KR100222700B1 - Program guide changing method and apparatus in a digital television - Google Patents

Abstract

end. The technical field to which the invention described in the claims belongs

A method and apparatus for updating electronic program guide information in a digital television receiver.

I. The technical problem to be solved by the invention

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for updating electronic program guide information capable of quickly updating and maintaining accurate electronic program guide information for all channels in a digital television receiver at all times.

All. Summary of Solution of the Invention

In the standby state, the power is turned on at a predetermined time, and the channels are searched, and the electronic program guide information for each channel is received, updated, and then returned to the standby state.

la. Important uses of the invention

It is used to update the electronic program guide information in the digital television receiver.

Description

Method and apparatus for updating electronic program guide information in digital television receiver

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to digital television receivers, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for updating electronic program guide (EPG) information.

Next-generation digital broadcasts, such as HDTV (High Definition Television), can flexibly allocate the necessary bit rates to the services they need when they need them. That is, it is possible to transmit a plurality of programs in a limited transmission bandwidth of one RF (Radio Frequency) channel. For example, in some program schedules, it is possible to organize SDTV (Standard Definition Television) programs in multiple channels, and some time zones to HDTV programs in one channel. This concept is called ISDB (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting) and is also referred to as the basic concept of digital broadcasting in international conferences such as the International Telecommunication Union-Radio Communication Division (ITU-R).

Accordingly, in digital broadcasting, it is necessary to display a program guide on a screen of a TV receiver so that a user who is watching TV broadcasting can select one of several programs. To this end, digital broadcasts such as HDTV in the United States have adopted a method of defining and using unique EPGs to select programs. That is, the broadcasting station transmits EPG information for each RF channel, and the TV receiver receives and stores the EPG information and displays it on the screen when the user requests. An example of such an EPG is the United States Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) standard.

The EPG information is received through a channel being watched in a digital TV receiver, that is, a channel that is currently tuned in, and is updated with newly received EPG information when there is a content different from the previously received and stored EPG information.

On the other hand, certain broadcasting stations are likely to send their own EPG information, and users may watch only some channels for a long time. In this case, the EPG information for the other channels except for the channel being watched cannot be updated. Accordingly, when the EPG information for the other channels is changed, the TV receiver stores the EPG information different from the actual one. As a result, for the channels that are not being watched, the EPG information different from the actual information is provided to the user. In addition, the TV receiver is often left in a standby state for a long time. In this case, EPG information must be updated by searching all channels that are automatically programmed by the automatic channel search function when the power is turned on. This takes a long time to complete the update.

For reference, the automatic channel search function is a function normally provided in a TV receiver. The automatic channel search function is a function for automatically programming only channels that are received by searching for and storing broadcast-received channels for all channels.

As described above, the EPG information may be updated in time for the channel being viewed, but the EPG information different from the actual channel is provided to the user with respect to a channel that transmits its own EPG information among the channels not being watched. In addition, when the power is turned off in the standby state, it takes a long time to provide the EPG information to the user.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an EPG information updating method and apparatus capable of quickly updating and maintaining accurate EPG information for all channels in a digital TV receiver at all times.

1 is a block diagram of an HDTV receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention;

2 is a process flow diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention for achieving the above object is characterized in that the power is turned on at a predetermined time in the standby state and the channels are searched to receive the electronic program guide information for each channel, and then update again to the standby state.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Many specific details are set forth in the following description and in the accompanying drawings to provide a more general understanding of the invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In addition, detailed descriptions of well-known functions and configurations that may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted.

1 shows a block diagram of an HDTV receiver employing a Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG) standard as an example of a digital TV receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, a tuner 102 inputs a broadcast reception signal through an antenna 100 and selects an RF channel under the control of a microprocessor 124. Accordingly, the tuner 102 outputs an IF (Intermediate Frequency) signal according to the channel, and is converted into a baseband signal by the IF module 104 and output to the channel decoder 106. The channel decoder 106 performs channel decoding on the baseband signal input from the IF module 104 to reproduce the data bit stream. The TS (Transport Stream) decoder 108 separates audio data, video data and additional data from the data bit string reproduced by the channel decoder 106. At this time, the TS decoder 108 separates the audio data and the video data of the program selected by the microprocessor 124 among the programs received through the RF channel.

The audio data is applied to the audio decoder 110, decoded according to the MPEG standard, processed by the audio processing and output unit 112, and then output as voice through the speaker 114. The video data is applied to the video decoder 116, decoded according to the MPEG standard, and applied to the OSG (On Screen Graphic) mixer 118 and merged with the OSG data under the control of the microprocessor 124 to process the video and After processing at the output unit 120 is output on the screen through the water pipe (122). The OSG data is data for the microprocessor 124 to display various types of information on a screen in graphic or text.

The keypad 130 and the IR receiver 134 are connected to the microprocessor 124, which is a control unit of the HDTV receiver, through a user interface 128. The microprocessor 124 performs an operation according to a command input from the IR remote 132 through the keypad 130 or the IR receiver 134 according to a program stored in the memory unit 126. The IR remote 132 may be a wireless mouse such as an air mouse or a remote controller (REMOCON). The command applied from the IR remote 132 is received by the IR receiver 134 as an IR signal and applied to the microprocessor 124 through the user interface 128. Further, additional data is applied to the microprocessor 124 from the TS decoder 108, and the additional data includes the aforementioned EPG information.

In addition, the memory unit 126 may include a read only memory (ROM) for storing a program of the microprocessor 124 and a random access memory (RAM) for temporarily storing data according to program execution of the microprocessor 124. Memory) and EEPROM (Electrically Erasable and Programmable ROM) for storing various reference data.

Tuner 102, IF module 104, channel decoder 106, TS decoder 108, audio decoder 110, audio processing and output 112, video decoder 116, OSG mixer as described above 118, video processing and output 120, and memory 126 are connected via a bus 138 connected to the microprocessor 124.

On the other hand, the power supply unit 136 supplies the operating power to each part of FIG. 1 under the control of the microprocessor 124. As in the normal case, the operating power supply is required to operate only a portion of the main power required for normal operation and a portion thereof. It is divided into auxiliary power. However, in the present invention, the auxiliary power source additionally uses the EPG update power source separately from the normal standby power source for operating only the necessary parts in the standby state. The standby power is a minimum power required to perform an operation such as sensing a user key input while the TV receiver is turned off, and includes a microprocessor 124, a memory unit 126, a user interface 128, a keypad 130, It is a power source for operating only the IR receiver 134. The EPG update power supply additionally used by the present invention is a power supply only supplied to a portion necessary for receiving and updating EPG information as described below. Thus, the part necessary for receiving and updating the EPG information includes the tuner 102, the IF module 104, the channel decoder 106, and the TS decoder 108 in addition to the part to which standby power is supplied. As described above, supplying power separately in various ways is well known in the art, and thus, further detailed description thereof will be omitted.

2 is a flowchart illustrating a process according to an embodiment of the present invention, a process of turning on power at a predetermined time in a standby state, searching for channels, receiving and updating EPG information for each channel, and updating EPG information. After showing the process of going back to the standby state. The function according to the flowchart of FIG. 2 is programmed in the ROM of the memory unit 126 to be performed by the microprocessor 124 of FIG.

1 and 2, the operation according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail. First, when the main power of the TV receiver is turned off and the standby power is supplied to only the standby power, when the update cycle time elapses while the microprocessor 124 performs the standby state in steps 200 and 202 of FIG. In step 204, the EPG update power of the power supply 136 is turned on. As a result, the tuner 102, the IF module 104, the channel decoder 106, and the TS decoder 108 are operated. In addition, according to the present invention, the update cycle time is a predetermined time for setting an interval for periodically updating the EPG information in the standby state, and may be set as a default or may be set by the user as needed.

As described above, the microprocessor 124 receives and updates the EPG information for each channel while searching for the automatically programmed channels in step 206 as described above. In this case, the operation of receiving and updating the EPG information for each channel by the microprocessor 124 is the same as before. That is, the microprocessor 124 controls the tuner 102 to sequentially search for channels one by one, and then stores the EPG information included in the additional data applied from the TS decoder 108 in the memory unit 126 previously. If it is different from the EPG information, it is updated with newly received EPG information. At this time, in the present invention, the EPG information is stored in the nonvolatile memory device, that is, the EEPROM of the memory unit 126. Then, even when the power of the TV receiver is completely turned off, the EPG information is stored without being lost.

Then, when the EPG information update for all channels is finished, the microprocessor 124 turns off the EPG update power of the power supply unit 136 in step 208 and again becomes the standby state of the above 200, and the next update period When the time elapses, the above-described process is repeated.

Therefore, by constantly updating EPG information for all channels in the standby state, it is possible to quickly update and maintain accurate EPG information for all channels at all times. Accordingly, it is possible to always provide accurate EPG information to the user regardless of whether or not all channels are being viewed, and to immediately provide EPG information to the user even when the power is turned off.

Meanwhile, in the above description of the present invention, specific embodiments have been described, but various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. In particular, although the embodiment of the present invention shows an example of applying the present invention to an HDTV receiver, the same applies to all digital TV receivers using an EPG. In addition, although an example of using an EEPROM as a nonvolatile memory device for storing EPG information, a memory device such as a flash memory or a hard disk drive may be used if necessary. While searching for a channel that is automatically programmed when searching for a channel to update EPG information, the user may be configured to update EPG information by searching only channels desired by a user. Therefore, the scope of the invention should not be defined by the described embodiments, but should be defined by the equivalents of the claims and the claims.

As described above, the present invention has the advantage that it is possible to quickly update and maintain accurate EPG information for all channels at all times in digital TV receivers and provide them to the user.

Claims (9)

A method of updating electronic program guide information in a digital television receiver, The process of turning on the power every predetermined time in the standby state, Searching for channels to receive and update the electronic program guide information for each channel; And updating the electronic program guide information to the standby state again. The method of claim 1, wherein the power-on process turns on the power supplied only to a portion necessary to receive and update the electronic program guide information. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the search channels in the update process are channels set by a user. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the search channels in the update process are broadcast received channels that are automatically programmed by automatic channel search. An electronic program guide information updating device in a digital television receiver, Tuners for tuning channels, First and second IF modules for converting IF signals output from the tuner according to channel selection into baseband signals; A channel decoder for reproducing the data bit stream by channel decoding the signal output from the tuner; A TS decoder for separating audio data, video data, and additional data from the data bit string reproduced by the channel decoder; A memory unit for storing the electronic program guide information; A power supply unit for generating an electronic program guide information update power source for supplying only the tuner, the IF module, the channel decoder, and the TS decoder to a main power source and a standby power source; The electronic program guide information update power of the power supply unit is additionally turned on every predetermined time in the standby state, the channels are searched by the tuner, and the electronic program guide information received in each channel is checked from the additional data of the TS decoder. And a control unit for updating the memory unit to be in the standby state again. 6. The electronic program guide information updating device according to claim 5, wherein the control unit stores the electronic program guide information in a nonvolatile memory device of the memory unit. The electronic program guide information updating device according to claim 5, wherein the control unit is a microprocessor provided as a main controller of the digital television receiver. The electronic program guide information updating device according to claim 5 or 7, wherein the control unit searches for channels set by a user when searching for the channels. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5 or 7, wherein the control unit searches for broadcast-received channels that are automatically programmed by automatic channel search when searching for the channels.

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