KR20000044729A - Method for displaying preferred channel in digital television - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for displaying a preferred channel in a digital television is provided to reduce a processing load by composing an EPG(Electronic Program Guide) menu screen for a preferred channel. CONSTITUTION: A method for displaying a preferred channel in a digital television comprises the steps of: checking whether a predetermined preferred channel selection key is input, or not; selecting a channel of a current received mode as a preferred channel and storing information of a corresponding channel if the predetermined preferred channel selection key is input; checking whether a request for viewing the predetermined channel is input, or not; generating and rearranging a pointer as location information of the stored channels; and displaying an EPG menu.

Description

Preferred Channel Display Method in Digital Television

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to digital TV, and more particularly, to a method for selecting a preferred channel to display only a channel preferred by a user using electronic programming guide (EPG) data of a digital TV.

Digital TV receives a digital broadcast signal in the form of a packet on a packet basis, extracts a broadcast signal of a selected channel among broadcast signals received by a transport demuxer, and converts the extracted broadcast signal to MPEG (Motion Picture Expert). After decoding in a group), it is configured to provide to the display device.

In the above-described digital broadcasting method, a digital broadcasting tuner provided in a digital TV (receiver) receives a digital broadcasting signal in the form of a bitstream and mixes it with an IF signal received through a low noise converter to tune a channel selected by a user.

Meanwhile, in digital TV broadcasting, a transmission signal of a digital broadcasting signal received to a digital TV through a fixed channel is restored to a transport stream through a process of converting to an intermediate frequency, demodulating, and error correction. The stream includes program service data such as television broadcasting, data broadcasting, and electronic programming guide (EPG) data.

Among them, the EPG data has a structure in which EPG packet information is transmitted when a predetermined unit of time or a subscriber's request is input, and displays an EPG screen menu of a program to be broadcasted through the display device. Through the subscriber can determine the airing time, program provider (broadcasting station), show time and type of program that you want to watch.

However, the expected number of channels in digital TV is tens of times that of current analog TVs, and there are about 100 channels in the United States, which actually broadcast digital TV. In order to search such a plurality of channels, a large amount of time is wasted, and a storage area of the memory is enlarged, and thus a large amount of time is required to load the EPG menu screen.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, the object of which is to EPG menu preference channel configured by configuring a preference channel selection database for displaying a user's favorite channel using EPG data of digital TV To provide a display method.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention stores EPG information extracted from a digital broadcast signal received from a predetermined broadcast receiving unit of a digital TV in a predetermined memory block, and also includes pointers (address information) for each program of each channel. A method for displaying a preferred channel in a digital television sequentially stored in the memory block, wherein the channel in the current viewing mode is preferred when the preferred channel selection key is input by checking whether a preset preference channel selection key is input. Tuning to a channel and storing the corresponding channel information in the favorite channel database; checking whether a channel view request is input and generating a pointer, which is address information for each channel stored in the favorite channel database, and reordering. To display the rearranged EPG menu. Is characterized in that it comprises a step.

1 is a block diagram of a typical digital TV suitable for displaying a preferred channel in a digital TV according to the present invention;

2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a preferred channel menu screen according to the present invention;

3 is a flowchart illustrating a step of displaying a favorite channel in a digital TV;

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

102: tuner and demodulation block 104: control block

106: memory block 108: preferred channel database

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

1 is a block diagram of a digital TV suitable for explaining an apparatus for providing a video according to the present invention. As shown in the figure, a typical digital TV includes a tuner and demodulation block 102, a control block 104, a memory block 106, and a preference channel database 108.

Referring to FIG. 1, the tuner and demodulation block 102 is a broadcast signal receiver (not shown) based on a tuning control signal provided from a control block 104 to be described later via the line L11 when the power of the digital TV is turned on. That is, the broadcasting channel selected by the user is tuned from the broadcasting signal received through the digital receiving antenna), and the tuned broadcasting channel signal is restored to the transport stream through the process of converting to the intermediate frequency, demodulation and error correction. The transport stream of the selected broadcast channel signal reconstructed as described above is provided to the MPEG decoding block (not shown) through the line L12.

Further, in the tuner and demodulation block 102, in response to the EPG acquisition request signal provided from the control block 104 via the line L11 when the power of the digital TV is turned on, program guide packet data (programmed) inserted into the transport stream Information, and corresponding channel information and time information). The extracted packet data is restored to EPG data through a process of converting to intermediate frequency, demodulation, and error correction, and the restored EPG data is provided to the control block 104 through the line L13.

At this time, after the EPG data extracted from the transport stream is stored in the memory block 106, when the program information is required to be provided by the user, the EPG data is extracted from the memory block 106 by the control block 104 and the program menu is extracted. It is used as a screen. For example, when a user presses a predetermined preference key provided as an icon on a keyboard or a screen not shown in the viewing mode, channel information in the viewing mode is stored in the preference channel database. By repeating such an operation during the viewing mode, the preference channel database 108 is stored in which the channels preferred by the user and frequently used are stored.

In addition, the memory block 106 stores a pointer of each program of each channel for the configuration of the EPG menu. The pointer for each program of each channel includes guide packet data inputted by the control block 104 through the line L13. May be stored when the data is stored in the corresponding area of the memory block 106, or alternatively, the memory block 106 may be stored when there is an EPG menu output request from the user.

The menu output method selected according to the EPG menu output request as described above can be largely divided into three types: program schedule view, reservation program view, and favorite channel view.

After the reservation program database has been configured (one or more programs are selected), if the favorite channel viewing request (operation signal) is input from the user through a keyboard or an operation button not shown, the control channel 104 controls the preference channel database 108. In order to search the channel information stored in the C-D, the searched channels are found in the memory block 106, and the program-specific pointers corresponding to the corresponding program channels are aligned. The control block 104 receives the pointer from the first memory 106 when the alignment is completed and provides the EPG data to the display side in the sorting order. The display side outputs the EPG data to the favorite channel menu screen. As an example, as shown in Fig. 2, a program guide selected by a subscriber is shown, with time information on the horizontal axis and corresponding channel information on the vertical axis. Although only six channels are shown in FIG. 2, it is possible to display more channels as a preferred channel, and after setting as described above, it is possible to search for each channel by using the scroll key of the channel axis (vertical). You can also search by time and date using the scroll keys on the time axis (horizontal).

3 is a flowchart illustrating a step of displaying a favorite channel in a digital TV. A flowchart illustrating a process of providing moving picture information according to a request for providing moving picture information about a program of a user. Referring to FIG. 3, when the power of the digital TV is turned on (step 302), the tuner and demodulation block 102 extracts EPG data in response to the EPG acquisition request signal provided from the control block 104 via line L11. The extracted EPG data is provided to control block 104 via line L13 (step 304).

Next, the control block 104 stores the extracted EPG data in the memory block 106 and simultaneously stores pointers of each channel in the memory block 106. For example, the program is stored in the order of programs for each channel and each time zone (step 306).

Next, when the digital TV is switched to the viewing mode through the above-described process, and the reception of the program guide packet data is completed, as already employed in the conventional TV, the previously viewed and stored channel (that is, the most recent The program of the channel automatically tuned in is set to be automatically tuned to the digital broadcast channel that was watched in step 308.

In step 310, the control block 104 checks if a preference channel selection key has been input from the user during the viewing mode as described above. As a result of the check in step 310, if a favorite channel selection key is input, the control block 104 tunes a channel in the current viewing mode as a favorite channel, and stores the corresponding channel information in the favorite channel database 108 to store the favorite channel. Reconstruct the database (step 312) and return to viewing mode (step 314).

In step 316, with the preference channel database configured (save one or more channels), it is checked whether a preference channel view request has been entered. As a result of the check in step 316, if a preference channel view request is input, the EPG information stored in the memory block 106 is searched (step 318), and the preferred channel is adapted to fit the EPG menu to be created based on the search result. The pointers which are location information for each channel stored in the database 108 are rearranged (step 320). In step 322, the rearranged information is transmitted to the display side to display it.

The preferred channel can tune from all channels present in the digital TV to at least one channel, but preferably from more than one channel all the channels present in the digital TV.

As described above, the present invention configures the EPG menu screen for the channel selected as the preferred channel, thereby reducing the processing load of the digital TV, and the user can simply show the simplified channel mainly used by the user.

Claims (1)

Preferred channel in digital television storing EPG information extracted from a digital broadcast signal received from a predetermined broadcast receiver of a digital TV in a predetermined memory block, and pointers for each program of each channel are sequentially stored in the memory block. In the display method, Checking whether a preset preference channel selection key has been input and if the preference channel selection key is input, selecting a channel in the current viewing mode as a preference channel and storing corresponding channel information; Checking whether or not a preset channel view request has been input, and if the preference channel view request is input, generating a pointer which is the location information for each stored channel, and rearranging to display an EPG menu. .