for adding an identification signal to the input signal, 3 is an identification signal generating means for generating an identification signal, 4 Is a comparison means for comparing the first identification signal generated by the identification signal generating means with the second identification signal separated by the identification signal separating means, and 5 is a separation means for separating the identification signal from the signal reproduced by the recording / reproducing means. Identification signal separating means, 6 is control means for controlling the recording / reproducing means, 7 is recording / reproducing means for recording / reproducing signals, and 8 is a signal output terminal.

Next, the operation of the digital VTR of the first embodiment will be described.

A digital video signal received by satellite broadcasting or the like is input to the input signal terminal 1 of the digital VTR according to the present invention. The input digital video signal is, for example, a signal compatible with MPEG, which is defined in ISO11172VIDEO as an international standardization proposal.

On the other hand, the identification signal generating means 3 generates a first identification signal. The identification signal is a signal used to identify the VTR, and needs to be different from that of any other VTR. For that purpose, for example, a manufacturer name, a product name, a manufacturing number, etc. may be coded and assigned to a digital VTR. Further, if the strictness is not required, the identification signals of different VTRs can be prevented from being coincident with each other to some extent by randomly assigning a numerical value of several to ten digits. By storing the code thus created in a ROM or the like in the digital VTR main body and modulating and outputting the digital signal, a unique identification signal can be generated.

Of course, the method of generating the identification signal is arbitrary, and the effect of the present invention does not change depending on the method of generating the identification signal and the shape of the identification signal.

The identification signal adding means 2 adds the identification signal generating means 3 to the digital video signal input to the input signal terminal 1.
The identification signal generated by is added. The method of adding the identification signal is, for example, as shown by 31 in FIG. 4, in accordance with the rotation of the magnetic head (not shown) so that the identification signal is recorded at a specific position on the magnetic tape in the recording / reproducing means. Then, the identification signal is inserted at a specific cycle.

The identification signal may be inserted at any position on the recording medium, or may be recorded at a plurality of positions or at only one position. Further, in order to rewrite only the identification signal so as not to be used illegally, the digital video signal and the identification signal may be calculated and the digital video signal may be encrypted and recorded. In the present invention, if the identification signal can be added by some method and the identification signal can be separated during reproduction, the effect can be obtained regardless of the method of recording the identification signal.

The signal added with the identification signal is recorded in the recording / reproducing means 7. The recording / reproducing means 7 is a digital VTR.
In this case, a VHS type magnetic tape is used as a recording medium.

The recording medium may be a magnetic tape, a recordable optical disk, a magnetic disk, an IC card using a semiconductor memory, or the like. The signal recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention may be any recording / reproducing apparatus. It is applicable to devices. By the above method, the VTR-specific identification signal is added and recorded in the recording / reproducing means.

At the time of reproduction, the signal is reproduced from the recording / reproducing means 7. The reproduced signal is separated into an identification signal and a digital video signal by the identification signal separation means 5. The identification signal separating means 5 is provided with the identification signal adding means 2 during recording.
The identification signal added to the video signal is taken out by and the video signal is output to the output terminal in the same format as that input at the time of recording. The second identification signal separated by the identification signal separation means 5 is supplied to the comparison means 4. The comparison means 4 compares the first identification signal generated by the identification signal generation means 3 with the second identification signal separated from the reproduction signal by the identification signal separation means 5, and outputs the comparison result to the control means 6. To do.

The control means 6 controls the recording / reproducing means 7 in accordance with the output of the comparing means 4. When the two identification signals are the same, the control means 6 instructs the recording / reproducing means 7 to continue the reproduction. When the two identification signals are different, the reproduction of the data from the recording / reproducing means 7 is stopped.

When a user records a program by using the digital VTR according to the present invention, the video tape on which the program is recorded has the contents of the program and the identification signal peculiar to the VTR owned by the user. . When a legitimate user uses a predetermined VTR for recording and reproduction, the same VT is used.
Since R is used, since the identification numbers are the same, it is possible to reproduce without any trouble.

On the other hand, when the video tape recorded using the digital VTR 24 is illegally sold or rented, the VT different from the recorded VTR is used.
It will be played back in R. In this case, the comparison means 5 detects that the identification signal recorded on the video tape and the identification signal of the VTR to be reproduced are different, and the control means 6 stops the reproduction of the video tape. As a result, it is possible to prevent illegal sales and lending and protect copyrights. As a control method of reproduction, in addition to a method of immediately stopping the reproduction when a difference in the identification signal is detected, a predetermined time (for example, 3 minutes) is set so that an illegal viewer may motivate a legal contract. ), The reproduction may be continued. In addition, it is possible to add a function such as displaying a message for warning that the viewing is illegal. There is a possibility that the identification signal is erroneously detected when the identification signal is detected. Therefore, in order to avoid this, it is possible to detect the identification signal a plurality of times and perform control based on the result.

FIG. 3 is applied to a digital VTR as a second embodiment of the VTR 24 of FIG. 2 according to the present invention.

In FIG. 3, 1 to 8 are the same as in FIG. In FIG. 3, 9 is an output control means.

The digital video signal input to the signal input terminal 1 is added with the first identification signal generated by the identification signal generating means 3 as in the first embodiment, and then the video tape in the recording / reproducing means 7 is added. Recorded in.

At the time of reproduction, the signal reproduced by the recording / reproducing means 7 is separated by the identification signal separating means 5 into a digital video signal and a second identification signal. The second identification signal is compared with the first identification signal generated by the identification signal generation means 3 by the comparison means 4, and the result is given to the output control means 6. When the first and second identification signals are the same, the output control means 9 outputs the digital video signal as it is to the signal output terminal. When the first and second identification signals are different, the signal output to the signal output terminal 8 is stopped.

Thus, when an illegal tape is reproduced, the comparison means 4 detects that the identification signal of the VTR main body and the identification signal recorded on the tape are different,
As a result, the output control means 9 stops the signal output, so that the recorded contents cannot be viewed. Also in this case, a method of allowing the illegal user to view the content for a certain period of time so as to motivate the contractor, or a method of processing and outputting the image so that the content can be barely confirmed can be considered.

By the way, in the above two embodiments, the identification signal generating means 3 was built in the main body of the digital VTR and could not be removed. Therefore, for example, even if a legitimate user owns a plurality of digital VTRs or wants to play the digital VTR at a place other than home, the VTR
Since the identification signals of No. 1 are different from each other, it cannot be reproduced by a device other than the recorded digital VTR. Therefore, if the identification signal generating means 3 is a removable and portable object such as an IC card and is used by inserting it into a digital VTR as needed, even if the digital VTR main body is different, at the time of recording. Since the identification signal generating means during reproduction is the same, reproduction can be performed.

Further, in the digital VTR of the above-mentioned embodiment, if the identification numbers at the time of recording and at the time of reproducing are different, it cannot be reproduced normally. This is very effective in preventing illegal sales and lending, but even the package software that is legally supplied by the software supplier cannot be reproduced because the identification signal is different. In order to prevent this, for example, a specific identification signal is set, and when this identification signal is detected, reproduction is permitted regardless of the identification signal of the VTR main body, whereby this problem can be avoided.

Although the embodiment of the signal recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention has been described above by taking the application to the digital VTR as an example, the recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention is not limited to the application to the digital VTR. Instead, it can be applied to a device using, for example, an optical disk, a magnetic disk, or a semiconductor memory. Further, the signal to be recorded is not limited to the video signal, but the present invention can be applied to an apparatus for recording and reproducing a signal such as an audio signal or a computer program.

[0041]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Each signal recording / reproducing device has a unique identification signal,
Since it is recorded on the recording medium at the time of recording, if the signal recording / reproducing device used for recording and reproducing is different, it can be detected and the reproduction of the signal can be stopped. Can be prevented from lending or selling to.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a first embodiment of a digital VTR according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a receiver of digital broadcasting using satellite broadcasting.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a second embodiment of a digital VTR according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a tape format in a digital VTR.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Signal input terminal, 2 ... identification signal adding means, 3 ... identification signal generating means, 4 ... comparing means, 5 ... identification signal separating means, 6
... control means, 7 ... recording / reproducing means, 8 ... signal output terminal, 9
... output control means, 21 ... antenna, 22 ... tuner, 2
3 ... Descrambler, 24 ... Digital VTR, 25 ...
Decoder, 26 ... Monitor, 31 ... Identification signal recording position, 3
2 ... Digital video signal recording position, 33 ... Magnetic tape.

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Reference number within the agency FI Technical indication location H04N 5/91 // G11B 20/02 L 9294-5D (72) Inventor Kazuhiko Yoshizawa Yoshida Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 292, Machi, Ltd., Hitachi Media & Video Research Laboratories (72) Inventor Hiroaki Tachibana, Yoshida, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 292, Hitachi, Ltd. Information & Video Media Division (72) Inventor, Hiroyuki Hayakawa Totsuka, Yokohama 292 Yoshida-cho, Ltd. Information & Video Media Division, Hitachi, Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An identification signal generating means for generating a first identification signal, an identification signal adding means for adding the identification signal to a signal input from the outside, and the identification signal adding means for adding the identification signal. A recording / reproducing means for recording and reproducing the signal, an identification signal separating means for separating the identification signal and the input signal from the signal reproduced by the recording / reproducing means, and a first identification signal generated by the identification signal generating means. A signal recording / reproducing apparatus comprising: a comparing means for comparing the second identifying signal obtained by the identifying signal separating means; and a controlling means for controlling the recording / reproducing means based on the comparison result of the comparing means. . 2. Identification signal generating means for generating a first identification signal, identification signal adding means for adding the identification signal to an input signal input from the outside, and addition of the identification signal by the identification signal adding means. Recording / reproducing means for recording and reproducing the generated signal, identification signal separating means for separating the identification signal and the input signal from the signal reproduced by the recording / reproducing means, and the first identification signal generated by the identification signal generating means. And comparison means for comparing the second identification signal obtained by the identification signal separation means, and output control means for controlling the signal output of the reproduction signal to the outside based on the comparison result of the comparison means. And a signal recording / reproducing device. 3. The signal recording / reproducing device according to claim 1, wherein the identification signal generating device is removable. 4. The signal recording / reproducing device according to claim 2, wherein the identification signal generating device is removable.