JPH1079190A - Information reproducing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an information reproducing apparatus by which a plurality of pieces of information can be reproduced at random and at equal probability by a method wherein next information is extracted at random from IN information to which extracted discrimination information is not added after extracted information has been output. SOLUTION: First, a main control part 9 gives extracted discrimination information to only ID information which corresponds to already extracted information. Concretely, a memory 3, for a flag, corresponding to every piece of music is installed. Then, when a random playing instruction is issued, the counted value of a timer is read out. After that, pieces of music which are not reproduced are investigated sequentially inside the memory 3 from a music No.1 onward by the value portion of the read-out counted value. Then, a next-information extraction function which is provided in the control part 9 investigates the counter value, and it extracts a last detected and non-reproduced piece of music as a piece of music to be played next. A flag as extracted discrimination information indicating that the information is already extracted is set at the memory 3 for the piece of music which is extracted once. Then, the extracted piece of music is not extracted again by using the next-information function.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information reproducing apparatus, and more particularly to an information reproducing apparatus for randomly extracting and reproducing a plurality of pieces of information recorded on a plurality of information recording media.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there have been the following information reproducing apparatuses. That is, as a first conventional example, there is known a random play apparatus that rearranges pieces of music in a disc in random order in a CD (MD) player or the like that reproduces music information and the like. In this random play device, the order of performance of each song is determined by random number generation by a microcomputer, and each song is played once for one CD according to the determined order.

Further, as a second conventional example, when the reproduction of a specific music by a key input device or the like is repeated during the performance of an optical disk, the probability of playing the music is increased thereafter. On the other hand, when the performance of a specific music is omitted, the probability of playing that music is reduced. As described above, there is disclosed an apparatus in which the probability of performance determined for each song is stored in a memory, and the frequency of selection by a microcomputer by using a random number is changed according to the probability stored in the memory (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-14365). Gazette).

Further, as a third conventional example, a plurality of C
Some CD players on which D can be mounted have a two-stage random mechanism in order to realize random play. That is, a plurality of C
First, one CD is selected from D. After that, the music included in the selected CD is also selected at random, and the selected music is played.

FIG. 5 shows a block diagram of a conventional CD player or the like. This CD player has a head unit 53 (a device for controlling a changer for exchanging disks).
Is received via the communication interface 55, and the command is analyzed. As a result, the disk is exchanged by acting on the disk exchange mechanism 56, and operations such as performance start and music search are performed. The so-called random play is also designated by the head unit 53.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a timer used for random play. The timer can switch and input several kinds of frequency clocks 59 by the operation of the clock designation register 57. It has a counter 61 for counting the clock signal, a comparator 63 for making the count value zero when the count value reaches a target value, and comparison data 65. By changing the clock frequency of this timer, the arrival time of the count value to the comparison data changes variously as shown in FIG.

When the performance is started, as shown in FIG. 8, the total number of songs N contained in the currently played disk is displayed.
Is read, and the value of N−1 is set in the comparison data 65. Also, the timer is started by appropriately selecting the frequency clock. When a random play request (key input or end of song) is received, the count value of the timer is read at that time, and the song corresponding to the value obtained by adding 1 to the value is selected as the next performance song. Is done. Adding one is
This is because the timer keeps counting the values of zero to the total number of songs N-1 in a ring shape.

Next, a case will be described in which a CD player or the like equipped with a plurality of discs performs disc random play for songs included in all the discs. In the disc random play, not only the music is randomly selected as described above, but also each disc is randomly selected. This processing method is basically performed in the same manner as in the above-described random play of a music piece even when a disc is selected. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare another timer for disk selection. Here, the timer 1 is used for disc selection and the timer 2 is used for music selection for convenience.

FIG. 9 shows a flowchart of the disc random play. First, when a performance command is issued, the number of loaded discs is checked. If the number is detected, a number is assigned to each disk. At this time, the disc number does not always match the CD rack number provided in the CD player. This is because a CD is not necessarily inserted in all racks. Then, a value obtained by subtracting 1 from the detected number M of disks is set as comparison data of the timer 1. For a CD player, 98 is set in timer 2;
For an MD player, 254 is set. This is because the number of songs that can be recorded on each medium is 99 songs and 255 songs.

[0010] When a random play command is issued, the count value of the timer 1 is read, and a disc corresponding to the count value is selected. Then, when a disc is selected, the total number of songs on the selected disc is read. Subsequently, the count value of the timer 2 is read, and 1 is added to the remainder when the count value is divided by the total number of music pieces. Then, a song corresponding to this value is selected.

[0011]

However, the above conventional example has the following disadvantages. In other words, when a song is simply selected based on the random number generated by the microcomputer, if the random play is continued for a long time, the same song will be played twice consecutively, or the song before the previous song will be played. Or inconvenience.

In the case of a CD player on which a plurality of CDs or the like can be mounted, each CD is selected with the same probability by a random number generated by a microcomputer. At this time, the selection of the music is performed irrespective of the number of music included in one CD, so that the music included in the CD having a small number of music is higher than the music included in the CD having a large number of music. The disadvantage was that the music was played with a high probability.

[0013]

An object of the present invention is to provide an information reproducing apparatus which can solve the disadvantages of the prior art and, in particular, can reproduce a plurality of pieces of information contained in a plurality of information recording media at random and with equal probability. To do so.

[0014]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, at least two information recording media on which a plurality of pieces of information are recorded are extracted from each of the information recording media. In an information reproducing apparatus including a main control unit that controls selection of information and an output unit that outputs extracted information, the main control unit includes an ID assigning function of assigning a different ID to all of a plurality of types of information. , An ID storage function of storing the assigned ID, an information extraction function of randomly extracting one of the pieces of information, and an extracted identification information of only the ID corresponding to the already extracted information. It has an information adding function and a next information extracting function of randomly extracting the next information from the information of the ID to which the extracted identification information is not added after the output of the extracted information.

With the above configuration, the extracted information is added to the ID corresponding to the information once extracted.
Then, the main control unit selects the next extracted information depending on the presence or absence of the extracted information. Specifically, information is extracted at random from information that has not been reproduced yet. Therefore, the information already extracted and reproduced is not continuously selected, and each information is reproduced with a uniform probability.

Further, in the invention according to claim 2, the main control unit determines whether or not the extracted identification information is added to all the IDs of each information; Has an identification information erasing function for erasing the extracted identification information attached to the ID of the information other than the information extracted immediately before when it is determined that the information has been appended, and the other configuration is described in claim 1. It is the same as the invention of the above.

With the above-described configuration, even if random play is repeatedly commanded, one or two songs reproduced immediately before, even after all information is reproduced one by one, are selected from the next selection. Is excluded. Then, since information other than the information reproduced immediately before is selected, the same information is prevented from being reproduced continuously.

[0018]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

The information reproducing apparatus outputs at least two information recording media on which a plurality of pieces of information are recorded, a main control unit for controlling selection of information to be extracted from each of the information recording media, and outputs the extracted information. In the information reproducing apparatus provided with the output means, the main control unit is configured to output different I
An ID assigning function for assigning D, an ID storing function for storing the assigned ID, an information extracting function for randomly extracting one of the pieces of information, and extracting only an ID corresponding to information already extracted And a next information extraction function for randomly extracting the next information from the information of the IDs to which the extracted identification information is not attached after outputting the extracted information. doing. Also, the main control unit of the information reproducing apparatus has an identification information determination function for determining whether or not the extracted identification information is added to all IDs of each information;
Has an identification information erasing function for deleting the extracted identification information attached to the ID of information other than the information extracted immediately before when it is determined that the extracted identification information is attached to the ID.

More specifically, the information recording medium 7 shown in FIG. 2 is a generally used CD (compact disk) or MD (mini disk). A CD is a read-only information recording medium (ROM), while an MD is readable and writable. However, the information recording medium 7 is not limited to these, and the present invention can be applied to an LD (laser disk) or the like. The output unit 11 is a general speaker or the like.

The main controller 9 has various special functions as described above. First, the ID assigning function is a function of assigning different IDs to all songs included in the information recording medium 7. For example, when the information recording medium 7 is set in the information reproducing device 1, the main control unit 9 detects the number of music pieces included in the information recording medium 7. Then, a serial number as an ID is assigned to each song according to the detected number of songs. For example, when 20 songs are included, No. 1 to
Number 20 is given.

Next, the ID storage function stores the ID assigned by the ID assignment function. Specifically, each ID is stored in a memory in the main control unit 9 and can be referred to as appropriate. The information extraction function is a function of randomly extracting one from a plurality of pieces of information recorded on the information recording medium 7. The specific extraction method is the same as that described in the description of the conventional information reproducing apparatus. That is, information corresponding to the count value obtained using the predetermined timer is selected and output.

By the way, in the information reproducing apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment, the following processing is added so that the same music is not repeatedly played until all the music included in the information recording medium 7 (disk) are played. ing.

First, the main control unit 9 has an extracted information providing function of adding extracted identification information only to IDs corresponding to information already extracted. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 3, a flag memory 3 corresponding to each music is provided.
FIG. 3 shows a case where the total number of music pieces is 1 to n. When a random play command is issued, the count value of the timer is read in the same manner as in the related art. After that, the music number No. is set by the read count value.
The music that is not reproduced is checked in the flag memory 3 sequentially from 1. Then, the next information extracting function of the main control unit 9 checks up to the count value and extracts the last detected non-reproduced song (song number with no flag set) as the next performance song. A flag is set in the flag memory 3 of the music once extracted as extracted identification information indicating that the music has already been extracted. Then, the next-time information extraction function prevents the information already extracted from being extracted again in the next time.

The above-mentioned flag memory 3 will be described in detail. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, when eight pieces of music are recorded on the disk, the flag memory corresponding to the already extracted and played music is used. In the memory 3, “1” is set as the extracted identification information 5. In the present embodiment, N
o. 4, 5, and 7 have already been extracted and "1" is set in the corresponding flag memory. Then, the next information extraction function first reads the count value (for example, 7) of the timer. Then, only the location of the music number whose flag memory 3 is “0” is searched. That is, No. 1,2,3,
6 and 8, and the counter value was "7". The song number No. searched last by searching for No. 1 and No. 2 2 is extracted as the next reproduction information. Then, the song number No. 2 is set to “1”. Through the above-described process, the information (music) already extracted is prevented from being extracted again.

Subsequently, the above processing is repeated to reproduce all the music pieces (all "1" in the flag memory 3).
Is set), it is determined by the identification information determination function of the main controller 9 that "1" has been set in the flag memory 3 corresponding to the IDs of all the songs. And then,
By the identification information erasing function, the flag corresponding to the ID of the music other than the music reproduced last (for example, the two immediately preceding music) is cleared ("0" is entered). As a result, even when the random play is repeatedly commanded, it is possible to prevent the music reproduced immediately before from being continuously extracted and reproduced.

By the way, the number of flag memories 3 is required to be 99 for a CD, and 255 for an MD. Here, the MD player has a memory for temporarily storing sound information read from the MD due to its characteristics. Since an empty area of this memory can be used as the flag memory, the consumption of the main memory in the main control section 9 can be reduced. However, in reality, the number of songs recorded on one CD or the like is about 20 songs, so there is no particular problem if a memory is provided for the songs.

Next, a disc random play for reading information from a plurality of information recording media 7 will be described. The method of extracting information (songs) is the same as that described above, but in the case of disc random play, IDs are put together for all the songs such as a plurality of CDs as the information recording medium 7 inserted. It differs in that it is provided. For example, consider a case where two disks are inserted and three songs are recorded on each disk. In this case, first, the number of CDs inserted in the CD player is detected, and each CD is numbered. Here, it is assumed that the disk 1 and the disk 2 are used for convenience of description.

Then, a music number as an ID is assigned to the music recorded on the disk 1. In this example, since the number of recorded music pieces is three, NO. 1 to 3 are added. Next, an ID is assigned to the music recorded on the disk 2. At this time, since 1 to 3 are already used, 4 to 6
Is appended. In this way, different IDs are assigned to the songs recorded on each disk so as not to overlap. When IDs are assigned to all songs, the respective functions of the main control unit 9 operate in the same manner as in the random play described above,
Duplicate reproduction and the like are eliminated.

Here, when assigning an ID to each song,
If the number of music pieces already recorded for all the disks has been read, the process for assigning the ID is immediately terminated, and the process of disk random play can be started. However, if the number of songs has not been read for all disks, the number of songs must first be read for all disks. In this case,
When a random play command is issued, priority is given to reproduction from a disk whose number of songs has not been read, and normal random play processing is performed after reading the number of songs of all disks.

The above-described disc random play flow will be outlined with reference to FIG. In particular, a case will be described here where IDs are assigned to songs included in all disks.
First, the contents of the disc inserted in the CD player are checked (step S1), and "98" is set as the timer comparison data ("254" for MD) (step S2). Then, the timer is started (step S3). If a disc random play command has been issued (step S4), it is determined whether or not the number of songs on all discs has been read (step S5). It is exchanged (step S6). Then, the number of songs on the disc is read and stored (step S7).

Subsequently, the count value of the timer at this time is read out (step S8), and when the count value is divided by the number of songs included in the disk, the value is too "1".
Is added. Then, the value calculated at this time is set as the selected music number of the current disc, and the disc number and the music number are stored (step S9). Next, it is determined again whether or not the number of songs of all the disks has been read (step S10). If it is determined that all of the songs have been read, IDs (continuous) are assigned to all the songs included in all the disks. Number). At the same time, "1" is set in the flag memory corresponding to the ID of the music played so far (step S11). Then, a value obtained by subtracting "1" from the detected total number of music pieces is set as comparison data of the timer (step S12). Thereafter, similarly to the case of the random play described above, the flag in the flag memory is appropriately searched, and a tune is randomly selected from the unplayed tunes and reproduced.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention, IDs are assigned to all information included in a plurality of information recording media, and predetermined extracted identification information is added to already-extracted information. Is provided with a next-time information extraction function to prevent selection. For this reason, when a random play command is issued, even if an information recording medium with a large number of recording information and an information recording medium with a small number of information are mixed, all the information is reproduced with an appropriate probability. Effect.

Even when random play is instructed after all the information has been reproduced, information for reproduction is randomly extracted from the remaining information excluding the information reproduced immediately before. I have. For this reason, there is an excellent effect that information reproduced once is prevented from being superimposed and continuously reproduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing one embodiment of the present invention, and particularly shows a flow of disc random play.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an information reproducing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a flag memory corresponding to each information in an information recording medium.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a search method of a flag memory disclosed in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a general CD player.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a timer used for random play.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a time required to reach comparison data of each clock frequency and a count value in a timer.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of a conventional random play.

FIG. 9 shows a flowchart of a conventional disc random play.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 information reproducing device 5 extracted identification information 7 information recording medium 9 main control unit 11 output means

Claims (2)

[Claims] At least two information recording media on which a plurality of information are recorded, a main control unit for controlling selection of information to be extracted from each of the information recording media, and an output unit for outputting the extracted information An information reproducing apparatus comprising: a main control unit configured to determine whether all of the plurality of types of information have different I
An ID assigning function for assigning D, an ID storing function for storing the assigned ID, an information extracting function for randomly extracting one of the pieces of information, and only an ID corresponding to information that has already been extracted. An extracted information adding function for attaching extracted identification information, and a next information extracting function for randomly extracting the next information from information of IDs to which the extracted identification information is not attached after outputting the extracted information An information reproducing apparatus comprising: 2. An identification information judging function for judging whether or not extracted ID information has been added to all IDs of each of the information, and a main control unit judges that the extracted ID information has been added to all IDs. 2. The information reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an identification information erasing function for erasing the extracted identification information attached to the ID of the information other than the information extracted immediately before.