JPH11355816A - Video audio device and device management system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To recognize the operating position and an operating state of a broad cast system and the video audio equipment. SOLUTION: A GPS receiver connects to a device or a broadcast system 100 having, e.g., a plurality of video audio equipment. The receiver 102 calculates its position based on radio waves from a positioning satellite 103, and the receiver 102 gives GPS data 105 that are the result of arithmetic operation to the system 100. The system 100 sets maintenance information of each device of the system 100 to an interactive status reporting system ISR signal 106 and transmits the resulting signal. Thus, the GPS data are set to the ISR signal 106 and the resulting signal is transmitted. The system 100 sends the ISR signal 106 to, e.g. a network and a control center at a remote place receives the signal 106. The control center collectively manages respective maintenance information of a plurality of systems 100 placed at remote places with respect to each other.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention particularly relates to a video / audio device and a device management system capable of collectively managing video / audio devices distributed over a wide area.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, in a case where a large number of devices are delivered and operated as a system, particularly in the case of a special device such as a broadcasting device, which is generally special, a check of the operating status at a delivery destination is performed. Acquisition of maintenance information is important.

Conventionally, such maintenance is performed at a service center near a delivery destination. For example, the maintenance is regularly performed by an engineer of a maker at a user side (delivery destination). Alternatively, after a failure occurs in a device, a user contacts a service center or the like to perform maintenance or the like.

[0004]

However, there is no way for the manufacturer to actively know the operation status of each device, and there is a problem that the response may be delayed later. Was.

[0005] In addition, when a plurality of systems are operating over a wide area, there is a problem that enormous manpower, time and cost are required to grasp the operating status of all of them.

Further, according to the conventional method, for example, when a relatively small system is operating in a remote area or the like, when a service center is not nearby or when it is difficult to specify an operating position, maintenance is performed. There was a problem that it was difficult to provide.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a video / audio device and a device management system capable of knowing the operating position and operating status of the system.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention relates to a position information acquiring means for acquiring position information of a self in a video / audio device used in a broadcasting station or the like. The apparatus has a device information acquiring unit that acquires information representing a situation, and a transmitting unit that transmits both the position information acquired by the position information acquiring unit and the information representing the situation acquired by the device information acquiring unit. Video and audio equipment.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a video / audio device used in a broadcasting station, the device management system managing one or a plurality of video / audio devices at distant positions.
Alternatively, one or a plurality of video / audio devices are transmitted based on position information indicating the respective positions of the one or a plurality of video / audio devices and information indicating the status of each of the one or a plurality of video / audio devices. Is a device management system characterized by performing the respective managements.

As described above, according to the present invention, the position information and the information indicating the situation are acquired by the video / audio equipment itself, and the acquired information is transmitted together.
It is possible to notify the management system of both the position and the status of the video / audio device.

In addition, the present invention manages each device based on position information and status information of each device sent from each of one or a plurality of video and audio devices. It is possible to manage a plurality of video / audio devices at a location in a lump.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 schematically shows a device management system according to the present invention. The device and system 100 are, for example, a broadcast system including a plurality of broadcast devices. However, the present invention is not limited thereto.
May be a single device. Equipment and system 1
00, a GPS receiver 102 is connected via a predetermined interface 101. GPS receiver 102
Is a GPS (Global Pod) transmitted from the positioning satellite 103.
A radio wave including positioning information based on a positioning system (sitioning system) is received using the antenna 104 to perform positioning calculation. Note that, as is well known, actually, the positioning calculation in the GPS receiver 102 is performed based on radio waves from a plurality of positioning satellites 103.

The device and the system 100 execute a self-diagnosis in each of the devices and output a result of the self-diagnosis, and generate an ISR (Interactive Status) in which a warning or error at the time of trouble is generated. Re
porting System). The device and system 100 output an ISR signal 106 based on the ISR.

The ISR signal 106 includes, for example, ID information unique to a device such as a model name; status information of a device status such as normal / abnormal; execution of a self-diagnosis function and notification of a result; Notification; device setting status; maintenance information such as hours meter information indicating the operation time of the device and software version information; In addition, ISR and I
A system using the SR will be described later.

The above ISR signal 106 has a GPS
GPS data 10 based on the positioning calculation result of receiver 102
5 are included. The GPS data 105 includes, for example, position information including longitude / latitude, time information at which positioning was performed, altitude and speed information, and various kinds of such information.

The ISR signal 106 including the GPS data 105 is transferred to, for example, an external network (not shown). The external network may be, for example, the Internet connected by a public telephone line or a dedicated line, or a network by wireless communication.

The ISR signal 106 is packet-transferred based on a predetermined protocol. FIG. 2 shows the ISR signal 10
6 shows an example of the packet configuration of FIG. As shown in FIG. 2A, following the synchronization data SYN, data STX indicating the head of the packet is arranged. Further, data C / R, flow information, and mode information are arranged. The data section 110 provided following the mode information stores various data based on the ISR and the GPS data 105 described above. Data section 110
Then, data ETX indicating the end side of the packet is provided, and synchronization data SYN is further provided.

The data section 110 has a maximum of 512 bytes. On the other hand, the GPS data 105 has a size of at most about 128 bytes even if it is composed of ASCII codes. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 2B, for example, 128 bytes from the top of the data
Area. After the GPS data 105, other data 112 including data based on the original ISR signal is stored. The area of the GPS data 105 may not be fixed but may be identifiable by a predetermined code, for example.

FIGS. 3 and 4 schematically show an example in which the present invention is applied to the configuration of the above-described error monitoring system using ISR. The configuration of this system differs depending on the form of connection between the computer that controls the error monitoring system and the video and audio equipment. FIG. 3 shows an example of connection via RS-232C, and FIG. 4 shows an example of connection via a LAN such as Ethernet.

In the example of connection by RS-232C shown in FIG. 3, the number of connected video and audio devices is limited to eight in total due to hardware restrictions. That is, when the computer 1 has a maximum of eight RS-232C ports, one video / audio device 2a to 2h can be connected to each of these eight ports.

From the computer 1, these video / audio devices 2 connected to the computer 1 by RS-232C
Error detection is always performed regularly for a to 2h.
In other words, a command for error detection is sent cyclically to the devices 2a to 2h, and from each device to which this command has been sent, for example, an error that has occurred up to the present time from the command sent before this For example, an error code indicating the error is returned to the computer 1.

The video and audio devices 2a to 2h are
Each has a function of self-diagnosis of an error, and it is also possible to individually specify a diagnosis item and issue a self-diagnosis command from the computer 1 to these devices 2a to 2h. In this case, the error detection is performed during the operation of the device, whereas the self-diagnosis stops the operation of the device and operates the device for the error diagnosis. More detailed device information can be obtained. Further, other information constituting the original ISR signal described above also includes:
It is obtained in the same way.

On the other hand, the GPS receiver 102 is connected to the computer 1 via a predetermined interface (not shown). In addition, the computer 1 includes, for example, a modem 51
Is connected to a predetermined network 61 through the network. The network 61 includes the Internet, a network using wireless communication, a network based on a unique protocol, and the like.
There is no particular limitation. Depending on the type of the network 61, the modem 51 is unnecessary.

Based on positioning information received from positioning satellite 103 using antenna 104, GPS receiver 102
Then, the position calculation of the position where this system exists is performed.
The GPS data 105 obtained by this calculation is supplied to the computer 1. In the computer 1, both the original ISR signal including the error code and the self-diagnosis result from each of the video / audio devices 2 a to 2 h and the GPS data 105 are stored in the ISR signal 106. That is, in the example of FIG. 2 described above, the GPS data 105
, And the original ISR signal is stored. The ISR signal 106 thus formed is transferred to the network 61 via the modem 51. When the data amount is large, the data packet can be divided and transferred.

In the system illustrated in FIG. 4, for example, a computer 1
Ethernet LAN with P / IP as protocol
Connected to line 12. In this example, the error monitoring system also includes a studio 13 for recording video and audio, a master room 14 for controlling devices in other rooms, and an editing room 15 for editing recorded video and audio. , And a library 16 in which a large number of video and audio are stored.

As shown in the drawing, each of the rooms 13 to 16 has a plurality of video / audio devices 3a, 3b, 3c,
... are installed respectively. The devices 3a, 3b, 3c,... Installed in the editing room 15 are, for example, RS-2.
Each terminal is connected to the terminal server 17c by 32C or the like. In this example, the terminal server 17c communicates with the transceiver 11b by Ethernet.
Is connected to the LAN line 12 via the. That is, the terminal server 17c is connected to each of the devices 3a, 3b, 3c,.
This is for converting RS-232C, which is a communication protocol, into TCP / IP, which is an Ethernet protocol, and conversely, converting RS-232C into TCP / IP.

Similarly, in the studio 13, the master room 14, and the library 16, the devices 3a, 3b, 3c,... Installed in each room are sent to the terminal servers 17a, 17b, 17d for each room. Each is connected, the protocol is converted from RS-232C to TCP / IP, and the transceivers 11b, 11c, 11d, 11
e are connected to the LAN line 12 respectively.

Also in this example, the above-mentioned RS-232C
In the same manner as in the case of connection with a computer, the computer 10 constantly and regularly performs error detection on each of the video and audio devices 3a, 3b, 3c,... Installed in each of the rooms 13 to 16. In this case, a command is transmitted from the computer 1 by the TCP / IP protocol, and the transmitted command is transmitted to the terminal server 17a to 17d corresponding to each room by the RS-232C.
And sent to each of the video / audio devices 3a, 3b, 3c,. Further, it is also possible for the computer 10 to individually designate diagnostic items for these devices 3a, 3b, 3c,.

In the example shown in FIG. 4, similarly to the example shown in FIG. 3, the GPS receiver 102 is connected to the computer 1 via a predetermined interface (not shown), and the computer 1 It is connected to a predetermined network 61 via 51. Based on the positioning information from the positioning satellite 103, the GPS receiver 102 performs positioning calculation, and obtains GPS data 105. G
The PS data 105 is supplied to the computer 1, and the original I / O including error codes and self-diagnosis results from the video / audio devices 3 a, 3 b, 3 c,.
Both the SR signal and the GPS data 105 are ISR signals 1
06. That is, in the example of FIG.
The PS data 105 is stored from the beginning of the data section 110, followed by the original ISR signal. This ISR
The signal 106 is transferred to the network 61 via the modem 51.

In FIGS. 3 and 4 described above, connections for video and audio signals are omitted to avoid complexity.

FIG. 5 shows an example in which the present invention is applied to a single device, for example, a video camera 120. The configuration of the main body of the video camera 120 is substantially the same as the known configuration. That is, in the video camera 120, a subject image is incident via an optical system 121 including a lens and a lens drive system, and a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) 1
22. An image pickup signal output from the CCD 122 is supplied to a video signal processing unit 123, subjected to predetermined processing, converted into a video signal 124, and
Output from

The control unit 125 has, for example, a CPU 127, and exchanges signals with the optical system control unit 126 and the video signal processing unit 123. For example, the optical system 122 via the optical system control unit 126 And the signal processing in the video signal processing unit 123 is controlled.

The control unit 125 performs a self-diagnosis of the video camera 120. A predetermined signal is exchanged between the control unit 125 and the optical system control unit 126, the video signal processing unit 123, or each unit of the video camera 120 (not shown), so that a self-diagnosis can be performed.
The self-diagnosis result is stored and output in the data section 110 of the ISR signal 106. Further, the control unit 125 acquires information constituting the ISR signal 106 such as a device ID, error information, and maintenance information. The acquired information is also stored in the data portion 11 of the ISR signal 106.
0 is stored in a predetermined area and output.

On the other hand, the GPS
A receiver 102 is provided. A radio wave from the positioning satellite 103 is received by using the antenna 104 and the GPS receiver 102
Perform positioning calculation. The result of the positioning calculation is GPS data 1
05 is supplied to the control unit 125. GPS data 1
Reference numeral 05 denotes a data portion 11 of the ISR signal 106 together with information constituting the ISR signal 106 such as the above-mentioned self-diagnosis result.
0 is stored and output in another area.

The video camera 120 is provided with a communication device 128 for performing communication using a predetermined protocol.
The communication device 128 is connected to the control unit 125 so that communication between the video camera 120 and the outside is possible. For example, PHS (Personal Handy-phone)
System) or a mobile phone system. Further, a satellite mobile phone that performs telephone communication using a satellite can be used. Control unit 12
The ISR signal 106 output from 5 is supplied to the communication device 128 and transmitted to the outside.

As described above, in the present invention, since the GPS data 105 and the ISR signal 106 are communicated together, for example, in a remote system,
In addition to the device information by R, the user can know the position information and the time information at which the device information was transmitted.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a device management system to which the present invention is applied. For example, a large number of devices or systems 100 located at locations that are geographically separated from each other are connected to a network 61 using the Internet. These devices or system 100 may be the video and audio system described above with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4, or may be a single device as shown in FIG. The connection between the device or system 100 and the network 61 may be a connection via a public telephone line by the modem 51,
A direct connection by a dedicated line may be used. In addition, the communication device 12
8 can be connected by wireless communication.

A GPS receiver 102 is provided in each of the devices or the system 100, and the positioning satellite 1
03 and receives the radio wave from the
Perform calculations such as the position of. The calculation result is GPS data 1
05 as the corresponding device or system 1
00 is supplied.

In FIG. 6, components required for connection to the network 61, such as a network server, are omitted to avoid complexity. Similarly, detailed configurations such as the antenna 104 are omitted to avoid complexity.

On the other hand, in the device or system 100,
ISR for self-diagnosis information, error information and maintenance information
The signal 106 is stored in a predetermined area of the data section 110.
In each device or system 100, the GPS data 105 described above is stored in another area of the data section 110 of the ISR signal 106. An ISR signal 106 in which self-diagnosis information, error information, maintenance information, and GPS data 105 are stored together in a data section 110 is transmitted to the network 61.

By the way, a control center 200 composed of, for example, one or a plurality of computers is connected to the network 61. This control center 200
Receives the ISR signal 106 and receives the ISR signal 10
6, the status of the device can be visually displayed. For example, based on the device ID included in the ISR signal 106, a predetermined window display or the like is used to display the image of the device which is already provided in association with the device, and to display the status of the device.

Here, for example, the control center 20
0 displays a map image. And the network 61
From each of the plurality of devices or the system 100 connected to the ISR signal 106
Based on the S data 105, the position information of the device or the system 100 is superimposed on the map image and displayed. Furthermore, it is also possible to display information based on the corresponding ISR signal 106 for each of the position information of the device or the system 100.

For example, a desired device or system 10
By designating the position information of 0, a predetermined window is displayed, and based on the ISR signal 106 of the device or the system 100, an image of the device which is provided in advance is displayed, and the status of the device is displayed. By doing so, it is possible to immediately know the operating status and maintenance information of the devices or the system 100 existing in various places from the position of the control center 200.

The configuration shown in FIG. 6 is an example, and the present invention is not limited to this. Various applications are possible by combining accurate time information and position information based on GPS and information inherent in ISR.

In the above description, the present invention has been described so as to be applicable to a broadcasting system. However, the present invention is not limited to this example, and may be suitably applied to other devices.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention, the operating status and maintenance information of devices deployed in various places can be managed together with the position information of each device. For this reason, there is an effect that the monitor of the sold device existing in the world can be performed while staying at one place.

Further, according to the present invention, there is an effect that maintenance information of equipment existing in each area and version information of software used in the equipment can be grasped while staying at one place. .

Further, according to the present invention, there is an effect that the hour meter information and the like of each device can be grasped while staying at one place. Therefore, maintenance and the like for each device can be performed accurately, and the service can be improved.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, since the operating status of each device can be grasped collectively, there is an effect that services and maintenance can be executed efficiently. For example, based on information such as hour meter information, there is an effect that a service which is likely to require maintenance is known in advance and service can be performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a device management system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a packet configuration of an ISR signal.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram schematically showing an example in which the present invention is applied to a configuration of an error monitoring system based on ISR.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram schematically showing an example in which the present invention is applied to the configuration of an error monitoring system based on ISR.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an example in which the present invention is applied to a video camera.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of a device management system to which the present invention is applied.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... computer, 2a-2h ... video / audio equipment, 3a, 3b, 3c ... video / audio equipment, 51 ...
・ Modem, 61 ・ ・ ・ Network, 100 ・ ・ ・ Device or system, 102 ・ ・ ・ GPS receiver, 103
... positioning satellites, 105 ... GPS data, 106
..ISR signal, 120, video camera, 128
..Communication equipment

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A video and audio device used in a broadcasting station or the like, wherein: a position information obtaining means for obtaining own position information; a device information obtaining means for obtaining information indicating own situation; A video / audio device comprising: a transmitting unit that transmits both the position information acquired by the unit and the information indicating the situation acquired by the device information acquiring unit. 2. The video and audio device according to claim 1, wherein the position information obtained by the position information obtaining unit is transmitted by being included in information indicating the situation obtained by the device information obtaining unit. A video and audio device characterized by the following. 3. A video / audio device used in a broadcasting station, wherein the device management system manages one or more of the video / audio devices at a distant position. Managing each of the one or more video / audio devices based on position information indicating the position of each of the one or more video / audio devices and information indicating the status of each of the one or more video / audio devices; Characteristic device management system.