JPH0937226A - Data transmitter, data transmission method and data transmission system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the communication efficiency by selecting only audio data of a required channel in response to a request signal so as to send image data and the selected audio data. SOLUTION: A transmission destination of a video title, a required audio channel, image data and selected audio data on request is commanded to a data transmitter 6 in a VOD(Video on demand) system. Succeedingly, a buffer memory 14 reads the image data and audio data on request from a hard disk in the VOD system. Then a CPU 8 of the VOD system instructs a required audio channel to an audio selection circuit 15 via a bus 13. Then the audio selection circuit 15 deletes audio data of an undesired audio channel. Thus, only an audio channel, e.g. in Japanese is added to the image data. Thus, the data transmitter 6 eliminates undesired audio channel data in response to the request signal of the user and image data to which only the audio channel data requested by the user are added are sent.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data transmission device, a data transmission method and a data transmission system, and is suitable for application to, for example, a system for transmitting a movie image in response to a user's request.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when a user wants to watch a movie at home, he or she purchases a video soft tape on which the movie is recorded or rents it and plays it back on a video tape recorder at home. On the other hand, the VOD (Vide (Vide)) that immediately provides the user with information such as movies and music when requested.
o on demand) systems are currently being considered. This V
The OD system is a system in which a center that owns a large amount of video soft tapes and a user's home are connected online, and the video and audio of a movie requested by the user are immediately provided to the user.

In the VOD system, in order to meet various demands of users, it is possible to combine a plurality of channels of audio data (such as two languages) with image data of a movie or the like. When these image data are recorded on a storage medium (for example, a hard disk), in the VOD system, in order to improve the usage efficiency of the hard disk, one image data is recorded with a plurality of channels of audio data added.

[0004]

In the VOD system having such a configuration, when the user receives the image data to which the audio data of a plurality of channels is added, the user needs to select a desired audio channel in the receiving device. It was Also, since unnecessary voice channel data is added to the image data for the user, there is a problem that the communication efficiency when transmitting the image data is reduced.

Further, in the charging system in which the usage fee is determined according to the amount of data received by the user, if unnecessary voice channel data is added at the time of data reception, there is a problem that the user's burden becomes heavy. .

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above points, and is a data transmission device capable of further improving the communication efficiency when transmitting the image data of the VOD system and the audio data corresponding thereto to the receiving device. , A data transmission method and a data transmission system are proposed.

[0007]

In order to solve such a problem, according to the present invention, image data and audio data of a plurality of channels corresponding to the image data are input according to a request signal, and a request is made from the audio data of the plurality of channels. A selecting means is provided for selecting only the necessary channel audio data corresponding to the signal and transmitting the image data and the selected audio data.

Only the necessary channel audio data corresponding to the request signal is selected from the image data corresponding to the request signal and the audio data of a plurality of channels corresponding to the image data.
By transmitting the image data and the selected audio data, the communication efficiency can be further improved.

[0009]

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

FIG. 1 shows the overall configuration of a VOD system 1 as a data transmission system applied to the present invention. VO
The D system 1 includes a hard disk 2, z receiving devices 3a to 3z on the user side, a data exchange 4, a controller 5, a data sending device 6, and n communication formatters 7a to 7.
It is composed of 7n. Incidentally, z> n.

The VOD system 1 includes, for example, the receiving device 3a.
Request from the Japanese (for example, the movie "ABC
D ") The signal S1a is received by the data exchange 4 and the request signal S
2 to the controller 5. Controller 5
Is image data and audio data to be sent to the user in response to the request signal S2 (the movie "ABC
D ") and an instruction signal S3 for instructing that the communication formatters 7a to 7n to which the data is to be transmitted are vacant.

The data transmission device 6 reads out predetermined image data corresponding to the instruction signal S3 and a plurality of audio data added to the image data from the hard disk 2 as a storage device, and selects only necessary audio data. For example, the data is sent to the communication formatter 7n designated as the destination.

The communication formatter 7n converts the image data and the audio data into a format suitable for the communication line and sends the format to the user's receiving device 3a via the data exchange 4. Therefore, the user can watch the desired movie with the desired sound on the screen of the television receiver at home by receiving the requested image data and audio data at the receiving device 3a.

As shown in FIG. 2, the data transmission device 6 includes
The CPU 8 controls the whole, and inputs the instruction signal S3 via the external interface 12.
On the bus 13, a ROM 9 storing program data relating to processing procedures such as instructions and instructions based on the instruction signal S3
A RAM 10, an external hard disk 2, a hard disk interface 11 for communicating image data and audio data, and an external interface 12 are respectively connected.

The bus 13 is also connected to n communication selectors 7a to 7n, and n audio selectors 17a to 17n corresponding to each one-to-one correspondence. Voice selection unit 17
a to 17n are a buffer memory 14 and a voice selection circuit 15
And a communication format interface 16.

The buffer memory 14 reads, via the bus 13, the image data, which has been compressed on the time axis via the hard disk interface 11 and transferred in time division, and all the audio channel data. Further, the buffer memory 14 sends the once stored image data and audio data to the audio selection circuit 15. The voice selection circuit 15 is the bus 13
Also, an instruction signal S3 for selecting only the necessary audio channel data is input by the CPU 8 to delete the audio channel data other than the necessary audio channel data.

After that, the voice selection circuit 15 sends only the image data requested by the user and the selected voice channel data to the external communication formatter 7n via the communication formatter interface 16. As a result, the audio selection unit 17n sends only the image data requested by the user and the selected audio channel data to the external communication formatter 7n.

In the above structure, for example, the hard disk 2 is provided with 8 channels (for example, in the order shown in FIG. 3A).
Audio channel English for ch-1 and ch-2, French for ch-3 and ch-4, Japanese for ch-5 and ch-6, Chinese for ch-7 and ch-8) Consider a case where image data to which data is added is recorded. At this time, the image data amount is 3 [Mbit / s
ec], audio data is 64 [kbit / sec] per channel,
The total data volume is 3.512 [Mbps].

FIG. 4 shows an operation procedure in which only the necessary audio channel data is added to the image data in accordance with the instruction signal S3 from the image data to which the audio data of a plurality of channels is added, and the image data is sent to the outside. . That is, the VOD system 1 enters from the start step of the operating procedure RT1 and moves to step SP1.

At step SP1, the VOD system 1 determines whether or not there is the request signal S2. Step S
When a negative result is obtained in P1, the VOD system 1 returns to step SP1 and repeats the above procedure until the request signal S2 is input to the controller 5. Here, the request signal S2
Is input to the controller 5, the VOD system 1 obtains a positive result in step SP1 and moves to step SP2.

At step SP2, the VOD system 1 requests the requested video title, the required audio channel,
The data transmission device 6 is instructed of the transmission destination of the image data and the selected audio data.

Subsequently, in step SP3, the VOD system 1 reads the requested image data and audio data from the hard disk 2 into the buffer memory 14, and proceeds to step SP4. Then, in step SP4,
The VOD system 1 is a voice channel that requires a CPU 8.
ch-5 and ch-6 are instructed to the voice selection circuit 15 via the bus 13. The voice selection circuit 15 uses an unnecessary voice channel ch-1.
~ Delete the audio data of ch-4, ch-7 and ch-8.

As a result, as shown in FIG. 3B, only the Japanese voice channels ch-5 and ch-6 are added to the image data. In this case, the audio data of 6 channels (6 × 64 [kbit / sec]) is deleted from the image data, and the total data amount becomes 3.128 [Mbps]. Therefore, the total data amount is reduced from 3.512 [Mbps] to 3.128 [Mbps], and the total data amount can be reduced by about 11%.
Finally, the VOD system 1 moves to step SP5 and ends the operating procedure RT1.

According to the above configuration, the user request signal S
By deleting unnecessary voice channel data by the data transmission device 6 according to 1, and transmitting the image data to which only the voice channel data requested by the user is added,
Communication efficiency can be further improved. Also, if a line with the same communication capacity is used, as much data as the deleted voice channel data can be transmitted. Thus, the user can receive only the required amount of data.

Further, the VOD system 1 makes the image data to which only the audio channel data requested by the user is added by the data transmission device 6 in response to the user request signal S1, so that the audio is received by the receiving devices 3a-3n of the user. There is no need to select a channel.

In the above embodiment, the case where languages of a plurality of countries are used as the audio data added to the image data has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and sound effects added to a game or the like are used. Is also good. In this case, the same effect as described above can be obtained.

Further, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the present invention is applied to V
Although the case of applying to the OD system has been described, the present invention is not limited to this and may be applied to an NVOD (Near Video on demand) system.

In the above embodiment, the hard disk 2 is used as a storage medium for storing image data and audio data. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and an arbitrary storage medium such as an optical disk. May be used.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the case where only the necessary audio data is selected by the audio selection circuit 15 as the selection means of the data transmission device 6 has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the user side is not limited thereto. The receiving device may be provided with selecting means. This allows the user to arbitrarily select the language in which to listen to the received movie with the receiving device on the user side, and to record or view the image data to which only the necessary audio data is added.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention, only the necessary channel audio data corresponding to the request signal is selected from the plurality of channel audio data corresponding to the image data corresponding to the request signal, and the image data is selected. It is possible to realize a data transmission device, a data transmission method, and a data transmission system that can further improve communication efficiency by transmitting the selected audio data and the selected audio data.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a VOD system.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a data transmission device.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing image data and audio data.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the operation of the VOD system.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... VOD system, 2 ... hard disk, 3a-
3z ... Reception device, 4 ... Data exchanger, 5 ... Controller, 6 ... Data transmission device, 7a to 7n ... Communication formatter, 8 ... CPU, 9 ... ROM, 10 ... R
AM, 11 ... Hard Disk Interface, 12
...... External interface, 13 ...... bus, 14 ...... buffer memory, 15 ...... voice selection circuit, 16 ...... communication format interface, 17a to 17n ...... voice selection section.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. Inputting image data and audio data of a plurality of channels corresponding to the image data according to a request signal, and outputting only necessary audio data of a channel corresponding to the request signal from the audio data of the plurality of channels. A data transmission device comprising selection means for selecting and transmitting the image data and the selected audio data. 2. Image data and audio data of a plurality of channels corresponding to the image data are input according to a request signal, and only audio data of a necessary channel corresponding to the request signal is input from the audio data of the plurality of channels. A data transmission method comprising selecting and transmitting the image data and the selected audio data. 3. A storage device in which image data and audio data of a plurality of channels corresponding to the image data are stored, and image data and audio data of a plurality of channels corresponding to the image data in response to a request signal. Data having selection means for inputting from the storage device, selecting only the audio data of the necessary channel corresponding to the request signal from the audio data of a plurality of channels, and transmitting the image data and the selected audio data. A data transmission system comprising a transmission device. 4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the image data sent by the data sending device and the selected audio data are sent to a receiving device which is a source of a request signal via a data exchange. Data transmission system.