KR19990080998A - How to reduce program guide information update time of satellite broadcasting receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for shortening update time of program guide information of a satellite broadcast receiver for shortening update time of program guide information provided to a satellite broadcast receiver.

The packet bit stream provided to the satellite broadcasting receiver is provided with program information together with the broadcast signal of each channel, and the provided program information is stored in four memories for each broadcast order in the same packet ID (PID). Such program information is updated and provided every hour. Since the program information stored in the four memories has been updated in the related art, it takes a long time to update.

Therefore, when the program information is updated, the present invention includes a buffer which prestores the PID of the program information of each of the plurality of memories and the newly provided program information PID, and temporarily stores the EID of each of the plurality of memories and the newly provided program information. If the EID is the same, the program information update operation is not performed. If the EID of each of the plurality of memories and the EID of the buffer for temporarily storing the newly provided program information are not the same, that is, the EID is not the same as the EID of the buffer among the plurality of memories. By configuring only the program information of the memory having a memory, the update time of the program information can be shortened as compared with the conventional method of updating all the program information stored in the plurality of memories.

Description

How to reduce program guide information update time of satellite broadcasting receiver

The present invention relates to a satellite broadcast receiver, and more particularly, to a method for reducing program guide information update time of a satellite broadcast receiver for shortening an update time of program guide information provided to a satellite broadcast receiver.

Satellite broadcasting transmits broadcast programs sent from ground stations (broadcasting earth stations) using satellites (communication satellites) located at an altitude of about several tens to hundreds of kilometers from the earth's surface, providing broadcast signals to a wider area. The satellite broadcasting signal is received using a satellite broadcasting reception antenna equipped with a low noise blockdown converter (LNB). At this time, the satellite broadcast signal received by the satellite broadcast reception antenna is recovered as a digital broadcast signal in the form of a transport stream in a packet unit through conversion to demodulation, demodulation, and error correction. The digital broadcast signals in the stream form include broadcast signals corresponding to each channel, that is, video signals and audio signals, and program guide information corresponding to each channel.

Therefore, the satellite broadcast receiver is configured to extract a broadcast signal of a channel corresponding to the user's selection from the received satellite broadcast signal, decode it using a Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) method, and provide the same to a display device such as a monitor. In addition, unlike the terrestrial broadcasting, the satellite broadcasting is provided with program information for each channel, that is, program information that is unique to digital broadcasting, and is stored in a memory, in addition to the broadcasting signal for each channel.

Specifically, in the packet stream of the packet unit, a program combination table (PAT :) containing N bits of packet identifier (PID) information (eg, 13 bits of program identifier) indicating a program number of each channel. Program information packet having program map table (PMT) information including channel information packet having Program Association Table (NPC) information and N-bit program identifier (PID) information meaning audio, video, text, etc. of a specific channel. And the like are provided.

Therefore, channel information and program information included in the bit stream are divided into four hours, eight hours, 2.5 days, and one week of information by the packet ID (PID), and are stored in four memories. When the program guide screen display function is selected by the user, the program information is sequentially displayed by time zones, based on each channel and time axis, and the program information is sequentially displayed in the near future and far future depending on the satellite broadcasting receiver. Scroll the screen left / right or up / down to easily select the desired channel and program.

However, since the program guide information is updated and provided every hour, the satellite broadcasting receiver must update the program guide information stored in four memories every hour. At this time, since most satellite broadcasting receivers retain the program guide information in the buffer, when new program guide information is provided, all previously stored program guide information is removed and the program guide information is stored again and updated. There is a problem that the information storage time, that is, the update time, takes about 3 to 5 minutes, for example.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and an object of the present invention is to store the program information again in the satellite broadcasting receiver so as to shorten the update time by re-storing only the information that is updated among previously stored program guide information. The present invention provides a method for reducing the update time.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for shortening update time of program guide information of a satellite broadcasting receiver, which shortens the update time of program information included in a packet stream. A first step of PID) respectively storing the same program information in a plurality of memories for each broadcasting order; A second step of determining whether to update the program information over time; A third step of storing the updated program information in a buffer when the program information is updated as a result of the second step determination; A fourth step of comparing the PID of the program information stored in the first step with the PID of the updated program information stored in the third step; As a result of the comparison in the fourth step, if the PID of the program information stored in the first step and the PID of the updated program information stored in the third step are the same, the EID of the buffer storing the updated program information and the plurality of A fifth step of determining whether the event IDs (EID) of the memories are the same; As a result of the fifth step, if the EID of each of the plurality of memories and the EID of the buffer are the same, an update operation of program information is not performed, and an EID that is not the same as the EID of the buffer of each of the plurality of memories is not performed. And a sixth step of updating only program information of the memory having the same.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a satellite broadcasting receiver for performing a method for shortening a program guide information update time of a satellite broadcasting receiver according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart illustrating a process for reducing a program guide information update time reduction method of a satellite broadcast receiver according to the present invention.

<Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

100 tuner and demodulator 110 transport demultiplexer

120: MPEG decoder 130: control unit

140: buffer 150: update buffer

160: menu generating unit 170: image synthesizing unit

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings will be described in detail the operation of the preferred embodiment according to the present invention.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a satellite broadcast receiver for performing a method for shortening a program guide information update time of a satellite broadcast receiver according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. A tuner, a demodulator 100, and a transport demultiplexer are shown. 110, the MPEG decoder 120, the controller 130, the memory 140, the update buffer 150, the menu generator 160, and the image synthesizer 170.

The tuner and demodulator 100 tunes the corresponding channel according to the tuning control signal of the controller 130 as can be seen in the following description. That is, the tuner and demodulator 100 tunes a channel corresponding to the tuning control signal of the controller 130 among the satellite broadcast signals received through the satellite broadcast receiving antenna, and converts, demodulates, and errors the broadcast signal of the tuned channel into IF. Restore to the transport stream through the correction process. At this time, the restored transport stream includes broadcast signals for each channel, that is, a video signal, an audio signal, and program guide information. The tuner and demodulator 100 restores the transport stream under the control of the controller 130. To the transport demultiplexer 110.

At this time, the transport demultiplexer 110 provides a broadcast signal for each channel among the transport streams provided by the tuner and the demodulator 110 to the MPEG decoder 120 and provides program information to the controller 130. .

That is, when the specific channel tuning signal according to the key operation of the key input unit (not shown) is provided as described above, the controller 130 provides the tuning control signal according to the tuner and the demodulator 100 to tune the corresponding channel. When the program information is provided from the transport demultiplexer 110, the program information is stored in four memories 141 to 144 for each airing order. That is, the controller 130 may provide the program information having the same PID among the program information provided by the transport demultiplexer 110 for 4 hours, 8 hours, 2.5 days, or 1 week of program information or 24 hours, 48 from the current time. Time, one week, and two weeks of program information are stored sequentially in four memories.

When the program information is updated and provided through the transport demultiplexer 110 after one hour has elapsed, the controller 130 stores the program information in the update buffer 150 and then stores it in the update buffer 150. When the PID of the program information and the PID of the program information stored in the four memories 141 to 144 are compared with each other, the event ID (EID) and the update buffer 150 of the corresponding memory, that is, the PID having the same value are equal to each other. ) If the event IDs of) are equal, no action is taken. If they are not equal, that is, if there is new information, only the new information is stored in the corresponding memory.

On the other hand, the MPEG decoder 120 is a compression-coded audio signal and a video signal of the transport stream provided by the transport demultiplexer 110, for example, a video signal that is compression-coded in consideration of the spatiotemporal and spatial correlation of the video signal. Is restored to the original signal before encoding by using a decoding technique such as variable length decoding, inverse DCT, inverse quantization, and motion compensation. That is, the MPEG decoder 120 decodes and outputs the digital audio signal, which is converted into an analog audio signal through an audio signal processor (not shown) and output to the speaker not shown, and the digital video signal decoded by the above process is NTSC. Alternatively, the signal is converted into a PAL analog video signal and provided to the image synthesizer 170.

The menu generator 160 configures the data read from the memory 140 by the controller 130 as a menu screen corresponding to a predetermined format and provides the image to the image synthesizer 170. That is, the controller 130 reads the program information stored in the memory 140 and provides it to the menu generator 160 when a signal for the display key of the program information guide screen, which is not shown, is provided. The unit 160 prestores various types of menu screen format information for configuring various types of information provided by the satellite broadcasting receiver as menu screens, and is updated by program information provided by the controller 140, that is, every hour. After the program information is configured into a menu screen corresponding to a pre-stored menu screen format, the program information is converted into an NTSC or PAL analog signal and then provided to the image synthesizer 170.

The image synthesizer 170 mixes the decoded video signal provided by the MPEG decoder 120 and the menu screen provided by the menu generator 160 under the control of the controller 130 to display on the display side. Will be displayed on the screen.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for shortening a program guide information update time of a satellite broadcast receiver according to the present invention, which will be described in detail with reference to a block diagram of the satellite broadcast receiver shown in FIG.

First, the controller 130 receives the digital broadcast signal in the form of a bit stream provided to the satellite broadcast receiver in step 200, and then proceeds to step 201 and is provided through the transport demultiplexer 110. The program information for each channel is extracted and stored in the memories 141 to 144, respectively (step 202). That is, the control unit 130 is program information for each channel provided through the transport demultiplexing unit 110, the program information of the same PID from the current time from the current time, that is, 4 hours, 8 hours, 2.5 days, 1 Each week program information is stored in four memories 140.

Next, the controller 130 proceeds to step 203 and determines whether new program information is provided after one hour has elapsed. If it is determined that the program information is updated and provided after one hour, the process proceeds to step 204 to store the updated program information in the update buffer 150. The controller 130 proceeds to step 205 to determine whether the PID of the program information stored in each of the four memories 141 to 144 and the PID stored in the update buffer 150 are the same.

As a result of the determination, if the PID of the program information stored in each of the four memories and the PID of the program information stored in the update buffer 150 are the same, the process proceeds to step 206, and ends if the PID is not the same.

At this time, the control unit 130 proceeds to step 206 determines whether the event ID (EID) of each of the four memories and the EID of the update buffer 150 is the same. That is, if the EID of each memory and the EID of the update buffer 150 are the same, the controller 130 proceeds to step 207 and does not update the program information of the memory 140. At this time, if there is an EID of the memory that is not the same as the EID of the update buffer 150 among the respective EIDs, the flow proceeds to step 208 to update program information of the corresponding memory. That is, if there is an EID of a memory that is not the same as the EID of the update buffer 150 among the EIDs of the memory in step 206, that is, if new program information is provided, only the program information of the corresponding memory is provided. Save it with

As described above, in the method of the present invention, when updating the program information, the PID of the program information of each of the plurality of memories and the newly provided program information PID are the same and the EID of each of the plurality of memories and the newly provided program information are the same. If the EIDs of the buffers to be temporarily stored are the same, the program information update operation is not performed. If the EIDs of the plurality of memories and the EIDs of the buffers to temporarily store the newly provided program information are not the same, that is, the EIDs of the buffers of the plurality of memories are not the same. By updating only the program information of a memory having an EID not equal to, the update time of the program information can be shortened as compared with the conventional method of updating all program information stored in a plurality of memories.

Claims (1)

A method of shortening update time of program guide information of a satellite broadcasting receiver, which shortens update time of program information included in a bit stream of a packet unit. A first step of respectively storing program information having the same packet ID (PID) among the program information in a plurality of memories for each broadcast order; A second step of determining whether to update the program information over time; A third step of storing the updated program information in a buffer when the program information is updated as a result of the second step determination; A fourth step of comparing the PID of the program information stored in the first step with the PID of the updated program information stored in the third step; As a result of the comparison in the fourth step, if the PID of the program information stored in the first step and the PID of the updated program information stored in the third step are the same, the EID of the buffer storing the updated program information and the plurality of A fifth step of determining whether the event IDs (EID) of the memories are the same; As a result of the fifth step, if the EID of each of the plurality of memories and the EID of the buffer are the same, an update operation of program information is not performed, and an EID that is not the same as the EID of the buffer of each of the plurality of memories is not performed. And a sixth step of updating only program information of a memory having a memory.