KR20040060521A - Digital TV watching control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A device for restraining the digital TV broadcasting watching by a recognition device capable of distinguishing ages is provided to recognize the age of a viewer and automatically restrain the watching of an improper program according to the recognized age of the viewer. CONSTITUTION: A device for restraining the digital TV broadcasting watching by a recognition device capable of distinguishing ages includes a viewer age recognizing unit(10), a DTV set top boxes(STBs;20), and a display unit(30). The viewer age recognizing unit has a camera and a microphone. The set top boxes receives viewer grade information for watching via image streams of a DTV(Digital Television). The display part restrains the image output of the DTV broadcasting by the recognized viewer age information and the watching grade information.

Description

Digital TV watching control system using age-recognized recognition device {Digital TV watching control system}

The present invention relates to an apparatus for controlling viewing of digital TV broadcasting through a recognition device capable of distinguishing age. More specifically, the present invention relates to a viewing control apparatus for digital TV broadcasting that can limit TV viewing according to age restriction after recognizing a viewer's age.

In analog TV broadcasting, the level of display was rather than just receiving broadcasting information. However, as the digital broadcasting era began, it became possible to control various things by using the information instead of simply viewing information about broadcasting. In addition, as the age-restricted information of the broadcast is only to show the viewer to recognize through the analog broadcaster subtitle processing, inappropriate viewing to the youth can not be automatically blocked.

Therefore, it can be easily obtained by opening the information using a digital stream. With this information, it is a control device of a schedule that can limit the viewing according to the age restriction after recognizing the age of the viewer by using the conventional recognition device of a certain type. The advantage of such a device is that it can be seen from the information that flows innumerable and prevent inappropriate viewing.

In the conventional analog TV, as shown in FIG. 1, each broadcaster displays the rating of a program and sends the program to the broadcaster, thereby allowing the viewer to selectively watch the appropriate broadcast.

However, existing viewing devices and DTV broadcasting technology can be used to automatically limit TV viewing. The following is a description of the existing technology of the recognition devices.

Devices for recognizing images have been designed by many people in the past. The image recognition device may simultaneously recognize the naked eye and recognize the device. A general method of obtaining an image of a subject is to convert an optical signal incident from a subject into an electrical signal through a photoelectric conversion method, and then amplify or modulate the optical signal and display the same through a display device.

The image of the subject thus obtained, that is, the information on the subject, may be variously processed through various functions added to the display apparatus, may be expressed in various forms, and may be a database.

The same applies to speech recognition. Voice recognition technology has recently been introduced into consumer devices due to the high performance and low cost of LSI used for the improvement and processing of digital signal processing technology, which has helped to improve the operability of the device. The basic principle of the voice recognition device is to convert the input voice into a digital voice signal and recognize the input voice by comparing the digital voice signal with standard voice data registered in a newly prepared voice dictionary. For this reason, measures are required such as requiring a special speech method for a specific speaker to be compared with standard voice data, or registering a new speaker's voice in a voice recognition device.

Digital broadcasting technology can be incorporated into such a recognition device. Digital technology expresses and processes all signals as a combination of '0' and '1', which has several advantages over analog technology. First, unlike analog technology, the original signal can be reproduced by an error correction technique even in the case of channel noise or media damage. From the point of view of signal processing, the amount of data increases greatly with digitization, but various effective digital signal processing techniques including data compression can be utilized.

In addition, digital ICs such as memories and microprocessors are becoming higher and lower in price, thereby facilitating the practical use of digital technologies. Cassette tapes from answering machines have recently been replaced by DRAMs and digital signal processors, while analogue vehicle telephones and mobile phones (AMPS: Advanced Mobile Phone Service) have been used worldwide for time division multiple access (TDMA). Or, it will be converted to digital by Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), and the application of digital technology is expanding to other fields such as automotive engine control.

Digitization of analog signals is accomplished by sampling the signal at regular time intervals and representing each sample value as bits of constant length (PCM: Pulse Code Modulation). The device in charge of this function is an A / D converter, which acts as an inlet and outlet from the analog world to the digital world, along with a D / A converter that converts digital signals back into analog signals familiar to the human eye and ear.

This PCM was born in 1926, but it was put to practical use much later than digital devices based on semiconductor technology. In A / D conversion and D / A conversion, the two main parameters, sampling frequency and number of bits per sample, are determined to maximize the information of the original signal. In theory, the sampling frequency should be at least twice the bandwidth of the original signal (the Nyquist sampling frequency).

In addition, the number of bits per sample considers human visual and auditory characteristics so that the quantization noise generated when an analog value is represented by a limited number of bits is not felt. The distortion of the signal due to quantization is expressed as a ratio of signal to quantization noise, and is expressed in decibels (dB). At m bits per sample, the signal-to-quantization noise ratio is about 6m dB. The higher the sampling frequency and the more bits per sample, the more faithful to the original signal, but the amount of data generated per second multiplies the two parameters, increasing the amount of data.

For example, first, the human voice delivered over the telephone line has a bandwidth of 3.4KHz, sampled at 8KHz at the exchange, and each sample is represented by 8 bits (256 levels), resulting in 64Kbps of data per subscriber. This value is also the basic data rate (B channel) supported by the Integrated Service Digital Network (ISDN). CD music, on the other hand, has a human audible frequency of up to 20KHz, so the sampling frequency is 44.1KHz and the number of bits per sample is 16 bits.

Since CD is recorded in stereo, the data playback speed is about 1.5Mbps, and this value is also the target bit rate of MPEG-1 standard, which is set as the main application field for video CD which compresses and reproduces video and sound on CD. .

On the other hand, video signals have a much wider bandwidth than voice and sound, which is 4.2MHz for NTSC color TVs adopted by the United States, Japan, and Korea. For digital separation of the color components I and Q modulated by the luminance component Y and the color subcarrier (3.58 MHz) and superimposed on the luminance component, the sampling frequency needs to be an integer multiple of the color subcarrier, Four times the 14.3MHz is widely used. Since the number of bits per sample is 8 bits, the data generation amount is 114.5 Mbps.

Here we need to pay attention to the amount of PCM data generated for voice, sound and video. The simple PCM generates so much data that it is difficult to handle even a hard disk or a high-speed digital communication network. For multimedia to be feasible, PCM data must be compressed as much as possible using human visual and auditory characteristics.

For example, VSELP (Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction), a voice compression method for mobile communication in the United States, compresses the voice to about 8: 1, and recently introduced digital compact cassette (DCC), mini disk (MD), and MPEG-1. Audio, etc., compresses the sound to 4: 1 to 6: 1. Video CDs using MPEG-1 compress the video signal to more than 100: 1, and digital satellite broadcasting using MPEG-2 and high definition TVs in the United States compress the video signals from 30: 1 to 60: 1. .

Due to this compression, only one program is transmitted to one TV channel in the conventional analog method, but 4 to 8 programs can be transmitted in the digital method and the subscriber FM capacity of the mobile communication is also analog FM modulation in TDMA or CDMA, respectively. That's three times or 10 to 20 times the AMPS (30KHz bandwidth per channel).

In the related art, analog broadcasters merely show the audience rating information when a broadcaster transmits a program, and the viewer had to selectively view it. And when an adult watched a child-unable program, and suddenly a child came out to watch TV at home, it was thought that there would have been one or two embarrassing experiences. Even in such a case, automatic control can solve this problem.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to recognize a viewer's age and automatically control TV viewing when an inappropriate program is broadcast according to the recognized viewer age information. It is to provide an audience control device.

As a technical idea for achieving the above object of the present invention

In the viewing control apparatus of the digital TV broadcasting that can limit the viewing of the TV according to the age after recognizing the age of the viewer,

Viewer age recognition means for recognizing age by distinguishing features according to viewer age;

Stream recognition means for receiving age grade information viewable from an image stream of a digital TV broadcast; And

And a display limiting means for limiting image output of the display according to the viewer age recognition means and the output information from the stream recognition means.

1 is a view showing a rating display example for a broadcast program in a conventional analog TV.

2 and 3 are overall configuration diagrams of a viewer control apparatus for digital TV broadcasting according to the present invention.

4A and 4B are a flow chart of a stream of digital broadcasting.

5A through 5C are flowcharts of program configuration information (PSI) of digital broadcasting.

6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of an apparatus for controlling watching of a digital TV according to the present invention.

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

2 and 3 are configuration diagrams of a viewer control apparatus for digital TV broadcasting according to the present invention.

According to the present invention, the viewer age recognition unit 10 for recognizing the age of the viewer having a camera and a microphone device; A DTV Set Top Box (STB) 20 that receives age rating information that can be viewed through a video stream of a digital television (DTV); And a display unit 30 for limiting and displaying the image output of the DTV broadcast based on the recognized age information of the viewer and the viewing grade information through the stream. Can be controlled to prevent viewing.

In this case, the viewer recognition unit 10 for recognizing age is a device for recognizing age in various forms such as an existing image or voice recognition, which can continuously control the display unit 30 by recognizing the age of the front receiver. Information is continuously sent to the DTV STB unit 20.

In addition, the video stream of the DTV set-top box 20 includes a storage medium such as a CD or a video tape.

4A and 4B are flow diagrams of streams of digital broadcasting, which are transmitted in units of streams due to the characteristics of digital broadcasting, and store various pieces of information in the stream from the stream. Such a stream is divided into a program stream (PS) and a transport stream (TS).

The length of a TS packet is always the same as 188 bytes. The transport stream (PS) consists of a series of packs, which are generally variable in length and are usually much longer than the length of a TS packet. If the packet length is the same and short, it is easy in multiplexing, remultiplexing and demultiplexing, or manufacturing a receiver.

5A through 5C are flowcharts of program specific information (PSI) of digital broadcasting, in which PSI information refers to program information defined by a user so that a system decoder can decode a program in a TS. The PSI information may include the following four pieces of information, which are represented as tables, and thus, the PSI information may be regarded as four tables.

The four tables are a Program Association Table (PAT), a Program Map Table (PMA), a Network Information Table (NIT), and a Conditional Access Table (CAT). As the name of each table indicates, the PAT and PMT are information about the program elements that make up a program, and the NIT corresponds to the prescribed values for the transport network. CAT is also related to scrambling or private streams when conditional reception is required.

5 shows PSI information and PID and TS packet payload contents in a TS stream, (a) shows the contents of a TS packet with PID = 0, and (b) shows the contents of a TS packet with PID = PMT_PID. , (c) shows the contents of a TS packet where PID = elementary stream PID.

Looking at the PIS in this way also provides information about age restrictions. After recognizing this, it recognizes the age of the person watching in front of TV and STB in the form of video or audio, and compares the information with the information and automatically controls the set-top box if the viewer is not recognized. You can make it impossible to watch TV.

6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of an apparatus for controlling watching of a digital TV according to the present invention.

According to the present invention, various information can be obtained using the DTV stream, and age limit information can be obtained for each grade of a broadcast or a movie. With this information, it is possible to recognize the age of the person watching TV based on the well-known image, voice, or various types of recognition devices. In addition, when the perceived age of the viewer is not suitable for the TV viewing grade and divided into cases that are not suitable, the video and audio can be controlled to prevent the TV viewing by interworking with the DTV set-top box (STB).

First, the STB (display control unit) continues to check the stream of the program to find out the age restriction information (S100). Then, the recognition unit recognizes the current viewer's age and continues to send to the STB (display control unit) (S110).

At this time, by comparing the viewer's age recognition information with the current program (S120), if the adult broadcasts at an inappropriate age, the image is not displayed (S130), and the display returns to the first time. This is continuously performed until the power is turned off (S140).

As described above, according to the viewing control apparatus of the digital TV broadcasting according to the present invention, viewers are divided into grades according to the contents of the video content in the digital TV era by sensibility and violence, so that suitable viewers can watch these programs. It can be delivered with assistance.

In other words, when an age of the viewer is recognized and an inappropriate program is broadcast based on the recognized viewer age information, the TV viewing may be automatically restricted according to the age of the viewer.

Claims (4)

In the viewing control apparatus of the digital TV broadcasting that can limit the viewing of the TV according to the age after recognizing the age of the viewer, Viewer age recognition means for recognizing age by distinguishing features according to viewer age; Stream recognition means for receiving age grade information viewable from an image stream of a digital TV broadcast; And And display limiting means for limiting image output of the display according to output information from said viewer age recognition means and stream recognition means. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the viewer age recognizing means distinguishes characteristics according to the age of the viewer based on the viewer's face screen photographed from the camera or the voice of the viewer received from the microphone. . The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a DTV set-top box in which the stream recognition means and the display limiting means are incorporated to restrict TV viewing according to viewer age. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the video stream form of the stream recognition means includes a storage medium such as a CD or a video tape.