JPS59160387A - Terminal equipment of charged catv system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent illegal wathing at low cost by providing a filter to every PAY channel block and allowing a switch circuit to control whether the supply of a PAY channel to each home is permitted or not. CONSTITUTION:A CATV signal obtained through a trunk line cable 11 is distributed into respective channels by a distributor 12 and PAY channel block filters 13, 14, 15..., and furthr distributed by a distributor 16 to a fixed contact of a corresponding switch in an RF switch group 17 having one switch element for each home (terminal). A signal appearing at the side of the movable contact of this switch is led to a mixer 18 provided corresponding to each home, further passed through a mixer 19 for normal channel mixing, and sent to the home. Said switch group 17 is turned on and off under the control based upon the operation of a control box 23 and a desired PAY channel is supplied to each home.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to outdoor type terminal equipment in a pay-0 ATV system.

Conventionally, in this type of paid CATV system, each household has been equipped with a control box that controls whether or not to allow viewing, or a notch filter has been installed at the outlet of each household's power line. There is.

That is, as shown in Fig. 1, the required number of outputs of CATV signals are extracted from the CATv cable 1 via tap 2, and when viewing is not permitted, channel trap 3 for the channel to be prohibited is dropped. It is installed between cable 4. This allows each home to select and view the registered channels. The channel trap 3 is required for each household, and one channel trap is required for each channel. As a result, due to trap manufacturing constraints, it is difficult to connect a large number of channel traps, which limits the number of PAY channels that can be serviced, and also requires a channel trap for each household. There were drawbacks.

The present invention was made based on the above circumstances, and
Set up a filter for each Y channel block and allow/'
It is an object of the present invention to provide terminal equipment in a pay-0 ATV system that is grouped so that it can be supplied to each terminal under the control of a switch circuit regarding disapproval.

For this purpose, the present invention supplies a transmission signal inputted to a distributor via a channel block filter to a mixer for each terminal via a plurality of parallel RF switches, and also connects the RF switch to a mixer for each terminal. The feature is that on/off control is performed by a controller that allows or disallows permission at each time.

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to FIG. In the figure, numeral 11 is a trunk cable,
A transmission signal is introduced into outdoor terminal equipment A via a distributor. In the outdoor terminal device A, the transmission signal is divided by the input distribution system 12 into PΔY channel block filters 13, 14, 15, . are distributed to the R switch 17 having one switch element for each household (terminal). The RF switch 17 is provided corresponding to each channel block filter, and each RF switch is connected to each household (
The signal is connected so as to be input to a mixer 18 prepared for each terminal. Note that the transmission signal is distributed from the input distribution system to filters 20 and 21, which are basic service channels, and for a predetermined frequency band,
The signal is inputted via the distributor 22 to the mixer 19 of each household (terminal). On the other hand, the signal of the previous PAY channel is input from the mixer 18 to the mixer 19. However,
Via a drop cable 24, for example, in X's home, a television receiver 26 receives images of the basic channels 'CHt-CHs, CH7-CH+s, as well as authorized channel channels, via a converter 25.

Also, in Y's household, only basic channels are on the TV.
The image is received by the receiver 27. Furthermore, in Z's home, only the basic channel 11 is received by the television receiver 27, but the transmission signal distributed by the distributor 28 is input to the converter 26, and the transmitted signal is transmitted to the television receiver 26 from the channels that are allowed. The image is received.

For the R switch 17, there is a control box 23 corresponding to each channel, which controls on/off the switching elements of the R and F switches 11 corresponding to each channel for each registered household (terminal).

With this system, each home has multiple TV receivers for viewing, and a single B1 drop cable can be used. In addition, the above outdoor terminal equipment uses a relatively intermediate filter,
Since PAY services can be allocated using the RF switch configuration, there is no need to add a scramble signal to the transmitted signal and descramble it at each home, and therefore there is no need for an effective converter or descrambler. Since the RF switch and the like are general passive elements, they can operate stably even under poor temperature conditions such as low or high temperatures.

As described in detail above, in the present invention, a filter is set up for each PAY channel block, and a trap is configured by collecting them so that they can be supplied to each terminal under the control of a switch circuit for permission/denial. Since it is possible to select multiple stations on each terminal, and to prevent eavesdropping on each terminal, there is no need to use a scrambling method, which reduces system costs and terminal equipment costs. can be played.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing a conventional system, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. 1... Trunk cable, 2... Tap-off, 3...
Channel trap, 4...drop cable, 11
... Trunk cable, 12... Input distribution system, 13.1
4.15...PΔY channel block filter, 1
6...Distributor, 17...-RF switch, 18.19
...mixer, 20.21...filter, 22...
Distributor, 23...Control box, 24...
Drop cable, 25...Converter, 2G, 2
7...TV receiver, 28...Distributor, X, Y,...
Z...Each household. Patent applicant: Pioneer Co., Ltd. Agent: Patent attorney: Makoto Kobashi, Patent attorney: Susumu Murai

Claims (1)

[Claims] The transmission signal input to the distributor via the channel block filter is supplied to the mixer for each terminal via multiple parallel R and F switches, and the RF switch is permitted/disallowed for each terminal. A terminal device in a paid CATV system that is characterized by on/off control using a controller.