JPH1093393A - Broadcast receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To confirm and utilize each information sent from a plurality of broadcast stations nearly at the same time without manual operation. SOLUTION: In the case of receiving teletext information sent from a broadcast station by an FM broadcast receiver 7, a CPU 1 receives teletext data sent from a plurality of broadcast stations via the FM broadcast receiver 7 while selecting stepwise a reception frequency and stored in a broadcast data memory 2-3. The contents of the broadcast data memory 2-3 are displayed on a display device 8 and printed out by a printer 9 or the like.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a broadcast receiving apparatus for receiving information such as character string information by text multiplex broadcasting.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of broadcast receiving apparatus, of FM character multiplex broadcasting transmitted from each broadcasting station such as a television and a radio, a broadcasting station selected arbitrarily by a user in advance is used. Information such as character string information is received and displayed on a display screen in real time by receiving FM text multiplex broadcasting or the like.

[0003]

However, the conventional broadcast receiving apparatus only receives and displays information from the broadcasting station selected by the user, and is effective for the user from other broadcasting stations. Even when the information was transmitted, it could not be confirmed. In this case, the reception frequency is switched by manual operation each time in order to confirm information from other broadcast stations, but it is not possible for the user to select all broadcast stations by manual operation. In addition to imposing a heavy burden, not all information can be obtained, and useful information may be missed for the user. An object of the present invention is to make it possible to check and utilize information transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations at substantially the same time without performing manual operation. Another object of the present invention is to provide information transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations substantially simultaneously.
The purpose is to automatically select a broadcasting station that provides desired information.

[0004]

The means of the first invention (the invention described in claim 1) is as follows. (1) When receiving information transmitted from a broadcasting station, the receiving means receives information transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations while switching the receiving frequency stepwise. (2) The broadcast data storage means stores information received from the plurality of broadcast stations by the receiving means. (3) The output means outputs the contents of the broadcast data storage means. It should be noted that, when receiving the information transmitted from the broadcasting station, the discriminating means for discriminating whether or not the received information is the same as the information already stored in the broadcast data storage means is the same as the discriminating means. And control means for prohibiting writing of the received information to the broadcast data storage means when it is determined that the received information is the above information. When information transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations is received by the receiving means while switching the receiving frequency stepwise in this way, the plurality of information is written to the broadcast data storage means. This broadcast data storage means is output from the output means by display / printing or the like. Therefore, it is possible to confirm or utilize information transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations at substantially the same time without performing a manual operation.

[0005] The means of the second invention (the invention of claim 3) is as follows. (1) When receiving information transmitted from a broadcasting station, the receiving means receives information transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations while switching the receiving frequency stepwise. (2) The extracting means extracts the identification information from the information from the plurality of broadcasting stations received by the receiving means. (3) The storage unit stores the identification information extracted by the extraction unit together with the corresponding reception frequency. (4) The display means lists the identification information read from the storage means. (5) When any identification information is selected and designated from the list displayed by the display means, the automatic tuning means reads the corresponding reception frequency from the storage means and selects a channel. When the information transmitted from the plurality of broadcasting stations is received by the receiving means while switching the receiving frequency stepwise in this way, the extracting means extracts the information from the plurality of broadcasting stations received by the receiving means. The identification information is extracted from each of them. The identification information thus extracted is written into the storage means together with the corresponding reception frequency, and the contents are displayed in a list. Here, when any identification information is selected and designated from the list display, the automatic channel selection means reads out the corresponding reception frequency and selects the channel. Therefore, a broadcast station providing desired information can be automatically selected from information transmitted from a plurality of broadcast stations at about the same time.

[0006]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

(First Embodiment) Hereinafter, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a document processing apparatus with a receiving function for receiving FM teletext broadcasting. The CPU 1 is a central processing unit that controls the overall operation of the document processing apparatus according to various programs stored in the program memory 2-1 in the RAM 2. The storage medium 3 includes a magnetic / optical storage medium such as a floppy disk, an optical disk, and a RAM card, which can be removably mounted, and a semiconductor memory, and stores programs and data. When the storage medium 3 is mounted on the main body of the document processing apparatus, programs and data in the storage medium 3 are taken into the CPU 1 and stored in the storage device 4. The storage device 4 includes a ROM, a hard disk, an optical disk, and stores an operating system, various application programs, data files, character font data, and the like.
When a program or data is transmitted from another device via a communication line or the like, the PU 1 captures the program or data and stores it in the storage device 4. The input device 5, the FM broadcast receiving device 6, the clock 7, the display device 8, and the printing device 9 are connected to the CPU 1 as input / output peripheral devices.
1 controls their input / output operations.

The input device 5 has a key input device for inputting document data and various commands, a pointing device such as a mouse, and the like.
The information is displayed on the display device 8 and stored in a text memory (not shown) in the RAM 2. The FM broadcast receiving device 6 receives FM text multiplex broadcasting from a television, a radio, or the like, and encodes the multiplexed text to convert it into character string data. The character string data obtained by the FM broadcast receiving device 6 is The data is written to the reception buffer 2-2 (see FIG. 1B) in the RAM 2. Here, in general, FM
Text multiplex broadcasting is designed to repeatedly transmit the same program content such as news and weather information,
When the character string data of the same program is periodically and repeatedly transmitted from one broadcasting station, the CPU 1 receives only the character string data for one cycle and also receives the character string data for one cycle from one broadcasting station. Is received, the reception frequency is switched in order to receive a text multiplex broadcast from another broadcast station.
That is, within the frequency band of all the broadcasting stations where FM teletext broadcasting is performed, the reception string is switched stepwise to receive the character string data from all the broadcasting stations,
Broadcast data memory 2-3 in AM2 (see FIG. 1B)
To accumulate.

As shown in FIG. 2, the broadcast data memory 2-3 is configured to store a reception time, a reception frequency, a program table of contents, and program contents. Here, the CPU 1 obtains the current time when the FM text multiplex broadcast is received from the clock 7 and stores it in the broadcast data memory 2-3 as the reception time, and stores the reception frequency at that time in the broadcast data memory 2-3. Store. The table of contents of the program and the contents of the program in the broadcast data memory 2-3 are character string data for one cycle obtained by receiving the FM text multiplex broadcast. In this case, the program table of contents is represented by table of contents data, and indicates "today's events related to sports in news programs". The contents of the broadcast data memory 2-3 are displayed and output on the display device 8, sent to the printing device 9 and printed out, and further registered and stored in the storage device 4. In this case, the character string data arbitrarily called from the broadcast data memory 2-3 can be inserted into the input and created document and output, or registered and saved.

Next, the operation of the document processing apparatus with the FM broadcast receiving function will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. A program for realizing each function described in this flowchart is stored in a storage medium 3 or a storage device 4 in the form of a program code readable by the CPU 1, and its contents are stored in a program memory in the RAM 2. 2-1 has been loaded. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the receiving process, which is started when the power is turned on. The receiving process is continued during the process of inputting characters and the like and during the erasure of display. First, when the power is turned on, the CPU 1 performs an initialization process for clearing the contents of the reception buffer 2-2 and the broadcast data memory 2-3 (step A1). Next, FM
The receiving frequency is set to the lower limit frequency within the frequency band of all the broadcasting stations that are performing the text multiplex broadcasting (step A2).

[0010] Then, it is set to a receivable state in which the text multiplex broadcasting can be normally received, that is, the text multiplex broadcasting is transmitted from the broadcasting station corresponding to the set receiving frequency, and is transmitted. It is checked whether or not the reception was successful (step A3). If the text multiplex broadcast is not transmitted from the broadcasting station corresponding to the reception frequency, or if it cannot be normally received even if transmitted, the process proceeds to step A4, and the reception frequency is reduced by a predetermined amount. increase. As a result, it is checked whether or not the reception frequency has reached the upper limit value within the entire frequency band of FM teletext broadcasting (step A).
5). If the reception frequency is less than the upper limit, the process returns to step A3 to check the receivable state, and automatically selects successive broadcasting stations while gradually increasing the reception frequency until normal reception is detected. I will broadcast. If reception is not possible even if the reception frequency reaches the upper limit, the process returns to step A2, the reception frequency is reset to the lower limit, and the above operation is repeated.

In this manner, in the reception waiting state of waiting for the reception of the FM teletext while switching the reception frequency automatically, if the FM teletext is transmitted and successfully received, The received text multiplex broadcast is written into the reception buffer 2-2 (step A6). In this case, the same character string data is periodically and repeatedly transmitted from one broadcasting station, but only the data for one cycle is received and written into the reception buffer 2-2. And C
The PU 1 checks whether data corresponding to the current reception frequency is stored in the broadcast data memory 2-3 (step A7). If there is no data, a new broadcast station that has not received the signal from the time of power-on until now is checked. In this case, a broadcast station that has been received in the past is selected again and character string data is received from the broadcast station.

When the character string data is received from the re-selected broadcasting station, the process proceeds to step A8, where the character string data in the broadcast data memory 2-3 corresponding to the current reception frequency and the reception buffer 2 are read. -2 is compared with the character string data, and it is checked whether they match. If they match, it means that the same character string repeatedly transmitted from the same broadcasting station has been received repeatedly. The contents of the memory 2-1 are cleared, and the current received data is canceled.
Then, the process proceeds to step A4, where the reception frequency is increased by a predetermined amount in order to select the next broadcast station. On the other hand, if it is determined that character string data from a new broadcasting station has been received (NO in step A7), or a mismatch in character strings is detected in step A8, and the latest data is transmitted from the same broadcasting station. If so, the process proceeds to step A9 to check whether the broadcast data memory 2-3 has a full state in which there is no empty area larger than a predetermined amount.
3 and secures an empty area, and writes character string data and the like in the reception buffer 2-2 (step A10). in this case,
With reference to the reception time in the broadcast data memory 2-3, the oldest data position is regarded as an empty area, and the current reception data is overwritten. The current frequency is also written into the broadcast data memory 2-3 together with the current time obtained by the clock 7. If not in the full state, the broadcast data memory 2-
Then, the current time and the reception frequency are written into the empty area in 3 together with the contents of the reception buffer 2-2 (step A11). Upon completion of such a writing process, the process proceeds to step A12,
The contents of the program memory 2-1 are cleared. Then, the process proceeds to step A4, where the reception frequency is increased by a predetermined amount in order to select the next broadcast station.

As described above, the character string data transmitted from all the broadcasting stations is changed by one while automatically changing the receiving frequency.
Since the data is received at intervals of one cycle, it is possible to receive the character string data transmitted from all the broadcasting stations at substantially the same time without performing a manual operation. In this case, since the same character string data is periodically and repeatedly transmitted from each broadcast station, it is possible to receive character string data from all broadcast stations by sequentially switching the reception frequency during that time. . At this time, even if the same character string is repeatedly transmitted from each broadcasting station, it is possible to receive only the data for one cycle and write it into the broadcast data memory 2-3. When confirming the data written in the broadcast data memory 2-3 in this manner, the contents may be output in a batch as it is, but only the program table of contents is displayed in a list, and the program table is arbitrarily selected from the list display. Only the program contents corresponding to the selected and designated table of contents program may be read out from the broadcast data memory 2-3 and output.

(Second Embodiment) Hereinafter, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. In the first embodiment described above, the character string data from each broadcasting station is sequentially received and written directly into the broadcast data memory 2-3. However, in the second embodiment, the character string data from each broadcasting station is read. From the column data, only the table of contents data is extracted and stored, and when an arbitrary table of contents is selected and designated from the list of the table of contents data, a station broadcasting the designated table of contents program is automatically selected. Then, only the character string data from the broadcast station is written into the broadcast data memory 2-3. FIG. 4 shows a configuration of the RAM 2 according to the second embodiment. Similar to the first embodiment, the RAM 2 has a program memory 2-1, a reception buffer 2-2, and a broadcast data memory 2-3. The second embodiment further includes a table of contents data memory 2-4. The table-of-contents data memory 2-4 stores table-of-contents data and reception frequencies extracted from character string data transmitted from each broadcasting station. The CPU 1 displays the contents of the table-of-contents data memory 2-4 on a display screen. Display the list above.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a table of contents receiving process which is started when the power is turned on. Here, steps B1 to B6 correspond to steps A1 to A6 in FIG.
And is basically the same as that in FIG. In this case, in step B1, the reception buffer 2
-2, the contents of the table of contents data memory 2-4 are cleared. Then, while gradually changing the receiving frequency from the lower limit to the upper limit, the receiving state of the character string data transmitted from each broadcasting station is checked (steps B2 to B5). The FM character multiplex broadcasting is received for one cycle (step B6). Then, FIG.
The process proceeds to steps B8 and B9 as a judgment process corresponding to the steps A7 and A8. In this case, it is checked in step B8 whether data corresponding to the current reception frequency is stored in the table of contents data memory 2-4. At step B9, when there is the corresponding table of contents data in the table of contents data memory 2-4, it is checked whether the corresponding data matches the table of contents data extracted at step B7. If no data is detected in step B8, or if data mismatch is detected in step B9, the process proceeds to step B10, where the extracted table of contents data is associated with the reception frequency at that time. To the table of contents data memory 2-4. Then, the process proceeds to step B11, where the receiving buffer 2
After clearing the content of -2, the process returns to step B4. On the other hand, if the match of the index data is detected in step B9, the process directly proceeds to step B11 in order to avoid duplicate writing of the same program, and writing to the index data memory 2-4 is not performed.

In this manner, only the table of contents data transmitted from each broadcasting station is extracted and written into the table of contents data memory 2-4, and only the desired broadcasting station is automatically selected by referring to the table of contents data. In the case of receiving by selecting, a channel selection reception is instructed by an input operation. Then, a tuning reception process is performed according to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, the contents of the table of contents data memory 2-4 are read for one screen from the top and displayed as a list (step C1). In this state, when there is a scroll instruction from the input device 5 (step C2), the CPU 1 executes scroll processing (step C3), and displays a list of scrolled data for one screen (step C1). When an arbitrary table of contents item is designated by a cursor from the table of contents list (step C4), the CPU 1 reads out the reception frequency corresponding to the selected table of contents item from the table of contents data memory 2-4 (step C5), and according to this. Automatic tuning is performed (step C6). FM text multiplex broadcasting is received from the broadcasting station selected in this way (step C7),
The character string data for the cycle is displayed and output (step C8), and is also written in the table of contents data memory 2-4 (step C9).

As described above, in the second embodiment, while changing the receiving frequency in a stepwise manner, the character string data transmitted from all the broadcasting stations is received, and only the table of contents data is extracted therefrom to extract the table of contents. Data memory 2-4
The station broadcasting the designated table of contents program can be automatically selected by simply selecting an arbitrary table of contents item from the list display of the table of contents data. That is, it is possible to select a desired station without manually switching the frequency. When the channel is automatically selected in this manner, thereafter, only the character string data from the broadcast station can be received and written into the broadcast data memory 2-3. Data can be stored more efficiently in terms of time and memory capacity as compared with a method of receiving data as it is and storing it in a memory.

When the contents of the table of contents data memory 2-4 are displayed as a list, the contents are read out for one screen as it is and displayed, and the contents of the table of contents data memory 2-4 are edited and then displayed as a list. You may do so.
For example, if the contents of the table of contents data memory 2-4 are edited for each classification and displayed as a list by classification, or displayed as a list for each broadcasting station, or hierarchically displayed and output by classification, a table of contents item is selected. At this time, the selection becomes easy.

Further, in each of the above embodiments, the case where the present invention is applied to a document processing apparatus having a broadcast receiving function has been described, but a broadcast receiving apparatus such as a television may be used. In addition, when FM text multiplex broadcasting from each broadcasting station is received for one cycle, the received data is compared with the data in the broadcast data memory 2-3 or the data in the table of contents data 2-4. Assuming that FM text multiplex broadcasting with different program contents is transmitted from the same broadcasting station at fixed time intervals,
After a certain period of time after receiving the first broadcast content for one cycle,
Switching of the reception frequency may be controlled so as to receive the broadcast content from the broadcast station. Furthermore, when a broadcast date and time or a series No. is transmitted as identification information of character string data from a broadcasting station, it may be determined whether or not the data is the latest data from the identification information. The information transmitted from the broadcasting station may be other than the character string information, and may be, for example, image data, audio data, or the like.

[0020]

According to the present invention, information transmitted from a plurality of broadcast stations is received while switching the receiving frequency stepwise, so that a plurality of broadcast stations can be received without manual operation. , It is possible to confirm and utilize each information transmitted substantially at the same time. Also,
Identification information such as the table of contents of programs transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations is pre-fetched, and automatic tuning is performed based on identification information arbitrarily selected from the list display. Without having to switch frequencies,
A desired station can be selected simply by selecting any identification information from the list display screen. In this case, it is possible to efficiently store information in terms of time and memory capacity as compared with a case where information from a plurality of broadcast stations is received and stored in a memory.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating a document processing apparatus with an FM text multiplex broadcast receiving function, and FIG. 1B is a diagram illustrating a main configuration of a RAM 2;

FIG. 2 is a broadcast data memory 2-3 according to the first embodiment;
FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a receiving process according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a main configuration of a RAM 2 according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a table of contents reception process according to a second embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a channel selection reception process illustrating a second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 CPU 2 RAM 2-1 Program memory 2-2 Receiving buffer 2-3 Broadcast data memory 2-4 Contents data memory 3 Storage medium 4 Storage device 5 Input device 6 FM broadcast receiving device 8 Display device

Claims (3)

[Claims] When receiving information transmitted from a broadcasting station, receiving means for receiving information transmitted from a plurality of broadcasting stations while switching a receiving frequency in a stepwise manner. A broadcast receiving apparatus comprising: broadcast data storage means for storing received information from a plurality of broadcast stations; and output means for outputting the contents of the broadcast data storage means. 2. A discriminating means for, when receiving information transmitted from a broadcasting station, discriminating whether or not the received information is the same as information already stored in the broadcast data storage means. 2. The broadcast receiving apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising control means for prohibiting writing of said received information to said broadcast data storage means when said information is determined to be the same information. 3. Receiving means for receiving information transmitted from a plurality of broadcast stations while switching the receiving frequency in a stepwise manner when receiving information transmitted from a broadcast station; Extracting means for respectively extracting identification information from information received from a plurality of broadcast stations; storage means for storing the identification information extracted by the extracting means together with a corresponding reception frequency; and reading from the storage means. Display means for displaying a list of the identification information output, and, when any identification information is selected and designated from the list displayed by the display means, a reception frequency corresponding to the identification information is read out from the storage means and selected. A broadcast receiving apparatus comprising: an automatic tuning means for tuning.