JPS60148290A - Character broadcasting receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To convert character data among character broadcast signals into sound signals and reproduce by storing the program data selected from among the received character broadcast signals in a memory once and reading out the data by one character portion from the memory. CONSTITUTION:When the processing of the pattern data to be read out by one character portion from a temporary memory 20 is completed, a microprocessor MPU16 reads out in order address codes stored in a buffer memory 20, and designates the addresses of a sound code memory 25 one after another. Sound codes corresponding to the respective addresses are outputted from the memory 25, these code signals are decoded by a decoder 26 used for synthesizing sound to be converted into D/A, and pass through a filter/sound amplification circuit 27 to be converted into analog sound signals and thus to be reproduced as sound from a speaker 28.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION G) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a teletext receiving device for teletext signals such as television teletext.

(b) Prior art So-called television teletext broadcasting, in which text and graphic data are inserted and transmitted within the vertical blanking period of a television signal, has begun in many countries, and the development of teletext receivers to receive it has become more active. It has become. The outline of such a teletext receiver is described in various documents including, for example, the magazine "Television Technology J, October 1983 issue, pages 57 to 66," but conventional receivers of this type cannot receive it. It was very difficult to simply display data such as characters and figures on the screen of the receiver.

However, when considering the effective use of text broadcasting services for weather forecasts, traffic information, etc., it is insufficient to simply display text data on a screen, and the above text data can be read aloud at the same time as this screen display, or independently. It is considered desirable to convert it into a signal and play it back for listening.

(c) Purpose of the Invention The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to propose a teletext receiving apparatus that converts character data in a teletext signal into an audio signal and reproduces the same.

B) Structure of the Invention The teletext receiving device of the present invention reads data of a selected program from a received teletext signal one character at a time, and separates and extracts only the character data that can be converted into audio from each data. This configuration is characterized in that the character data is converted into an audio signal by a speech synthesis device and then reproduced.

(E) Example of implementation Figure 1 shows the case where the present invention is implemented in a receiver for pattern-based television text multiplex broadcasting adopted in Japan. The television signal processing section (
1) includes a TV tuner (4), a VIP (video intermediate frequency) amplification/detection circuit (5), a video signal and color signal processing circuit (6), and a video switching/display control circuit (7).
), and these parts are the same as a normal television receiver.

The character signal processing unit [21 includes a waveform equalization circuit (8) that corrects the phase characteristics of the character signal, and separates and extracts the character signal inserted in a predetermined horizontal period within the vertical blanking period. a character signal extraction circuit (9) for
Reference clock signal (CR) in the extracted character signal
Clock regeneration circuit I that regenerates a clock signal synchronized with
G, and a data identification control circuit tI2 that identifies the contents of data obtained by sampling (circuit 1υ) from character signals using the clock signal and performs processing to be described later. In addition, there is a memory 03 (14) for storing the identified and derived color data and pattern data, and a color matrix circuit that synthesizes both data read from each memory and outputs it as a character signal 400 of three primary colors. Q
8, the three primary color character signals are switched with the color video signal 40@ from the video/color signal processing circuit (6) by the video switching/control circuit (7), or are combined with each of the signals. is applied to the color picture tube αg.

Further, 1151 is a keyboard for selecting a teletext program, and fil is a microprocessor for writing and reading data of the selected program into and from the memory 113u41 and controlling the data identification control circuit 0.
'rI is a main memory attached to this processor, and the configuration of this part is no different from that of a conventional teletext receiver.

Next, the character/speech converter (3) uses a temporary memory ■ to temporarily store data for one page when data for one page of the program is accumulated in the pattern memory I, kana, kanji, and numbers. ROM+2υ for a character discrimination table that stores in advance dot patterns of characters and symbols that can be expressed vocally (that is, can be phonetically expressed), ROM123 for a dictionary table for converting kanji, compound words, numbers, etc. into hiragana; An address table ROM (c) that stores the address codes of the voice code memory (described later) corresponding to each of the converted hiragana codes, and a buffer that sequentially stores the address codes read from this ROMC!3. It is equipped with a memory @.In addition, - is a voice code memory in which the voice code representing each voice waveform of Hiragana (Japanese syllabary) is stored in advance at each address specified by the above address code, and ■ is a voice code memory that stores voice codes representing each voice waveform of Hiragana (Japanese syllabary) at each address specified by the above address code. (2) is a voice synthesis decoder that decodes the voice codes that are read out sequentially; and (2) is a filter and voice amplification circuit that smooths and amplifies the output signal of this decoder and converts it into a normal analogue voice signal. This part constitutes a so-called speech synthesis device.

The present invention is characterized in that the character signal processing section +27 and the character/speech conversion section (3) are thus combined. Well, the first one is the speaker.

Here, the three table ROMs (21J+22
1f231 will be explained briefly. First, in TV teletext broadcasting, not only character pattern data but also figure and still image pattern data are transmitted, so from these data it is possible to determine characters of a predetermined size or width that can be pronounced.
A character discrimination table ROM (2υ) is used for the purpose of identifying and extracting only the data of specific symbols (hereinafter referred to as characters) such as By comparing the pattern data for one character read from the table ROM (2υ) with each pattern data stored in the table ROM (2υ), it is first determined whether the input data is a character or not. An appropriate code signal representing the character (for example, a code that allows the address code of the ROM+2υ) is output.

Next, some of the above-mentioned characters represent one sound in one word (although if divided into consonants and vowels, it becomes two sounds), while others, such as kanji, represent multiple sounds in one character. Something is wrong,
Furthermore, even the same kanji has different readings depending on the on-yomi, kun-yomi, and idioms.

Also, when a number has multiple digits, each digit is read differently. For this reason, the dictionary table ROM
@ is recognized as a character as mentioned above and sent to the microprocessor I.
The code signal outputted from iG one character at a time is input, and if it corresponds to hiragana, that code (i.e., hiragana code) is directly output, and if it corresponds to hiragana, then katakana, kanji (including compound words), numbers , symbols, etc., the hiragana code representing the hiragana representing the pronunciation is sequentially output. for example,"
When the code signals representing the two characters ``Tozan'' are input in sequence, the corresponding hiragana codes for each of the three hiragana characters ``Tozan'' are sequentially output by the microprocessor (leVC). In this case, as mentioned above, in the case of a number, the microprocessor Oe must determine the number of digits in the number and output a hiragana code with a pronunciation according to the number of digits.For example, in the case of "12", When the code is ``120'', the code for ``quickly'' is output.

Further, the address table ROMI 231 is connected to the microprocessor (161, for example, as described above).
When the hiragana code indicating ``A'' is output, an address code indicating the address in the voice code memory Q51 where the voice code for ``A'' is stored is output in response.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 1 is generally constructed as described above, and its operation will be explained below with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. At this time, since the individual operations of each circuit in the character/speech converter (3) have been described above, the overall operation of the converter T3J will be explained based on the flowchart of FIG. 5.

First, the data content in the character signal (FIG. 2) separated and extracted from the television signal is identified and detected by the data identification control circuit a shown in FIG. Here, the extracted character signal corresponds to one of six types of data packets as is well known, depending on the contents of the data packet. ) or program index packet (PIP) is detected, the data in the packet is stored in the main memory by the microprocessor [lGK]. 1 and used for controlling subsequent screen display, etc. In addition, the pattern data packet of the selected program (
When FDP) is detected, the pattern data in the packet is stored in the pattern memory ■, and similarly, when the color code bucket) (CCP) of that program is detected, the color code data is stored in the color memory Q31C. be done. In addition,
□The pattern memory I has horizontal scroll packets (H
Although the pattern data in the PDP is also stored, here, for convenience of explanation, it is assumed that only the pattern data in the PDP is stored in the memory a4.

When the pattern data and color data stored in this way are accumulated for one page, for example, each of the data is read out from the memory 113 (141) and processed in the same way as in a conventional teletext receiver. By doing this, the picture tube r
Here, the following processing is particularly performed on the pattern data. That is, when one page of pattern data is stored in pattern memory I,
The microprocessor tte also transfers the one page worth of pattern data to the temporary memory ■. Then, the microprocessor reads out the above pattern data one character at a time (8 horizontal x 12 vertical) dots from this memory 2, and determines whether the data for each character is a character or not from the character discrimination table ROM [2υ The determination is made as described above with reference to .

If the data for one character that is replaced in this way is determined to be a character, the data will be changed to hiragana, katakana, kanji,
Dictionary table ROM 123, whether it is a number or the like.
Determined by referring to. In the case of hiragana, the hiragana code indicating the hiragana code is given from the my p'a processor IG to the address table ROM (231), and correspondingly, the address codes read out one after another from this ROM (23) are sent to the buffer memory. +24 in order.In addition, in the case of katakana, the microprocessor σ
G converts them into hiragana notation, and similarly stores the address code corresponding to each hiragana code in the buffer memory +24.

On the other hand, if the data for one character mentioned above is determined to be a kanji character or a number, the microprocessor tIG retains that data and reads out the next character and the next character one after another. By doing so, the pronunciation of the kanji, compound word, number string, etc. is determined, and the hiragana code corresponding to the pronunciation is output in order. As a result, address codes similar to those described above are successively stored in the buffer memory +24 from the address table ROMq.

In this way, the pattern data read one character at a time from the temporary memory circle is processed one after another.
When this process is completed for all the data in the memory (2), the microprocessor reads out the address codes stored in the buffer memory (2) in order and specifies the addresses in the voice code memory (3) one after another. Go. As a result, the audio code corresponding to each address is output one after another from this memory 4, and after this code signal is decoded and D/A converted by the audio synthesis decoder ■,
The signal passes through the filter and audio amplification circuit and is converted into an analog audio signal, which is then reproduced as audio from the speaker. At that time, this sound is picture tube +1! The series of data processing from reading the data in the temporary memory (a) to reading the address code in the buffer memo 241 is performed in correspondence with the sentence currently being displayed in l. It is necessary to ensure that one page's worth of data is displayed within the time it is being displayed.

In addition, in the above-mentioned character discrimination process, if there is no or very little data that can be discriminated as characters among one page of pattern data stored in the temporary memory circle, there is no actual character data. Therefore, the speech conversion for this page is stopped and the process returns to the standby state for the next page (see the flowchart in FIG. 3).

Furthermore, the process χ for converting katakana, kanji, numbers, etc. into hiragana may be performed using a method used in a word processor or the like. In addition, in that case, the ROM for the dictionary table
It is also possible to make it possible to determine the two readings of ``ha'' and ``he'' by, for example, providing a table for determining phrases.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the pattern data bucket) (FD
The explanation has been made assuming that only the pattern data in P) is displayed on the screen and played back as audio, but in reality, the pattern data in horizontal scroll packet (HDP) is also stored in the pattern memory α4.
Since the horizontal scrolling data is stored within the app, it is also possible to play back this horizontal scrolling data as audio.

Although the present invention has been described above in a case where the present invention is applied to a pattern-based TV teletext receiver, it can also be applied to a code-based TV teletext receiver. That is,
In code-based receivers, the character code extracted from the character signal is converted to character pattern data and displayed on the screen, so the converted pattern data is converted into audio in the same way as in the pattern-based case. All you have to do is process it. However, it is also possible to directly distinguish character codes, kanji, numbers, etc. and convert them into audio signals. It goes without saying that the present invention can also be applied to other teletext systems.

(F) Effects of the Invention According to the teletext receiving device of the present invention, information such as phonetic characters and symbols in a teletext signal is converted into an audio signal,
Since such information can be heard in audio together with the screen display or alone, the applications and scope of use of the teletext system can be expanded.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a teletext receiver according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the structure of a teletext signal targeted by this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a main part of the above embodiment. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of FIG. [11... Television signal processing section, (2)... Text signal processing section, (3)... Text/speech conversion section. Applicant Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. Patent Attorney Masao Sano Figure 8 Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] (11) The data of the selected program in the received teletext signal is temporarily stored in a memory, the data is read character by character from this memory, and only the character data that can be converted into voice within the data is separated and extracted. A teletext receiving device characterized in that extracted character data is reproduced as an audio signal by a speech synthesizer.