KR100619038B1 - Multimedia device having a firmware built-in - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a multimedia device incorporating firmware that provides a convenient codec update function. More particularly, in a multimedia device in which firmware is embedded, the firmware includes at least one codec program modularized to have a uniform interface, and a codec. It includes a codec manager that executes the program and updates the codec programs in module units.

Accordingly, the user can conveniently receive the latest version of the multimedia service without the help of an expert in the A / S center or the hassle of rebooting the multimedia device after the update.

Description

Multimedia device having a firmware built-in

1 is a view showing a hardware configuration of a general multimedia device,

2A and 2B illustrate one embodiment of a firmware configuration equipped with a modular codec according to the present invention;

3 illustrates an embodiment of a unified interface configuration of a modular codec according to the present invention;

4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing a multimedia service in a multimedia device with firmware according to the present invention;

5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of updating a codec in a multimedia device with firmware according to the present invention.

The present invention relates to a multimedia device, and more particularly, to a multimedia device with embedded firmware that provides a convenient codec update function.

Recently, multimedia devices that provide various multimedia services such as a DVD multifunction device, a personal digital recorder (hereinafter, referred to as a PVR), an MP3 player, and a mobile phone that provide a video function have been in the spotlight. In particular, digital convergence (playing / recording / transmitting various types of audio and video files in one device) has become a big issue.

Convergence is usually translated as "fusion," a term that describes the trends that coincide with technology integration, hybrid, hybrid knowledge, fusion, and so on. Accordingly, digital convergence refers to a trend in which consumer electronics (CE), information and communication technology (IT), contents, and services are organically integrated with each other through digital. In particular, digital convergence is rapidly progressing in the fields of IT and consumer electronics such as multifunction devices, camera phones, mobile phone banking, and telematics.

With such digital convergence, there is a need to play / record / transmit various kinds of audio or video files in one multimedia device. Therefore, it is necessary to support various kinds of coders (codec: coder and decoder) in one multimedia device. In particular, there are many cases in which the codec needs to be changed or updated according to the development of new technology or the choice of users.

However, the conventional multimedia device is very inconvenient to update the software, unlike a personal computer (PC). As a representative example, in the case of a multimedia home appliance such as a multifunction device or a personal digital recorder (PVR), it is inconvenient to upgrade the firmware (firmware) in which software is embedded.

More specifically, FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a general multimedia device. Referring to FIG. 1, a general multimedia device includes a central processing unit (CPU) 101, a flash ROM (Flash-ROM) 102, a data memory (RAM) 103, a network adapter 104, and a storage medium ( 105, a hardware codec 106, and input / output devices 107 and 108.

The CPU 101 controls the playback / recording / transmission of the entire multimedia device. The flash ROM 102 is a nonvolatile memory in which a system program such as an operating system (OS) of a multimedia device, an application program including a software codec for providing a multimedia service, and the like are stored. System programs are also called kernels. In addition, software that provides a multimedia service including a system program mounted on the flash ROM is called firmware. Generally, a flash type memory is used to update the firmware.

The data memory 103 is a memory used in a multimedia system and is also called an internal memory. Intermediate buffer, temporary memory for storing intermediate calculation results. Application programs included in the firmware are loaded into the data memory 103 from the flash ROM 102 and executed.

The network adapter 104 is an interface for connecting to an external network and may be connected to the Internet based on TCP / IP. Through appropriate network adapters, multimedia devices can connect to Ethernet, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), Power Line Control (PLC), Wireless Network, and the like.

The storage medium 105 is an external storage device that is different from the internal memory. Media such as a CD-ROM, a DVD, a hard disk (HDD), a memory card, and the like are used. Used to read or record multimedia data.

The hardware codec 106 refers to a hardware encoder and decoder that processes multimedia data such as video data and audio data. It is a part that performs unique functions of multimedia devices such as compressing or decompressing video data and audio data, improving image quality, and improving sound quality. Apart from the hardware codec, as described above, flashrom 102 includes a software codec as firmware. Of course, some of the hardware codec or software codec may be provided according to the specification of the multimedia device.

The input / output devices 107 and 108 are devices for inputting or receiving or transmitting multimedia data such as audio data and video data. An example is a digital tuner for playing or recording digital broadcasts.

As described above, a general multimedia device performs a function such as playing / compressing / recording multimedia data, and includes a software and / or hardware codec for this purpose. In addition, the multimedia data recorded in the storage medium is loaded into the internal memory for reproduction, or the multimedia data is compressed and recorded in the storage medium.

A process of providing a multimedia service by a multimedia device based on the hardware configuration described above is as follows.

For example, if you want to provide a service that plays DVDs containing images in Microsoft's Windows Media Video (WMV) format, first read the WMV file data recorded on a storage medium called DVD. The read file data is decoded by a hardware codec or a software codec mounted on the CPU. That is, the system program and codec program recorded in the flash ROM 102 are loaded into the internal memory 103 to be decoded by the CPU under the control of the CPU. Even when using a hardware codec, the system program and codec program loaded in the internal memory control the decoding process. The decoded result is stored in the internal memory 103 and converted into an analog signal such as an NTSC or VGA signal through the output device 107 for display. Audio data is also converted into analog signals through a similar process and output through the output device 107. Furthermore, in the case of including a network adapter 107 for connecting to an external TCP / IP network such as the Internet, a Video on Demand (VOD) service or an Audio on Demand (AOD) service is provided from a server on the network. In addition, the device may receive a streaming service of multimedia data stored in another multimedia device.

However, if a new version of the WMV codec appears, or if you want to support a new H.264 codec in addition to WMV, it is necessary to upgrade the firmware mounted on the flash ROM (102). However, in the case of a multimedia device configured only with a hardware codec, firmware upgrade itself is impossible. In other words, the firmware installed in the flash ROM should be upgraded only when the software codec is included. At this time, in order to upgrade the firmware, the entire firmware must be updated through a CD-ROM disk, a memory card, and the Internet. To this end, the flashrom access module reads new firmware via a storage medium or network, loads it into internal memory (RAM), and overwrites a specific portion of the flashrom again.

However, updating the entire firmware is a very complicated and difficult process for the user. Therefore, there was a discomfort to seek professional help using the after-sales center. In addition, after updating the entire firmware, there was a inconvenience of turning off and on the multimedia device again. In addition, there was a problem that the firmware can not be updated while receiving a multimedia service.

Accordingly, the technical problem of the present invention is to provide a multimedia device incorporating firmware that provides a convenient codec update function in order to solve the above problems.

In the above-described technical problem, in a multimedia device in which firmware is embedded, the firmware includes at least one codec program modularized to have a unified interface, and a codec that executes the codec program and updates the codec programs in module units. It is achieved by a multimedia device characterized in that it comprises a manager.

The codec program is preferably a plug-in type program that is dynamically linked.

The codec program preferably includes at least one codec program embedded in firmware and at least one codec program downloaded from a storage medium or a network.

In addition, the unified interface includes version information of the corresponding codec program, and if a plurality of codec programs corresponding to the same format exist, the codec manager selects the latest version of the codec program by using the version information. It is desirable to download.

The unified interface includes priority information indicating the order in which the corresponding codec program is applied among a plurality of codec programs mounted in the firmware, and the codec manager executes the codec program having the highest priority using the priority information. It is preferable to make it.

In addition, the codec manager, by referring to priority information, probes a plurality of codec programs mounted in firmware in order of priority, and finds a codec program necessary to provide a predetermined multimedia service. .

In addition, the codec manager, it is preferable to update the codec program while providing a multimedia service,

When the codec manager updates a new version of the codec, it is particularly preferable to update firmware by downloading difference data between the codec program to be updated and the codec program of the previous version.

On the other hand, according to another field of the present invention, in the method for updating the firmware of a multimedia device, the method for downloading at least one codec program modularized to have a unified interface from a storage medium or a network in a module unit step; And recording the downloaded codec program in a predetermined area of the firmware.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

2A and 2B are diagrams illustrating embodiments of a configuration of firmware having a modular codec according to the present invention.

The firmware equipped with the modular codec according to the present invention uses each region of the flash ROM, which is a reprogrammable nonvolatile memory, in a hierarchical manner. 2A and 1, the firmware includes a boot loader 201, a system program 202, a codec manager and an embedded codec 203, and an external codec 204.

The boot loader 201 reads the system program 202 mounted in the flash ROM 102 and loads it into the internal memory 103.

The system program 202 is a system software for operating a multimedia device. The system program 202 is loaded into an internal memory by a boot loader to collectively operate the entire process of playing, recording, and transmitting the multimedia device. The system program may include an operating system program such as PSOS, Linux, Vxworks, or Window CE, and may further include a file system manager and a flash ROM manager.

According to the present invention, a codec program is divided into an internal codec and an external codec. The built-in codec 203 refers to codecs included in firmware loaded when a multimedia device is released. Codecs that are updated after the release of the multimedia device are stored in the external codec 204 region. The codec manager 203 controls the execution and update of the built-in codec 203 and the external codec. That is, the multimedia apparatus according to the present invention provides a multimedia service using only internal codecs at the beginning of the market, but as the external codecs are updated, the multimedia apparatus provides a multimedia service using both the internal codec and the external codec. Accordingly, multimedia services using various codecs are possible.

More specifically, the built-in codec and the external codec according to the present invention are designed to have a unified interface. That is, it is modularized in the same form as an object. This is to allow the multimedia device to support various types of codecs and to update the firmware conveniently and efficiently. The unified interface will be described later. In addition, as described above, it is divided into an internal codec and an external codec and stored in a separate area. The built-in codec is described as a unified interface as described below for convenience and efficiency of firmware update, and is integrally programmed with the codec manager as shown. The built-in codec can be a built-in module compiled and linked with the codec manager or implemented as a plug-in program installed by default.

The external codec has the same type of interface as the internal codec, and is a dynamic link library in the form of a patch program or a plug-in program for later update. For example, the Linux operating system can be implemented as a dynamic library file with a * .so file extension, and the Windows operating system can be implemented as a dynamic library file with a * .dll extension. That is, the external codec according to the present invention is implemented as a file capable of dynamic linking having an interface in the same format as the internal codec. Therefore, since only the codec file to be updated can be recorded in the external codec area to update the codec, it is not necessary to update the entire firmware in order to update some codecs as in the prior art. In addition, since the codec manager controls to provide a multimedia service using an internal codec or an external codec, the required codec can be updated even during the multimedia service, and no reboot or restart of the program is required even after the update. In other words, you don't have to update the entire firmware, just update some of the external codec files to use the function immediately. In addition, all built-in codecs and external codecs have a priority value, so that even a built-in codec can be automatically replaced by a high priority external codec.

Meanwhile, as another embodiment, referring to FIG. 2B, the firmware configuration in the case of separately programming the built-in codec without being integrally programmed with the codec manager is illustrated.

3 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of a unified interface configuration of a modular codec according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, the modular built-in codec and the external codec according to the present invention have the same type of interface as shown in the figure. That is, the interface 300 of the built-in codec and the external codec according to the present invention includes a header mark 301, object information 302, version information 303, entry point information 304, and priority information 305. And the like.

The header mark 301 indicates that the following information is about the interface of the codec. The object information 302 represents identifier information of a modularized or objectized codec. For example, the interface of the MPEG audio codec includes information indicating that the object is the MPEG audio codec in the object information 302. The codec version information 303 indicates the version of the corresponding codec. If an external codec having the same object information as the object information of the external codec to be updated already exists in the external codec area of the flash ROM, the version information 303 may be compared and updated to a relatively higher version of the external codec. have. Entry point information 304 represents the information necessary to actually call and execute the codec program. For example, it includes address information that indicates where the codec program is actually stored. The priority information 305 is information specifying an application order among a plurality of codecs. A plurality of built-in codecs and external codecs are sorted according to priority information, and a codec having a higher priority is executed. In particular, in order to find out the codecs necessary for a given multimedia service, all the codecs stored in the flash ROM are sequentially called to test whether the corresponding multimedia service is possible. In this case, it may be more efficient to test the codecs in the order of priority specified in the priority information, not in the order of storing. For example, if you are testing which MP3 file can be decoded by the codec, use the higher priority codec first. If there is a higher priority MP3 external codec than the MP3 internal codec, the external codec is used to provide multimedia services. Therefore, the latest codec may be selected using the version information 303 and the priority information 305 to provide a multimedia service.

The interface of the codecs may be implemented by various modifications such as defining to include some of the fields shown in FIG. 3 or adding other fields. As described above, the interface between the built-in codec and the external codec is defined and modularized, so that the codec can be updated on a module or object basis.

Hereinafter, a method of providing a multimedia service using the aforementioned modular codec and updating a firmware of the multimedia device will be described.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing a multimedia service in a multimedia device with firmware according to the present invention.

4 and 2A, in order to provide a multimedia service, a boot loader 201 is first executed (step 401). The boot loader loads the system program 202 into the internal memory 103 and transfers control to the system program (step 402). The system program loads drive partitions of various device drivers and storage media as needed and executes an application program. In the case of an application program providing a multimedia service, the codec manager 203 is executed (step 403). The codec manager ships with a built-in codec by default. For example, the built-in codec included is a file reader, an MPEG audio decoder, an MPEG video decoder, an MPEG-2 demultiplexer, and a video renderer. It is assumed that a video renderer, an audio renderer, and the like are included. The above-described built-in codecs can play video and music files such as MPEG files or MP3. In addition, each of the built-in codecs is implemented to be modularized to have a unified interface as shown in Figure 2a or 2b.

Meanwhile, a new external codec may be added to play / record / transmit multimedia data in a new format. For example, an external codec for a WMA (Windows Media Audio) decoder may be updated through a storage medium such as a hard disk, a memory stick, a DVD, or the like, or downloaded and updated from a server on a network (step 404). A detailed method of updating an external codec will be described later. The external codec can be updated via storage media or over a network. The updated external codec file is overwritten in the external codec area 204 as shown in FIG. 2, or the external codec added is recorded in a blank area of the external codec area 204.

The internal codec, including the updated external codec, is loaded into the internal memory (step 405) and sorted in order of priority with reference to the priority information in the interface definition of each codec shown in FIG. Among them, the multimedia service is provided using the codec having the highest priority (steps 407 and 408). As such, before providing the multimedia service, the mobile terminal checks and updates whether there is an external codec to be updated through a storage medium or a network, and provides the multimedia service to the user by using the updated external codec and the internal codec.

Therefore, even if the user does not manage to update the codec separately, the multimedia apparatus according to the present invention can automatically update to a new version of the codec to provide a multimedia service.

Hereinafter, a process (A) of updating the codec will be described in more detail. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of updating a codec in a multimedia device with firmware according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 5, a method of conveniently and safely updating a codec is illustrated.

First, the codec manager 203 loads or downloads an updateable codec list into a memory using a storage medium or a network (step 501). The version information 303 of each codec is checked from the loaded codec list. That is, even if the new codec or the object information 302 is the same codec, it is checked whether there is a different version of the codec (step 503). Load or download (step 504). When the load or download is completed without error (step 505), the flash ROM 102 is updated using the loaded or downloaded codec (step 506). When the update is completed (step 507), the codec manager is initialized to include information about the updated external codec as well as the internal codec (step 508). Now, as shown in FIG. 3, the internal codec and the external codec included in the updated firmware are loaded into the internal memory (step 406), and among them, the priority codec 305 is compared to use the codec having the highest priority. To provide a multimedia service (steps 407 and 408).

On the other hand, when a codec is updated, a new codec file is loaded or downloaded as it is from a storage medium or a network. However, if the codec to be updated is updated to a new version to fix a bug or add a function, the differential data between the previous codec file and the new version of the codec file is not required to be loaded or downloaded. ) Can be loaded or downloaded by variable length coding (VLC). The multimedia device updates the external codec file by decoding the received VLC encoded differential data. Variable length encoding / decoding is one of the well-known lossless compression techniques, and other encoding / decoding techniques may of course be used.

By encoding and loading or downloading only difference data from the codec file of the previous version, not the entire codec file to be updated, the capacity of the file to be updated can be greatly reduced. Accordingly, the update time can be minimized.

The above description is only one embodiment of the present invention, and those skilled in the art may implement the present invention in a modified form without departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention. Therefore, it should be interpreted to include various embodiments that are not limited to the examples according to the present invention but within the scope equivalent to those described in the claims.

 As described above, according to the present invention, there is provided a multimedia device including a firmware for updating the codec conveniently using a modular built-in codec and an external codec and a codec manager. Accordingly, various codec files can be conveniently updated to play / record / transmit various types of multimedia data. In other words, instead of updating the entire firmware, only the necessary modules need to be updated, so there is no need to turn the multimedia device off and on again after the update. Furthermore, the firmware can be updated while receiving the multimedia service.

In addition, by using the version information or priority information, even if the user does not manage the update of the codec, the firmware can be updated by downloading the latest version of the codec from the storage medium or the network before automatically starting the multimedia service. Accordingly, the user can conveniently receive the latest version of the multimedia service without the help of an expert in the A / S center or the hassle of rebooting the multimedia device after the update.

Claims (16)

In the recording medium recording the firmware of the multimedia device, the firmware, A codec program area for recording at least one codec program modularized to have a unified interface, A codec manager area for executing the codec program, and recording a codec manager program for updating the codec programs on a module basis; The codec program area includes a built-in codec area for storing at least one codec program not to be updated and an external codec area for storing at least one codec program downloaded from the outside. The method of claim 1, The codec program is a plug-in type program that is dynamically linked. delete The method of claim 1, The unified interface includes version information of the corresponding codec program, The codec manager selects and downloads the latest version of a codec program when a plurality of codec programs corresponding to the same format exist using the version information. The method of claim 1, The unified interface further includes priority information indicating an order in which a corresponding codec program is applied among a plurality of codec programs mounted in the firmware, And the codec manager executes the codec program having the highest priority by using the priority information. The method of claim 5, The codec manager, by referring to the priority information, probes a plurality of codec programs mounted in the firmware in order of priority, and finds a codec program necessary to provide a predetermined multimedia service. Recording medium. The method of claim 1, The codec manager updates the codec program while providing a multimedia service. The method of claim 1, The codec manager updates the firmware by downloading difference data between the codec program to be updated and the codec program of the previous version when updating a new version of the codec. In the method of updating the firmware of the multimedia device, Downloading at least one codec program modularized from a storage medium or a network to have a unified interface; And Recording the downloaded codec program in a predetermined area of the firmware; The predetermined area of the firmware is an external codec area for storing at least one codec program downloaded from the outside. The method of claim 9, The recording method may include dynamically linking the downloaded codec program to a predetermined area of the firmware by using a plug-in method. delete The method of claim 9, The unified interface includes version information of the corresponding codec program, And if a plurality of codec programs corresponding to the same format exist using the version information, selecting and downloading the latest version of the codec program. The method of claim 9, The unified interface further includes priority information indicating an order in which a corresponding codec program is applied among a plurality of codec programs mounted in the firmware, And executing a codec program having the highest priority by using the priority information to provide a multimedia service. The method of claim 13, And a codec program necessary to provide a predetermined multimedia service by probing a plurality of codec programs mounted in the firmware in order of priority with reference to the priority information. The method of claim 9, An update method comprising downloading the codec program while providing a multimedia service. The method of claim 9, When updating a new version of the codec, the update method, characterized in that for downloading only the difference data between the codec program to be updated and the codec program of the previous version.

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