JPH10108090A - Program guidance display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily decide whether or not individual programs can be viewed by changing the form of the display of the individual programs based on a viewing limit by a charge or contents. SOLUTION: An on-screen guide generation circuit 4 prepares the information of an on-screen guide, corresponding to program information sent from a satellite and extracted by a video processing circuit 3. The program information includes the information such as the start and end time of the program, a title, the contents, the charge amount in the case of a charged program and the rating of program contents, etc. A multiplexer 7 inputs an output signal from the video processing circuit 3 and the output signal of the on-screen guide generation circuit 4 and performs controly so as to selectively output one of them by control signals from a CPU 6. The CPU 6 controls a program contents display screen, based on the information from an operation part 5 and controls a tuner 2 so as to select the program desired by a user.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a paid program which can collect a fee every time a viewer views it, and a program which may be prohibited in some cases by rating information according to the content of the program. The present invention relates to a program guide display device for a television receiver that can be used.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 5-22673 discloses that a broadcast program table sent from a broadcast station is received and displayed on a television screen at an arbitrary time. A television receiver capable of making a reservation for a received program is disclosed. In this television receiver, a program guide is displayed for one channel, but a plurality of programs may be displayed in a matrix as shown in FIG. This is because the transmitted program guide information includes time information and channel information, and can be displayed in a matrix based on these two pieces of information.

In the case of FIG. 7, the screen horizontal direction indicates the time axis, and the vertical direction indicates the channel axis, and the program contents such as the title of each program are displayed in a matrix. Here, each program corresponds to a rectangular area called a cell. FIG.
In the example, the number of displayed channels is 5, and the displayed time is 2 hours. The characters in the cell indicate the title of the program. The viewer can use this program guide display to select a current program or perform a reservation purchase of a future program.

A program table (program data) transmitted from a broadcasting station also includes a fee for a pay program and rating information on a rating. Control has been done. In other words, there are products having a function of setting a price upper limit that can be purchased in order to prevent the user from accidentally purchasing a high-priced paid program because the fee varies depending on the paid program. In addition, some products have a function that cannot be viewed without the parent's permission for a program that the child does not want to show by using rating information (rating information) according to the content of the program.

[0005]

However, in the prior art, no information on the fee of the program or information on the rating is displayed in the matrix-like program guide display (guide display). It is not clear whether the program can be watched or not by itself, and the viewer is inconvenienced when purchasing a reserved program.

[0006]

Accordingly, in the present invention, information relating to a program fee and a rating is displayed on a program guide display.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention applied to a television receiver compatible with a digital satellite broadcasting system will be described below with reference to the drawings.

First, digital television broadcasting using a satellite will be briefly described. In digital television broadcasting, a plurality of programs, data, and the like are time-division multiplexed into one bit stream and transmitted using a digital compression algorithm based on the MPEG system. MPEG is
This is a digital compression system standardized by ISO / IEC, and two types of standardization have been completed (MPEG1 and MPEG2). For details of MPEG1 and 2 compression algorithms, see ISO / IEC 1117, respectively.
And 13818.

In the case of digital television broadcasting,
A channel shall mean the transmission of one program,
It does not mean one transponder of the satellite, ie one frequency. That is, in digital television broadcasting, one transponder transmits a plurality of channels, and each channel has a channel number. Therefore, one frequency corresponds to a plurality of channel numbers. So, to select a program,
First, after selecting a frequency at which a program is multiplexed, a desired program is selected from the obtained bit stream.

FIG. 4 is a circuit block diagram of a television receiver having a built-in program content display function. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 1 denotes a reception signal input terminal to which a signal transmitted by a satellite, a cable, or the like is input. Reference numeral 2 denotes a tuner for generating a baseband signal by demodulating a signal modulated by a modulation method suitable for the transmission process, and reference numeral 3 denotes a video for converting an output of the tuner 2 into a signal corresponding to a display format. It is a processing circuit.

Reference numeral 4 denotes an on-screen guide generating circuit for generating a program guide display screen for displaying the contents of the program on-screen. Reference numeral 5 denotes an input device for issuing an operation command by a user operating the remote control device. You. The operation unit 5 is provided with left, right, up and down cursor movement buttons, menu buttons, select buttons, and the like.

Reference numeral 6 denotes C for controlling the program content display screen based on the information from the operation unit 5 and controlling the tuner 2 for selecting a desired program by the user.
PU, 7 receives the output signal from the video processing circuit 3 and the output signal from the on-screen guide generation circuit 4 as inputs, and controls the multiplexer 6 to select and output one of them according to a control signal from the CPU 6; Is a CRT display. Reference numeral 9 denotes a memory which stores a set value relating to program selection set by a user, and also stores a program of the CPU 6.
A writable ROM is available.

The on-screen guide generation circuit 4
Creates on-screen guide information in accordance with program information (extracted by the video processing circuit 3) sent from a satellite. The program information includes information such as a program start / end time, a title, contents, a fee for a pay program, and a rating of the program contents.

Next, a data structure used in the program of the CPU 6 of the embodiment will be briefly described with reference to FIG. After the program information sent from the satellite is extracted by the video processing circuit, it is stored in the memory 9 as the program data shown in FIG. The program data includes a unique data number, the channel to which the program belongs, the title of the program, start time, end time, rating information indicating the rating of the program, fee information required for purchase in the case of a pay program, and display information. One data such as a display flag indicating the mode is provided for each program. Therefore, information about 500 programs is
If it is sent from a satellite, 500 pieces of program data are stored in the memory 9.

For example, there are the following ratings. That is, NR (unlimited), PG (parents must be accompanied by children), PG-13 (parents must be accompanied by children under 13), R (children under 17) Persons must be accompanied by an adult), NC-17 (admission is not allowed for persons under the age of 17). In the case of a pay-per-view program, the figure of the amount is stored as it is, and in the case of a free program, the charge data of the program data is
0 (zero) is stored.

The display flag is data for storing an instruction on how to display the program of the data number in the guidance display. In the embodiment, the flag is set to "1" in a normal case, and is restricted by the rating. "2" if applicable, "3" if applicable
If both the rating and the fee apply, “4” is stored.

The limit data shown in FIG. 2 is also stored in the memory 9, in which a limit charge indicating a charge limit per program and rating data are stored in pairs. .

The limit data is set on the charge / rating setting screen shown in FIG. When a charge or rating is instructed from an input device such as a remote controller, the CPU instructs the on-screen guide generation circuit 4 to display the setting screen in FIG. In this setting screen, the cursor moves over the price limit input box 41, the rating input box 42, the password input box 43, the OK button 44, and the cancel button 45 according to the cursor moving operation of the input device.
When the cursor is on the input boxes 41, 42, and 43, the charge, rating, and password can be input using the keyboard of the input device 5, and after inputting the password together with the charge limit value and / or rating, the OK button is clicked. Is moved to the input device 5
By pressing the select button, the limit data is newly set.

Here, the password must match the one registered on another screen. The reason that a password must be entered to change or set the rating and fee limit is to prevent unauthorized changes.

When the setting of the rating / charge limit is changed, the CPU 6 performs a display flag setting process shown in FIG. First, the end flag E is reset, the first data of the program data is targeted (step 51), the charge and rating information in the program data are compared with the set limit data, and the value of the display flag is changed. It is determined (step 52). Then, the value of the display flag is written to the memory 9 as a display flag of the program data to be processed (step 53). Then, the processing target is shifted to the next program data (step 54), and the process is repeated until the program data is exhausted (step 55). When the setting of the display flag is completed for all the program data, the end flag E is set (step 56), and the process returns to another process. This display flag setting process is called not only when the limit data is changed but also when the program data is changed.

When the guide display button of the input device 5 is operated, a guide screen display process shown in FIG. 6 is performed. First, at step 61, it is checked whether the end flag E is set, and it is checked whether the setting processing of the display flag is completed. If the display flag setting process is not completed, the process waits until the process is completed. If completed, a program guide screen as shown in FIG. 1 is generated according to the contents of the program data and displayed on the CRT 8 screen (step 62). Then, processing on the program guide screen such as cursor movement and program selection is performed (step 63), and the process returns to the original state. The display in step 62 will be described in more detail below. That is, for the program data in the memory 9, the value of the display flag in each program data is set according to the comparison result of the charge data and the rating data with the limit data. That is, as described above, “2” is set when the rating of the program is higher than that of the limit data. Here, a higher rating level means that the narrower the target for viewing is, the higher the level is. That is, in the rating exemplified above, NC-17>R>PG-13>
PG>G> NR. Also, “3” is stored when the fee of the program is higher than the limit fee of the limit data, and “4” is stored when both of the rating and the fee are applicable.
If neither the charge nor the rating applies, “1” is set.

Therefore, in step 62, an instruction is given to the on-screen guide generation circuit 4 to create the grid-like guide screen shown in FIG. 1 according to the channel and the start / end time of the program data. That is, a grid is formed from the start / end times of the program data in the displayable range (in the figure, from 8:00 pm to 10:00 on the time axis, from 100 to 500 on the channel), and the title and rating of the program are set in the corresponding frames. , Display rates.

Further, the display mode of the title is changed according to the value of the display flag of each program. In the case of the present embodiment, the limit fee is set to $ 5, and the rating is set to PG-13. Therefore, the program with the title "Drama 1" is restricted in terms of fee. The title is "Movie 2"
Cannot be viewed because it has a rating of NC-17 and is a more radical program than PG-13. Accordingly, the display flag of “Drama 1” is “3”, and the display flag of “Movie 2” is set to “2”. Therefore, the title of "Movie 2" is displayed faintly on the program guide screen. In the case of "Drama 1", the title is displayed lightly, and the color of the cell of the program (for example, blue) is displayed in a different color (for example, yellow) from the other cells.

Although not shown in the figure, in the case where both the charge and the rating are applied (when the display flag is 4), the title characters are displayed dimmed,
The color of the cell is set to a different color (for example, green) from the display flag 3. Accordingly, on the program guide screen, each cell representing each program has four cells depending on the fee and rating.
Will be displayed in stages. Therefore, the user can identify at a glance which programs can be viewed and which programs cannot be viewed in the current setting by just looking at the program guide screen, and can easily understand the reason.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, the display mode of each program is changed on the program guide screen based on the viewing restriction based on the fee and / or the content. However, it is useful because it can be determined whether or not each program can be viewed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a program guide screen of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram for explaining a data structure according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a charge and rating setting screen.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the program guide device according to the embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart relating to display processing of a program guide screen.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart relating to display processing of a program guide screen.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a conventional program guide screen.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Antenna input terminal 2 Tuner 3 Video processing circuit 4 On-screen guide generation circuit 5 Input unit 6 CPU 7 Multiplexer 8 Display 9 Memory means

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Masako Otsuki 2-5-5 Keihanhondori, Moriguchi-shi, Osaka Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A program guide display device for displaying a guide for a plurality of programs.
A program guide display device having different display modes. 2. The program guide display device according to claim 1, wherein the attributes are a fee for purchasing the program and a rating level according to the content of the program. 3. The program guide display device according to claim 2, wherein each program has at least four programs according to a fee for purchasing the program and a rating level according to the program content.
A program guide display device which is classified into groups and displayed in different modes. 4. The program guide display device according to claim 3, wherein the fee for purchasing the program and the rating level according to the program content are transmitted from the broadcast station together with the program, and are transmitted as information on each program. A program guide display device stored in a program guide display device, and display correspondence is determined based on the stored fee data and rating data corresponding to each program. 5. The program guide display device according to claim 4, wherein display mode data indicating a display mode corresponding to each program is determined based on charge data and rating data corresponding to each program. A program guide display device characterized by being stored in association with a program.