JPH10191193A - Electronic program guide display device and display method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow the user to search and understand object program information more easily and intuitionally in the case of serving electronic program information sent attended with a broadcast to viewers. SOLUTION: The display device is provided with a category display section 42 that displays a category of a program so as to select a desired category from the category of a displayed program and displays a channel of a program corresponding to the selected category and its broadcast time as a program list of a program information display section 44 thereby selecting the desired program among a displayed program table. Furthermore, detailed information on the specific program during selection is displayed on a detailed information display section 48 on the same screen.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a television receiver, and more particularly, to an electronic program guide display device and an electronic program guide display method in a television receiver.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Broadcast reception by a television receiver has been diversified not only from conventional so-called terrestrial broadcasting but also from CATV (cable television) and satellite broadcasting. Along with such diversified broadcasting methods, it is time-consuming to search for a desired program, and it is not possible to obtain real-time program information using only paper guides such as newspapers and magazines. For this reason, a system for displaying EPG (Electronic Program Guide), which is program information transmitted from a broadcasting station, on the screen of a television receiver separately from the program information based on the paper, so-called OSD (On Screen Display) has been put to practical use. Is starting to be.

In the conventional EPG on-screen display,
For example, as shown in FIG. 5, programs are displayed two-dimensionally in a table for each channel and for each time zone. In this example, the horizontal axis indicates time, and the vertical axis indicates channels. Note that it is impossible to simultaneously display program information of all the time zones of all the channels on one screen due to the relationship between the amount of display information and the number of characters that can be displayed on the screen. In general, a configuration of scrolling up and down is used. FIG.
Shows a state in which program information of a specific category selected by the user is displayed in chronological order in the conventional on-screen display.

[0004]

In the on-screen display of such an EPG, three types of time, channel and category are available.
Are characters that should be displayed linked to each other.
In a three-dimensionally arranged table format display,
At the same time, only two parties can be displayed.
Therefore, in the conventional method, it is necessary to visually search for and select the desired program information from a state in which the desired program information and the unnecessary program information are displayed at the same time, and it is difficult to understand by pattern recognition. There was a problem that it took time to select a desired program.

Accordingly, the present invention provides an easy and intuitive search for desired program information when providing viewers (users) with electronic program information transmitted along with the broadcast.
It is an object to provide an electronic program guide display device and an electronic program guide display method that can be understood.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a category of a program is displayed, and a desired category can be selected from the displayed categories of the program. A channel and a broadcast time of a program corresponding to a category are displayed as a table, and a desired one program can be selected from the displayed table.

That is, according to the present invention, in an electronic program guide display device for displaying a broadcast program received by a television receiver on its screen and providing information on the broadcast program in accordance with an instruction from a user, a plurality of program categories are provided. , A category selecting means for selecting a desired one of the displayed program categories according to a user's instruction, a channel and a broadcast of a program corresponding to the selected one of the categories. A program table displaying means for displaying time as a program table together with the category of the program, and a program selecting means for selecting one desired program from the displayed program table in accordance with a user's instruction. An electronic program guide display device is provided.

According to the present invention, there is provided an electronic program guide display method for displaying a broadcast program received by a television receiver on its screen and providing information on the broadcast program in accordance with an instruction from a user. And selecting one desired category from the displayed program categories in accordance with a user's instruction; and displaying a channel and a broadcast time of a program corresponding to the selected one category as a program table. An electronic program guide display method is provided, comprising the steps of displaying together with the category of the program, and selecting one desired program from the displayed program table in accordance with a user's instruction. .

It is a preferred aspect of the present invention that the display position of the selected one desired program is highlighted, and when detailed information on the selected one desired program is available. It is a preferred embodiment of the present invention to display the detailed information.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings, together with preferred embodiments. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a preferred embodiment of an electronic program guide display device according to the present invention, and shows a state applied to a television receiver. Block 10 is a main part of a television receiver including the electronic program guide display device of the present invention, and takes in a high-frequency signal received by an antenna 12 to a receiving tuner 16 via an input terminal 14. The reception signal of the predetermined channel selected by the reception tuner 16 is supplied to a signal processing circuit 18 where demodulation and other signal processing in a normal television receiver are performed.

An output signal of the signal processing circuit 18 is output from a video signal output terminal 22 via an OSD (on-screen display) control circuit 20. Although the audio signal is also separated by the signal processing circuit 18, it is not shown here. The control circuit 26 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit), ROM, and the like (not shown).
Operation panel 32, remote controller 34 and light receiving section 30
Tuner 16, signal processing circuit 18, OSD control circuit 2
0 is controlled and signals are transmitted and received as necessary.
A memory 24 is connected to the control circuit 26, and program information received from a broadcasting station is stored and read out as needed. The combination of the OSD control circuit 20 and the control circuit 26 constitutes all of the constituent elements described in claims 1 to 3.

Next, the operation of the embodiment of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. FIG. 2 shows an operation procedure of the CPU which is a main component of the control circuit 26. Although not shown in this flowchart, when the power is turned on, the receiving tuner 16 is automatically controlled to receive the broadcast of all the channels, read the EPG information included in the received wave, and store it in the memory 24. Keep it. The remote controller 34 has an EPG display button for displaying an EPG, a marker button described later, a cursor button,
There is an O button. First, when the EPG display button is pressed,
Step S1 becomes YES, and in the next step S2, the EPG data stored in advance is read from the memory 24, and the program information as shown in FIG. 3 is displayed.

Next, in step S3, it is determined whether or not the marker button of the remote controller 34 has been pressed. When the marker button has been pressed, the marker 40 shown as a human hand in FIG. 3 is moved down by one. . The marker 40 indicates one of a plurality of categories displayed on the category display section 42.
After the end of step S4 or when NO in step S3, the program information corresponding to the category is displayed on the program information display section 44 in step S5. In the program information display section 44, the horizontal axis indicates the time zone and the vertical axis indicates the channel, and the corresponding program information is displayed. In the displayed program information, a highlighted portion 46 surrounded by a bold line is a cursor, which is used to select one program with the cursor buttons of the remote controller 34. In other words, the program is selected by moving the highlighter 46 with the cursor buttons that can be moved left, right, up and down and pressing the GO button.

In step S6, it is determined whether or not the cursor has been operated to input the information. If YES, the highlighter 46 is moved on the screen according to the instruction in step S7. After the end of step S7 or when NO in step S6, detailed information of the program information at the position where the cursor is located is displayed on the detailed information display section 48 in step S8 (see FIGS. 3 and 4). In step S9, the remote controller 3
It is determined whether or not the GO button No. 4 has been pressed, and if it has been pressed, the receiving tuner 16 is controlled to select the channel of the program in step S10. At the same time, the display of the program guide is ended, and the reception screen of a normal broadcast is displayed. If the GO button is not pressed within the predetermined time, the process returns to step S1.

As can be seen from a comparison between FIGS. 3 and 4, FIG.
In the category, "General sports" in the category is selected, and in this example, four pieces of program information are displayed. In FIG. 4, "Baseball" which is a subordinate concept of "General sports" is selected. In this example, one program information is displayed. Further, in FIG. 5 showing a conventional example, program information of all categories is displayed in a mixed manner, whereas in FIG. 3, together with a category display section 42 in which the selected upper category and its lower category are displayed, Only the program information belonging to the selected upper category is displayed for each channel and time zone. Further, in FIG. 4, the lower category selected from the plurality of lower categories is displayed together with the category display section 42 marked and displayed in the plurality of lower categories, and only the program information belonging to the lower concept category is classified by channel and time zone. Is displayed. Therefore, when compared with the display of each category as shown in FIG. 6 which merely lists channels, time zones, and program information, the displays of FIGS. Easy to choose.

In the above embodiment, the program information of all the channels is automatically read when the power of the television receiver is turned on. However, it is not always necessary that the power is turned on. Alternatively, the interrupt processing may be performed when the operation of the CPU has a margin. In the case of reception via a plurality of media such as terrestrial broadcasting, satellite broadcasting, and CATV, programs are displayed by media, programs of all media are displayed collectively, or these two display modes are used. It can also be switchable.

[0017]

As described above, according to the present invention, when electronic program information transmitted along with a broadcast is provided to a viewer (user), a plurality of program categories are displayed and displayed. A desired category can be selected from the program categories, and a channel and a broadcast time of a program corresponding to the selected one category are displayed in a table together with a category display section for displaying a plurality of program categories. In addition, since a desired program can be selected from the displayed table, it is possible to more easily and intuitively search and understand desired program information. As described above, according to the present invention, the distribution status of the programs belonging to the target category can be easily grasped and understood by pattern recognition, and the operability of program selection is improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a preferred embodiment of an electronic program guide display device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an example of an EPG displayed on a screen of a television receiver according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is another example of an EPG displayed on a screen of a television receiver according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an example of an EPG displayed on a screen of a television receiver according to a conventional example.

FIG. 6 is another example of an EPG displayed on a screen of a television receiver according to a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 10 Main part of television receiver including electronic program guide display device of the present invention 12 Antenna 14 Input terminal 16 Receiving tuner 18 Signal processing circuit 20 OSD control circuit 22 Video signal output terminal 24 Memory 26 Control circuit (category with OSD control circuit A display unit, a category selection unit, a program table display unit, a program selection unit, a highlighting unit, and a unit for displaying detailed information) 28 interface 30 light receiving unit 32 operation panel 34 remote controller 40 marker 42 category display unit 44 program Information display section 46 Highlight display section (cursor) 48 Detailed information display section

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An electronic program guide display device for displaying a broadcast program received by a television receiver on a screen thereof and providing information on the broadcast program in accordance with an instruction from a user. Display means; category selection means for selecting one desired category from the displayed program categories according to a user's instruction; and a channel and broadcast time of a program corresponding to the selected one category as a program table An electronic program guide display, comprising: a program guide displaying means for displaying the program list together with the category of the program; and a program selecting means for selecting one desired program from the displayed program guide according to a user's instruction. apparatus. 2. The electronic program guide display device according to claim 1, further comprising means for highlighting a display position portion of the selected one desired program. 3. The electronic program guide display according to claim 1, further comprising means for displaying, when there is detailed information relating to the selected one desired program, the detailed information. apparatus. 4. An electronic program guide display method for displaying a broadcast program received by a television receiver on a screen thereof and providing information on the broadcast program in accordance with an instruction from a user, wherein a plurality of categories of the program are displayed. Selecting a desired one of the displayed program categories in accordance with a user's instruction; and selecting a channel and a broadcast time of a program corresponding to the selected one category as a program table together with the program category. And displaying a desired program from the displayed program table in accordance with a user's instruction. 5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising the step of, when one desired program is selected from the table, displaying detailed information on the selected program together with the program table. Electronic program guide display method.