JPS63263885A - Video conference system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain the image sight of an opponent station quicker than its own station by providing a photographing scope designating key group to divide the general view of the opponent station, designate the photographing scope and serve as a display part to display a present photographing scope and controlling the sight of an opponent station camera with photographing scope designating information. CONSTITUTION:When the sight of a camera 7 of an opponent station 1b is changed and the key of a photographing scope designating key group 22 equivalent to the photographing designating scope of an opponent station video codec 1b in its own video codec 1a is depressed, a small designated block number is delivered to a system control part 10 as the photographing scope designating information. For the information, the multiplexing with the image data at an its own station multiplexing part 13 and the separating with the image data at an opponent station separating part 14 are executed and the information is delivered through the control part 10 of an opponent station to a camera control part 8. In a control part 8, the above-mentioned designating information is outputted to a photographing scope determining part. At the photographing scope determining part, the photographing position of a camera is informed to a camera moving control part from the designating information and the present position information of the camera and the direction of the camera is directed to the designated photographing position.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a television conference system, and in particular aims to aim a television camera of the other station in a short time by remote control.

(Prior Art) FIG. 6 is a block diagram when aiming a remote station's television camera by remote control in a conventional television conference system.

In the figure, (ja) and (lb) are the video codec, (2) is the remote operation panel, (6) is the TV receiver, (7) is the TV camera, (8) is the camera controller, and (9) is the above video codec (la),
Dedicated line between (lb), (lO) is system control unit,
(11) is a code differentiation section, (12) is a transmission control section, (13)
) is a multiplexing section, (14) is a demultiplexing section, and (15) is a decoding section.

Next, the operation will be explained. In Fig. 6, the video codec (1a) is connected to the own station, the video codec (lb) is connected to the other station, and the camera controller (8) is connected to the other station by operating the remote operation panel (2) of the own station. The operation of aiming the TV camera (7) of the other station by controlling the camera will be described below.

First, by operating the remote operation panel (2) of your own station, the TV camera 8 shift information can be accessed from the system control unit (10).
) is converted into a transmission format by the transmission control unit (12
) is multiplexed with the image data and sent to the dedicated line (9).

On the other hand, in the other station, the television camera movement information is separated from the image data by the separation unit (14) of the transmission control unit (12), and the system control unit (10) uses the camera controller (8) to separate the television camera movement information from the image data.
) is converted into a format for control and gives commands to the camera controller (8).

The television camera (7) moves based on a movement command from the camera controller (8), and the video captured by the television camera (7) is sent to the encoder (11) and multiplexer (13) of the other station. , dedicated line (9) and own station separation unit (14)
), through the decoding unit (15) and then to the own station's television receiver (6).
) will be displayed.

Such operations are repeated until the target station's television camera (7) is aimed at the desired aim.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) Since the conventional video conferencing system is configured as described above, when trying to aim the TV camera (7) of the other station, the aim is to align the aim with the target aim. You have to operate the remote control panel (2) while visually viewing your own station's TV receiver (6) until the aim matches, making it difficult to operate smoothly. During this time, it is necessary to continue transmitting information on the movement of the TV camera, and since the TV camera is constantly moving during this time, a large amount of information is generated, and there is a problem that this time becomes long, especially when using a low-speed line. Ta.

This invention was made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a video conference system in which the image of the other station can be aimed smoothly and in a short time from the operation unit of the own station. shall be.

[Means for solving problems]

The video conferencing system according to the present invention allows video codecs that are separated from each other to operate and control the TV camera of the other station by remote control, and to transmit information on the shooting range designation of the TV camera from the remote operation panel to the remote control panel. In a video conferencing system equipped with a transmission control unit that multiplexes data with data and sends it to a line and separates sent television camera shooting range designation information and image data, the remote operation panel is equipped with a video camera of the other party. The device specifies the shooting range by subdividing the panoramic view, and also provides a shooting range specification key group that also serves as a display section to display the current shooting range, and controls the aim of the other station's TV camera based on the shooting range specification information. be.

(Function) The video conference system according to the present invention transmits only the shooting range designation information by specifying the shooting range while looking at the display on the remote operation panel, so that the aiming of the TV camera (7) of the other station can be done smoothly and quickly. It can be done in time.

〔Example〕

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

In Figure 1, (la) and (lb) are video codecs, (2) are remote operation panels, (6) are television receivers, (7) are television cameras, (8) are camera controllers, and (9) are Dedicated line, (lO) is a system control unit, (11) is an encoding unit, (12) is a transmission control unit, (13)
) is a multiplexing section, (14) is a demultiplexing section, and (15) is a decoding section.

Therefore, Figure 2 shows the remote operation panel (2) in Figure 1.
(21) shows the appearance of the TV camera (21) as before.
7) Operation keys for instructing movement information etc. for (
22) is a group of shooting range designation keys for specifying shooting ranges by dividing the panoramic view taken by the TV camera (7) of the other station. It also has a function.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the remote operation panel (2), and (3) is a display section that displays the shooting range of the camera. (
4) is a display control unit that controls the display unit (3);
5) is a system control interface section.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of the camera controller (8), in which (8a) is a camera movement control unit that controls the movement of the camera, and (8b) is a camera that determines the shooting range from the camera's shooting position information. Shooting range determining unit, (5)
is a system control interface unit that interfaces with the system control unit (10).

FIG. 5 shows an example of the transmission frame format of data sent from the video conference device to the line.
(16) is frame synchronization bit F1 (17) is frame header information H, and (18) is system control information C1 (1
9) is moving image data, and (20) is an error detection word ECC added by the multiplexer (13).

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be explained with reference to FIGS.

In the video codec (lb) of the other station shown in Fig. 1, first, the system control unit (lO
), photographing range information corresponding to information about which block of the photographable range, which is divided into several small blocks, corresponds to the position currently photographed by the partner station camera is passed. In FIG. 4, the camera movement control section (8a) in the camera controller (8) of the other station outputs camera photographing position information determining the current position of the camera to the photographing range determining section (8b). Next, the photographing range determination unit (8b) determines which small block the camera photographing position information corresponds to when the photographable range of the camera is divided into small blocks, and sets the number of the corresponding small block in the photographing range information. as system control interface section (5)
Output to. The system control interface section receives this information and passes it to the system control section (1G).

Therefore, the shooting range information is stored in the system control unit (lO).
System control information (18) in the transmission frame format shown in Figure 5 after being converted to the transmission format in
It is multiplexed with the video data from the encoding unit (11) in the multiplexing unit (13) of the transmission control unit (12) in the time slot C, and is sent to the own station's video codec (LA) in a predetermined transmission frame format. Sent out. □ The local video codec (la) that receives the multiplexed data transmitted in this way transmits the system control information (18) from the C slot in the transmission frame to the transmission control unit (1).
2) is separated in the separation unit (14) and passed to the system control unit (10).

The separated system control information (1B) is converted into a format in the system control unit (10), and outputted as shooting range information of the other station to the remote operation panel (2) according to the runaway interface.

In FIG. 3, in the remote operation panel (2), the system control interface section (5) which receives the shooting range information of the other station, passes this information to the display control section (4), thereby controlling the display control section (4). 4) causes the display unit (3) corresponding to the designated photographing small block number to be displayed (the photographing range instruction key group (22) shown in FIG. 2).

Next, when changing the aim of the other station's TV camera (7), first press the shooting range designation key group (22) on the own station's video codec (1a) that corresponds to the shooting specified range of the other station's video codec (lb). When the key is pressed, the designated small block number is outputted as shooting range designation information to the system control interface section (5) via the display control section (4). The system control interface unit (5) receives this information and passes it to the system control unit (IO) according to the interface with the system control unit (IO). The shooting range designation information is sent from the system control unit (lO) to the own station multiplexing unit (13) in the same way as the above shooting range information.
), and the video data is separated from the video data by the partner station separation unit (14), and then passed to the partner station camera controller (8) via the partner station system control unit (10). After this, in the camera controller (8),
The system interface section (5) is connected to the system control section (l
From O), the receiver outputs the captured photographing range designation information to the photographing range determining section (8b). The photographing range determining section (8b) notifies the camera movement control section (8a) of the next photographing position of the camera based on this photographing range designation information and the current camera position information. The camera movement control unit (8) receives the shooting position information.
In step a), the camera is directed toward the designated photographing position.

Furthermore, the image signal of the camera that photographed the specified position is sent to the encoder (11), multiplexer (13), and dedicated Ooj! of the video codec (1b) of the other station. (c+) and the separation unit (14) and decoding unit (15) of the local station video codec (1a)
The image is then displayed on the television receiver (6) in a short period of time.

Note that in the above embodiment, a means for smoothly aiming the television camera (7) of the video codec (1b) of the other station by far-yang operation was shown, but the video codec (1a) of the own station
If the output of the multiplexing unit (13) of the transmission control unit (, 12) is connected to the input of the separation unit (14) as a transmission control unit loopback, the shooting position of the local camera is changed to the local video codec (1a). ) when controlling and aiming the own camera by specifying the shooting position of the own camera from the own remote operation panel (2). has a similar effect.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to specify the aim of the TV camera of the other station while looking at the shooting range specification keys that also serve as the display on the remote operation panel, and the shooting range specification information is sent to the other station once. Since the information is only sent, the aim of the TV camera of the other station can be adjusted smoothly and in a short time, and the amount of information generated can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram according to an embodiment of the invention, FIG. 2 is an external view of a remote operation panel according to the invention, FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of a remote operation panel according to an embodiment of the invention, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of a camera controller according to an embodiment of the invention, FIG. 5 is a transmission frame format diagram according to an embodiment of the invention, and FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a conventional video conference system. In the figure, (1) is a video codec, (2) is a remote operation panel, (3) is a group of shooting range specification keys that also serve as a display section, (4) is a display control section, (6) is a television receiver, (
7) is a TV camera, (8) is a camera controller, (
9) is a dedicated line, (lO) is a system control unit, (11)
is an encoding unit, (12) is a transmission control unit, (13) is a multiplexing unit, (14) is a demultiplexing unit, (15) is a decoding unit, (8a)
(8b) is a camera movement control unit, and (8b) is a shooting range determination unit. In addition, in the figures, the same reference numerals indicate the same or equivalent parts.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Each of the video codecs that are separated from each other has a remote operation panel that remotely operates and controls the TV camera of the other station, and multiplexes the shooting range designation information of the TV camera from the remote operation panel with image data and sends it to the line. , in a video conferencing system equipped with a transmission control unit that separates transmitted television camera shooting range designation information and image data, the remote operation panel includes:
A group of shooting range designation keys is provided which subdivides the entire view captured by the video camera of the other station and designates the shooting range, and also serves as a display section to display the current shooting range, and the aim of the TV camera of the other station is set using the shooting range specification information. A video conference system characterized by controlling.