JPH08163540A - Private branch exchange - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To conduct control including PinP by connecting arbitrary hosts and terminals among plural hosts and plural terminals. CONSTITUTION: The private branch exchange 3 is provided with a terminal I/F 31 to which terminals 11 to 1n such as video cameras are connected, a sot I/F 32 to which host devices 21 -2n are connected, an exchange switch 33 connecting the terminal and the host, a PinP control section 34 and a central control section 35 or the like controlling them. The central control section 35 conducts connection, operation control and control such as interruption in response to various control requests by an optional host to an optional terminal and inserts image of other terminal into an image of the terminal and displays the resulting image. The terminal informs the state to the host. Thus, control of terminal by one of plural host devices and the PinP function are realized.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a private branch exchange for communicating between an image communication terminal device and a host computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 6 shows an image communication terminal device (hereinafter referred to as a terminal) including a video camera and a host computer (hereinafter referred to as a host) 2 for controlling these terminals, and the host 2 side. 1 shows a conventional image communication system having a PinP (picture-in-picture) function. In FIG. 6, the host 2 has a terminal interface (hereinafter, referred to as I / F) 21 to which the terminals 1 ₁ to 1 _n are connected, a control unit 22 including PinP control, and a C for performing PinP display.
It has a display unit 23 such as RT. A screen 23a for displaying an image sent from one of the terminals 1 ₁ to 1 _n is provided on the display unit 23, and a part of the screen 23a is provided and sent from another terminal. A screen 23b for displaying an incoming image is displayed.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned conventional technique, since the terminals 1 ₁ to 1 _n are directly connected to the host 2, there is a problem that the number of hosts that can access the terminals is fixed to one. there were.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object thereof is to provide a private branch exchange apparatus in which a plurality of hosts can access terminals.

[0005]

According to the present invention, a host computer to which is connected a terminal interface to which one or more image communication terminal devices are connected and one or more host computers which control the image communication terminal devices. An interface, an exchange switch provided between the terminal interface and the host computer interface for connecting the selected image communication terminal device to the selected host computer, and an image from the selected image communication terminal device. A control unit for controlling the exchange switch so as to insert an image from another selected image communication terminal device into a part of the central control unit for controlling the image communication terminal device, the host computer, the exchange switch and the control unit. Section is provided.

[0006]

The central control unit selects one terminal in response to a control request to an arbitrary terminal by an arbitrary host, sends the image to the host through the exchange switch, and inserts the image into the image of the terminal. The terminal of the PinP that controls the output is selected, and the control unit of the PinP controls the exchange switch to send the image to the host, so that the terminals can be accessed from a plurality of hosts.

[0007]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. (First Embodiment) In FIG. 1, the terminals 1 ₁ to 1 _n are shown as video cameras here. These video cameras - are connected via a plurality of hosts 2 ₁ to 2n and the private branch exchange device 3A.

In the private branch exchange 3A, a video camera interface 31 to which video cameras are connected.
(Hereinafter referred to as I / F 31) and a host interface 32 (hereinafter referred to as I / F 32) to which the hosts 2 ₁ to 2 _n are connected.
, And an exchange switch 33 that is provided between the I / Fs 31 and 32 and connects any one terminal to any one host, and a PinP control unit (hereinafter, referred to as a control unit) that controls the PinP function. A central control unit 35 that controls each unit and a memory 36 that stores information necessary for control are provided.

1 and 3 are a flow chart and a sequence chart showing the control procedure. Next, the control procedure of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3 in the configuration of FIG. Any _{one of the} hosts 2 _{1 to} 2 _n to the CC 35 from the video camera to any one of the
For example, a video camera ON position 1 request is transmitted. The CC 35 sends a video camera ON request to the video camera, and the CC 35 sends a video camera position 1 request to the PinP control unit 34 (S21).

The CC 35 connects the exchange switch 33 so that the video camera and the PinP control unit 34 and the PinP control unit 34 communicate with the host. As a result, the image of the video camera is combined with the background by the PinP control unit 34, moves to the position 1, and is output to the host (S22).

When the video camera notifies the CC 35 of the video camera ON state and the PinP control unit 34 notifies the CC 35 of the video camera position 1 state, the CC 35 notifies the host of the video camera ON position 1 state (S23).

Video camera ON from host to CC35
When the background position request is sent, the CC 35 sends a video camera ON request to the video camera, and CC
35 sends a video camera background position request to the PinP control unit 34 (S24).

When the exchange switch 33 is connected so that the CC 35 communicates with the video camera and the PinP control unit 34, the image of the video camera becomes the background in the PinP control unit 34 and is output to the host (S25).

When the video camera notifies the CC 35 of the video camera ON state and the PinP control unit 34 notifies the CC 35 of the video camera background position state, the CC 35 notifies the host 8 of the video camera ON background position state (S26). .

The host sends a video camera position 4 request to the PinP control unit 34 via the CC 35 (S27).

The PinP control unit 34 changes the image of the video camera to position 4 and outputs it to the host (S2).
8).

The PinP controller 34 notifies the host of the state of the video camera position 4 via the CC 35 (S29).

Video camera OF from host to CC35
When the F request is sent, the CC 35 sends a video camera OFF request to the video camera, and the CC 35 sends Pi request.
A video camera OFF request is sent to the nP control unit 34 (S30).

When the CC 35 disconnects the exchange switch 33 so that the video camera communicates with the PinP control section 34, the image of the video camera is stopped (S31).

The video camera 6 notifies the CC 35 of the video camera OFF state, and the PinP control unit 34 notifies the C
When the video camera is turned off to C35, CC
The video camera OFF state is notified from 35 to the host (S32).

(Second Embodiment) In the first embodiment,
Although the background image is generated inside the PinP control unit 34 using the image of the video camera, a background image generation unit 37 is provided separately from the PinP control unit 34 as shown in FIG. 4 so that the background image is generated from here. You may

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the control procedure according to the configuration of FIG. In the embodiment of FIGS. 2 and 3, the image of the video camera is used as the background, but in the case of FIG. 5, the background 1 generated by the background image generation unit 37 is used.
It should be noted that a plurality of arbitrary contents can be prepared as the background. Although the video camera is used as the image communication terminal device in the first and second embodiments, a VTR may be used.

[0023]

As described above, according to the present invention, the private branch exchange comprises a terminal I / F and a host computer I / F.
By providing the F, the exchange switch, the control unit of the PinP, and the central control unit for controlling them, a private branch exchange system using the terminal and the host as the communication terminal is configured, and thus the image communication terminal device and the image communication terminal It becomes possible to accommodate a plurality of host computers for controlling the apparatus in the private branch exchange system, and it is possible to obtain the effect of realizing the PinP function by accessing the image communication terminal apparatus from one of the plurality of host computers.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a control procedure according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a sequence chart showing a control procedure according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a sequence chart showing a control procedure according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a conventional image communication system.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ₁ to 1 _n Image communication terminal, video camera 2 ₁ to 2 _n Host computer 3 ₁ Private branch exchange 31 Video camera interface 31 Central control unit 32 Host interface 33 Switch 34 PinP control unit 35 Central control unit

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A terminal interface to which one or more image communication terminal devices are connected, a host computer interface to which one or more host computers controlling the image communication terminal device are connected, the terminal interface and the host. An exchange switch provided between the computer interface and connecting the selected image communication terminal device and the selected host computer, and a part of the image from the selected image communication terminal device selected by another switch. A private branch exchange comprising a control unit for controlling the exchange switch so as to insert an image from the image communication terminal device, and a central control unit for controlling the image communication terminal device, the host computer, the exchange switch and the control unit. 2. The central control unit is configured to control the operation control request from the host computer to the image communication terminal device and the state of the image communication terminal device to the host computer. Private branch exchange equipment. 3. The private branch exchange apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image communication terminal device is a video camera or a VTR.