KR100514423B1 - Program selection system for digital television receivers - Google Patents

Abstract

The program selection system for a digital television receiver includes a numeric keypad and scrolling keys to select a channel on which multiple program bit-streams are received. The numeric keypad and scrolling keys can also be used to select individual programs from multiple program bit-streams. In one embodiment of the invention, a numeric keypad is used to select a channel to select a program of the channel. According to another embodiment of the present invention, a numeric keypad is used to select the channel and the other key is used in steps through the programs included in the multiple program bit-stream carried by the channel. In the third embodiment, scrolling keys are used to select the next program or the next channel of the channel, depending on whether the currently selected program is the last program of the bit-stream carried by the channel.

Description

Program selection system for digital television receivers

The present invention relates generally to digital television receivers, and more particularly to a method of selecting programs in a television receiver that operates in accordance with digital television standards.

Current analog television systems transmit one program per channel. The choice between the channels being broadcast at any given time is made by adjusting the tuner to tune to the frequency of the desired channel.

There are several digital television systems that transmit multiple programs over satellite links. Such systems include electronic program guides that map each program number to a particular transponder signal, a particular channel transmitted by the transponder, and a particular program of the channel. Therefore, the electronic program guide is required to tune to the program transmitted by one of these digital satellite systems. Therefore, the electronic program guide must be generated at the head-end and decoded by the receiver to tune to the particular program.

A digital television standard as described in DOC.A / 53 entitled "ATSC Digital Television Standard" published by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, which is incorporated herein by reference to its teaching of digital television signals, It is expected to transmit multiple programs of two terrestrial broadcast channels or cable channels. Therefore, each of several broadcasters transmitting signals in a given area will transmit a signal containing one high resolution program or multiple programs that will be high resolution or standard resolution programs. When each broadcaster transmits multiple programs over the channel, the standard does not describe any good way by means of these programs to be selected. Digital television standards are available from the International Standards Organization and are incorporated herein by reference to the teachings of the MPEG-2 Digital Video Coding Standard, ISO / IEC 13818-2, IS, 11/94, "Generic Coding of Moving. A subset of the MPEG-2 standard defined by the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) described in the publication entitled Pictures and Associated Audio, Recommendations H.626.

1 is a block diagram of a television receiver incorporating an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the digital audio / video processor shown in FIG. 1.

3 is a plan view of a remote control device suitable for use with the digital television receiver shown in FIG.

4 and 5 show program number indications and good channel numbers to be generated by the digital receiver shown in FIG.

6, 7, 8 are flow charts useful for describing the operation of the program selection mechanism of the television receiver shown in FIG.

The present invention is implemented in a digital television receiver having a program selection device. The program selection device includes means for selecting a frequency corresponding to the television channels and second means for selecting respective programs in the television channel.

1 is a block diagram of a digital television receiver suitable for use with the inventive conditions. In FIG. 1, a radio frequency (RF) signal comprising digital television signal components is received at tuner 110. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, such a signal has a bandwidth of 6 MHz and includes one or more digital television programs. Each program complies with the ATSC standard referred to above and includes at least a video component and an audio component. If the signal contains only one program, then the program contains a high-definition television (HDTV) signal (eg, the main profile, the high-level (MP @ HL) signal as defined in the MPEG-2 standard), and if the signal is five Each program will be an HDTV program or a standard definition television (SDTV) signal if it contains two programs (eg, main profile, main level (MP @ ML) signal as defined in the MPEG-2 standard).

The tuner 110 demodulates the RF signal and provides the digital signal to the digital audio / video signal processor 112. The audio / video signal processor is controlled by the microprocessor 114 to separate at least one program from the digital signal and store the signal in memory 116 as elementary bit-stream or program elementary stream (PES) packets. . The digital audio / video processor 112 decodes the audio portion of the program and converts it to an analog signal. Such a signal is provided to an analog audio processor 118 that amplifies the analog audio signal and basic viewer controls such as volume, bass, treble and balance, for example. The processed analog audio signal is provided to an audio output port 122. A voice system (not shown) will be connected to the audio output port 122 to play the audio portion of the selected television program.

Digital audio / video processor 112 also decodes the encoded video components of the program stored in memory 116 and provides analog video signals to analog video processor 120. The processor 120 adjusts the characteristics of the analog video signal such as, for example, color saturation, hue, brightness, and contrast to provide the processed video signal to the video output port 124. A television monitor (not shown) will be connected to the video output port 124 to play the video portion of the selected television program.

The microprocessor receives instructions from the optical receiver 130 to control the operation of the tuner 110, the digital audio / video processor 112, the analog audio processor 118, and the analog video processor 120. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, such an optical receiver is responsive to optical signals generated by the remote control device. The preferred remote control device shown in FIG. 3 is described in greater detail below.

2 is a block diagram of a digital audio / video processor suitable for use as the processor 112 shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, the demodulated digital television signal is received from the tuner 110 by the channel data processor 210. This signal contains a sequence of transport packets and defines a transport bit-stream. Each transport packet occupies 188 bytes and includes data defined for all transport bit-streams, such as a Program Association Table (PAT); Data used for a group of components that define a single program, such as a Program Map Table (PMT), or data used for only one component of a single program (for example, audio, video, or data). It includes.

Processor 210 monitors the transport bit-stream to extract PAT transport packets and provides these packets to microprocessor 114 via microprocessor interface 228. These packets are identified by having a packet identifier (PID) value of zero. The PAT contains a table of programs carried in the transport bit-stream and the PIDs of their corresponding PMTs. The microprocessor 114 decodes these packets to determine the PID values of the packets containing the PMTs for each program included in the transport bit-stream. Since the processor 210 separates the PMT packets from the transport bit-stream and provides these packets to the microprocessor 114, the microprocessor 114 using the interface 228 may then transmit these PID values to the channel data processor 210. Send to. Microprocessor 114 recovers PMTs from packets passed by channel data processor 210. Therefore, the microprocessor always has a current set of program mapping tables for the transport bit-stream received.

Using the PMTs, the microprocessor 114 controls the transmission processor 220 to recover program components for the program that has been selected by the viewer from the transport bit-stream. Program components are included in transport packets where each component has a separate PID, as described below with reference to Table 3. In response to the PID values provided through microprocessor interface 228, the transport processor captures each packet having a PID corresponding to the selected program, extracts a payload portion from the transport packets, and Payload portions are stored in memory 116 in a first-in-first-out (FIFO) data structure, respectively. Data transfers from the transfer processor to memory 116 are made using direct memory access (DMA) technology via memory controller 222.

In accordance with the referenced ATSC and MPEG-2 standards, transport packets are relatively small (188 byte) fixed length packets that encapsulate variable length program elementary stream (PES) packets. The payload portion of the PES packets are elementary bit-streams that in turn define encoded components. The preferred transport processor 220 may be controlled by the microprocessor 114 to decode transport packets into PES packets or to decode PES packets into their respective elementary bit-streams. PES packets or bit-streams are stored in a FIFO data structure.

Since the packet contents for the video and audio components of the program are stored in a FIFO data structure, the microprocessor 114 causes the memory controller 222 to send data to the audio decoding processor 224 and the video decoding processor in the FIFO data structures. (226). If processors 224 and 226 process data in the form of PES packets, transport decoder 220 stores payloads from transport packets into FIFO data structures. If the decoding processor 224 or 226 receives the bit-stream data, the transport processor also decodes the PES packets respectively to provide the elementary bit-stream to the processor.

Audio processor 224 and video processor 226 decode the compressed digital data of each bit-stream to provide analog audio and video signals to analog audio processor 118 and analog video processor 120, respectively.

As mentioned above, in this preferred embodiment of the present invention, the viewer uses a remote control device to select a program for viewing on a television monitor connected to the decoder shown in FIG. Since the transmit processor 220 extracts a different program stream from the transmit bit-stream and the memory interface 222 sends the extracted audio and video program streams to the audio and video decoders, respectively, the selection signals are transmitted from the remote control device. It is sent to a microprocessor 114 that controls 220. To know how different program streams are extracted, it is helpful to understand the structure of PAT and PMT. These are presented below Table 1 and Table 2.

The Program Related Tables (PATs) consist of one or more sections, each of which has the structure defined in Table 1.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the PAT has only one section, that is, section 0

It is assumed to be lost.

The PAT is used by the microprocessor 114 to identify packets containing PMTs for each of the programs carried in the transport bit-stream. In other words, each program of the transport bit-stream has a PID of packets including one input of the PAT defining a program number for the program and a PMT for the program. As shown in Table 1, there are N program_number values and N program_map_PID values of the PAT, one of each of the N programs being included in the transport bit-stream. Table 2 defines the structure of the program schedule.

As defined by Table 2, there may be the same number as the M base-PID values defined for each PMT. Each elementary PID value identifies packets that contain a separate program elementary stream corresponding to each component of a program. The stream-type field of the PMT input indicates whether the elementary stream is audio, video or data, and also identifies the encoding method used to create the bit-stream. Therefore, by knowing the stream type and the underlying PID for each program component of the PMT, the microprocessor 114 can transfer the components for the selected program into the FIFO data structure of the memory 116 and from these data streams with audio. Channel data processor 210 and transmit processor 220 may be directed to send to video processors 224 and 226.

Television programs encoded according to program identification standards defined by the ATSC may be separated from the transport bit-stream using only the PMT PID extracted from the PAT. The PMT PID for programs following the standard will be used to obtain PIDs for at least the audio and video components of the program. It is assumed that Program Clock Reference (PCR) values for a program will be included in the video bit-stream. According to this standard, the PMT PID (also known as the base PID) can have a value between two parts, i.e., 1 to 225, and the program number and several of the program stored in eight higher order bits (11: 4). It is a 13-bit value that contains a low order 4-bit value (3: 0) that changes for the components. The program number portion of the PMT PID is the same as the program number field of the PMT input from the PAT shown in Table 1. Set of preferred components for a television program corresponding to the standard is shown in Table 3.

A program conforming to the standard has a logic-0 in the most significant bit 12 of the 13 bit PMT_PID. Programs that do not conform to the standard have a logic 1 at these bits.

Shortly after synchronizing to the transmit bit-stream, the microprocessor 114 generates a program correspondence table that associates each program number identified in the PAT with the PIDs of each of the PIDs of the components of the program identified in the PMT or in the standard. Configure.

The digital audio / video processor 112 shown in Figs. 1 and 2 can process multiple program streams simultaneously and send the components of the program to separate FIFO structures, respectively. This would be an advantage when the viewer wants to cycle through several programs transmitted on a single channel, as described below. To help high speed switching between the various programs transmitted on a single channel, all programs transmitted by the transport bit-stream will be decoded and assigned to each of the sets of FIFO structures. When a request to change from a channel to another program is received, the microprocessor 114 (shown in FIG. 1) replaces each of the bit-streams from the newly selected program with an audio and video processor in place of the bit-stream from the previous program. The memory controller 222 (shown in FIG. 2) is sent to provide to the nodes 224, 226.

3 is a plan view of a remote control device suitable for use in the present invention. The preferred remote control device 300 includes a numeric keypad 310, an input key 312, a program selection key 314 and up and down-scrolling keys 316, 318. As described below, the keys on such a device will be used to select programs and channels of a set-top converter or television receiver that receives multiple programs digitally coded with television signals conforming to the ATSC standard referenced above.

4 and 5 show good on-screen displays that may be manufactured by a television receiver or set-top converter suitable for use in the present invention. Such indications include a channel portion and a program portion. The preferred indication shown in FIG. 4 is indicated when the microprocessor 114 causes the tuner to switch to channel 4. In the absence of a particular program selection, the system extracts the first program from the transport bit-stream, in the case of program 1. If the viewer later selects the program 2 by one of the methods described below, the on-screen display shown in Fig. 5 appears, keeping the same channel number and changing the program number to "2".

The television receiver or set-top converter according to the invention switches programs using one or more of the three methods described below. According to the first method described below with reference to FIG. 6, the viewer uses the numeric keypad 310 to select a channel and then select a program within that channel. Using the second method described below with reference to FIG. 7, the viewer selects a channel and then uses the numeric keypad 310 or scrolling button to use the program select button 314 to advance past the programs of a particular channel. Fields 316 and 318 are used. The third method utilizes both scrolling buttons 316 and 318 and proceeds past the channels and programs of each channel. These methods are not mutually exclusive and with minor modifications all three methods will be performed in a single program selection device.

All flowcharts described below illustrate the processing performed by the microprocessor 114 in response to program selection received from the program selection device 300 via the optical receiver 130. Button inputs that initiate these processes are interpreted as interrupts by the microprocessor 114. When a signal is received from the optical receiver 130, it causes the microprocessor 114 to interrupt and begins the process of collecting and parsing a sequence of signals. When the microprocessor parses a sequence according to an instruction such as, for example, "1, 2, input", it carries out the appropriate process shown in Fig. 6, 7 or 9. In the example, the process shown in FIG. 6 will be performed, past number 12.

6 is a flowchart describing a first program selection method. Using this method, the viewer designates a channel number using the keypad 310, presses an input key 312, and designates a program number of a channel using the keypad 310, and presses an input key again. As described above, if the viewer selects only a channel instead of a specific program, the selection circuit according to the present invention will automatically select the program of the channel with the lowest program number. In order to distinguish channel selection, program selection pairs and two sequential channel selections, a good system includes a timer.

In FIG. 6, the number is received at step 610. Next, at step 612, the microprocessor 114 checks the timer to determine if the timer is timed-out. If so, the number is considered a channel number, and microprocessor 114 performs step 614 by instructing the tuner to change to a particular channel number, and resets the timer at step 615. In step 616, the microprocessor 114 writes the program match table from the PAT and optionally the PMT data of the bit-stream received over the channel, causing the channel data processor 210 to generate the lowest match in the program match table. Instructs to separate and decode the packets corresponding to the program number.

If at step 612 the timer is not time-out, the particular number is considered to be the program number in the channel, and at step 618, the microprocessor 114 retrieves the PID associated with the particular program number from the program match table. Directs channel data processor 210, transport processor 220 and memory controller 222 to recover and provide bit-streams with these PIDs to audio processor 224 and video processor 226, if a program If there is no program corresponding to a particular program number in the match table, the microprocessor 114 controls the display on the screen to display the blank screen with the channel number and "Invalid program Number ##", where "##" Corresponds to the program number received in step 610. After step 616 or step 615, step 620 is performed that returns control to the process step that was operating when the microprocessor 114 was interrupted.

7 illustrates a process performed by microprocessor 114 that can be used as an alternative to selecting a program via numeric keypad 310. Using this process, the viewer will select a channel in the manner described above with reference to FIG. When a channel is selected, the microprocessor 114 causes the tuner to tune to the selected channel and recovers the selective PMTs for the PAT and transport bit-stream to create a program match table. The microprocessor 114 then instructs the digital audio / video processor 112 to decode the lowest numbered program of the transport bit-stream. To view other programs in the transmit bit-stream of the selected channel, the viewer presses the PROG SEL button 314. When the microprocessor 114 detects that this button is pressed, it performs the process shown in FIG. In this process, the first step, step 710, receives an indication that the PROG SEL button 314 has been pressed. In step 712, the process determines whether the currently selected program is the last program in the program match table for the channel. If not, then at step 716, the microprocessor instructs the digital audio / video processor 112 to decode and display using the PIDs for the next program in the program match table. If, at step 712, the currently selected program is the last program of the program matching table, then at step 714, the microprocessor 114 uses the transport packets with PIDs associated with the first program of the table to processor 112. Instructs to decode and display. Therefore, by repeatedly pressing the PROG SEL button, the viewer will cycle through all the programs of a given transport bit-stream. If there is only one program in the beat-stream, pressing the PROG SEL button has no effect. After step 714 or step 716, step 718 returns control to the process that was performed when the microprocessor 114 was interrupted.

The final selection method to be described requires the use of scroll up key 316 and scroll down key 318. Due to the similarity in the operation of these keys, only the process performed for one of the keys, ie scroll up key 316, is described. The process starts at step 810 when the process is called because the scroll up key 316 is already pressed. In step 812, the process determines whether the program now displayed is the last program in the program match table for the channel. If not, then at step 814, the microprocessor 114 instructs the digital audio / video processor 112 to decode and display using data from packets with PIDs associated with the next program in the program match table. . However, at step 812, if the process determines that the currently displayed program is the last program in the table, the microprocessor 114 instructs the tuner 110 to tune to the next channel in the scan list, and once the channel has been tuned, Control is passed to step 816 instructing the audio / video processor 112 to extract and decode packets for the first program of the program match table. After step 814 or step 816, step 818 is performed to return control to the process that was performed when the microprocessor 114 was interrupted.

Therefore, by scanning up using the scan-up button 316, each program on each channel will be viewed in order. The scan down key scans programs and channels in the opposite direction, such as the current channel and the next lower number in the scan list of the next lower numbered program and receiver in the program match table from the current program. Performs a similar function, except that

As set forth above, the processes described in Figures 6-8 have a digital audio / video processor 112 that extracts all programs of the transport bit-stream, so that each program is stored in a separate set of FIFO structures. Will be more efficient. This allows the microprocessor 114 to switch between programs faster than if the program data was not already queued to the FIFO arrays.

As mentioned above, all these tuning methods can be used together. It would be advantageous to perform the process described with reference to FIG. 8 following at least the process described with reference to FIG. 6 or FIG. 7. If the program number and channel number are already known, the combined processes allow the viewer to tune directly to the program or to the channel to scroll to the appropriate program.

Although the present invention has been described in terms of preferred embodiments, it has been contemplated that certainities within the scope of the claims may be performed.

Claims (7)

In the program selection device for a digital television receiver: Means for controlling the receiver to tune to a frequency corresponding to a channel signal comprising multiple program bit-streams; Means for recovering the multiple program bit-stream from the channel signal; Means for generating, from the recovered multiple program bit-streams, a program match table identifying each program of the multiple program bit-streams; And Program selection means, the program selection means being: Means for selecting an individual program from the multiple program bit-stream to be decoded and displayed on the digital television receiver in response to the program matching table; And Means for selecting, from the program matching table, the next program adjacent to a program previously selected in the program selection table, in response to the program matching table and the program selection key. The method of claim 1 wherein: Means for controlling the receiver to tune to a frequency corresponding to the channel includes means for specifying a channel number, Means for selecting the individual program from the multiple program bit-stream includes means for specifying a program number. The method of claim 2 wherein: Timing means that is reset when the channel number is specified and is active for a predetermined period after the reset; And Means for receiving a numerical input value, Means for specifying the channel number receives the numeric input value when the timer is inactive, and means for receiving the program number receives the numeric input value when the timer is active. The apparatus of claim 1 or 2, wherein the digital television receiver comprises a scan list comprising a sequence of channels that can be tuned by the receiver, wherein the program selection device comprises: In response to the program matching table and the scan list, selecting the next program from the program matching table when the previously selected program is not the last program of the program matching table, and wherein the previously selected program is the last program of the program matching table. Program scrolling means for selecting from the scan list a next channel adjacent to the previously selected program in the scan list. A method of selecting an individual program from a set of multiple program bit-streams that can be received by a digital television receiver: Selecting a channel corresponding to one of the multiple program bit-streams; Receiving one multiple program bit-stream corresponding to the selected channel; Generating, from the received multiple program bit-stream, the program match table identifying each program of the received multiple program bit-stream; Selecting a first program of the program matching table; And In response to the program matching table and a program selection key, selecting, from the program matching table, a next program adjacent to a program previously selected in the program selection table. A method of selecting an individual program from a set of multiple program bit-streams that can be received by a digital television receiver having a scan list, the scan list comprising a sequence of channels that can be tuned by the receiver. In the selection method:  Selecting a channel corresponding to one of the multiple program bit-streams; Receiving one multiple program bit-stream corresponding to the selected channel; Generating, from the received multiple program bit-stream, a program match table identifying each program of the received multiple program bit-stream; And Scroll to the next program in the program match table when there is a higher numbered program in the program match table, and from the scan list when the currently selected program is the highest numbered program in the program match table, from the scan list Scrolling to the next channel adjacent to the previously selected channel. A method of selecting an individual program from a set of multiple program bit-streams that can be received by a digital television receiver: Receiving a channel number to select a channel corresponding to one of the multiple program bit-streams; Receiving one multiple program bit-stream corresponding to the selected channel; Generating, from the received multiple program bit-stream, a program match table identifying each program of the received multiple program bit-stream; Receiving a program number and comparing the received program number with the program matching table to select a program from the program matching table; And Receiving a program selection signal from the program matching table to select a next program adjacent to a program previously selected in the program selection table.