KR20050067875A - A mobile terminal capable of outputing video signals received by its integrated tv module - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal equipped with a TV receiving module for watching TV.

The present invention includes a digital interface such as, for example, a USB port so that the image received from the TV receiving module is output not only to the liquid crystal display of the terminal but also to an external digital device. For example, when a desktop computer is connected, the internal controller detects this and streams video data to this port. Accordingly, the user can watch the received TV image on his desktop computer if the environment permits. In addition, the mobile communication terminal according to the present invention may have a large-capacity flash memory therein to compress and store the received TV image, and further decompress and convert the stored image to convert the digital interface as well as the digital interface. You can also watch on your desktop computer.

Description

A mobile terminal capable of outputting video signals received from an internal TV module to an external device.

The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal, and more particularly to a mobile communication terminal capable of TV reception.

With the expansion of mobile communication terminals, technology in this field is developing. Due to consumer demand and competition among companies, various functions are being added every day.

Terminals equipped with cameras have become popular enough to occupy a large part of terminals that are newly introduced in recent years. In addition, recently, a mobile communication terminal with a TV viewing function has been released. Along with the increase in memory capacity, this trend is accelerating the personalization of multimedia devices.

However, these so-called TVs can be viewed only through a small LCD screen, and the TV images can be enjoyed only on their own, which does not satisfy various requirements of the computer generation.

On the other hand, in a terminal with emphasis on portability, implementing such a large number of functions requires not only a physical problem of securing a necessary space in the terminal but also an efficient architecture for proper control between systems. Moreover, designing a new system architecture every time has been very inefficient in terms of cost and time due to the frequently added features.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is derived from this background, and an object of the present invention is to enable transmission of a received television image to an external device in a mobile communication terminal capable of watching TV.

Furthermore, an object of the present invention is to support a variety of utilization of the received television image in a mobile communication terminal capable of watching TV.

Furthermore, an object of the present invention is to store a received TV image or to enjoy a variety of stored images in a mobile communication terminal capable of watching TV.

In addition, an object of the present invention is to propose a compact system architecture capable of uniform and systematic control between modules in a terminal.

It is further an object of the present invention to present a system architecture that is easy to design upon addition of new functional modules.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a mobile communication terminal includes a TV receiver for extracting and outputting a video signal from a TV signal received over air, and processing and outputting the video signal output from the TV receiver to the display unit. Or a signal processor for converting the digital image data format to an external interface port.

According to this aspect, the mobile communication terminal according to the present invention can transmit and receive the received television signal to a computer for streaming viewing, and can store or signal it in a computer using an application running on the computer.

According to an additional aspect of the present invention, a mobile communication terminal digitally converts and compresses a received television signal, stores it in an internal large memory, restores the stored image data, and displays the stored image data on its own liquid crystal display or via an external digital port. It is possible to transfer to the device.

According to this aspect of the present invention, the received television signal can be recorded or reproduced, and it is not only possible to watch the recorded image on an external personal computer, but also separately store the image stored in the terminal on the terminal itself or on an external computer. It is possible to edit using the application of.

Furthermore, the mobile communication terminal according to an additional aspect of the present invention is characterized in that the signal processing unit controls the various functions of the TV receiving module by the serial bus, and the video signal of the TV receiving module is input to the signal processing unit through the media interface. do.

According to this aspect of the present invention, the mobile communication terminal according to the present invention is capable of uniform control of the modules constituting the entire system, and furthermore, simply by incorporating another module such as a camera module into the bus. As a result, the hardware design becomes very simple, and in addition, it is possible to present a standard basic structure in software design.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art can easily understand and reproduce the present invention.

1 illustrates an example in which a mobile communication terminal according to the present invention is connected to an external device. For example, a USB port provided in a terminal and a USB port provided in a notebook computer are connected by a cable, and the notebook computer is equipped with an application for controlling communication with a mobile communication terminal and processing various functions. The USB host of the notebook computer detects the terminal's USB slave in a plug-in manner. At this time, an application for transmitting a television signal to an external device is also executed in the terminal by user setting or control from a computer.

Accordingly, the television signal received by the TV receiving module of the terminal is transmitted to a computer via a cable and displayed on a larger screen by a player running on the computer screen. However, in the present invention, the external device is not limited to the computer and may be applied to various display devices that support the same interface, for example, USB. In addition, the video data in the terminal is not limited to a method of streaming a broadcast signal, but may also be a method of storing the broadcast signal in an internal memory of the terminal and then downloading the broadcast signal to an external device by block transmission.

An application running on a personal computer basically includes a player function to play a TV signal transmitted through streaming, but additionally, the received video is compressed and stored on the computer's hard disk, or the selected frames are captured or played. It may also include various graphics filters for filtering the captured image. Element technologies such as image reproducing, decoding and capturing techniques required for such an application program are well known in the art, and thus detailed description thereof will be omitted.

2 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of a mobile communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown, the mobile communication terminal according to the present embodiment includes a phone control unit 100 and its subcircuits, a TV receiver 700, and a signal processor 300, which are largely common to existing mobile communication terminals. It is composed.

The accessory circuits include a keypad 250, a display unit 270 for displaying a menu and an operation state, a wireless communication unit 230 for extracting voice and data signals from a wireless signal transmitted and received through an antenna, and a voice call signal from the wireless communication unit. It includes a voice input and output circuit 210 for inputting and outputting through a microphone and a speaker.

The keypad 250 and the display unit 270 which is a liquid crystal display device may have a conventional well-known configuration. In addition, the wireless communication unit 230 is configured to include an antenna and RF circuit for communication with the base station. In the present specification, the wireless communication unit is interpreted to cover not only various versions of CDMA but also existing methods such as cellular, GSM, and W-CDMA, as well as mobile communication. The voice input / output circuit 210 processes a conversion of digital voice data into an analog voice signal or vice versa, and has a known configuration including an additional circuit such as an audio amplification circuit or a filter.

The phone controller 100 includes a communication processor 110 for controlling voice and data communication, and a system controller 130 for controlling the entire system according to an operation signal or an operation state input from a keypad. The baseband processing portions of the phone control unit 100 and the wireless communication unit 230 are commercially provided as a single integrated circuit, for example, in the case of the CDMA method, such as the Qualcomm MSM series chip. These integrated circuits include dedicated hardware for processing communications, digital signal processors and core firmware for processing video compression, Bluetooth communications, GPS, etc., which are basically provided for the signal processors, and further, microcontrollers for system control. The processor is built in. The system controller 130 supports a convenient application environment such as a virtual machine, and can process various controls according to a characteristic aspect of the present invention by a program.

According to a characteristic aspect of the present invention, a mobile communication terminal according to an embodiment processes a TV receiver 700 for extracting and outputting a video signal from a TV signal received over the air, and a video signal output from the TV receiver 700. And a signal processor 300 for outputting to the display unit 270 or converting the digital image data format to an external interface port 240.

In the present embodiment, the TV receiver 700 and the signal processor 300 are also provided in a single package. The TV receiver 700 is configured as a package including several IC modules therein. The signal processor 300 includes a single IC package or a digital signal processor, internal memories, interface modules, and a microprocessor.

In the present embodiment, the external interface port 240 is a USB method. The USB specification supports streaming transmission, which allows real-time transmission of compressed video. The interface port may be mechanically supported by being integrated into the signal jack at the bottom of the phone or provided as a separate connector.

3 is a block diagram illustrating the embodiment of FIG. 2 in more detail.

As shown, the signal processor 300 may include a media interface 353 that receives an image signal from the TV receiver 700, an image processor 321 that processes a Youngshin signal input from the media interface 353. Converting the image signal processed by the image processor 321 into display data and outputting the image signal to the display unit 270; and converting the image signal processed by the image processor 321 into a digital image data format. The external device interface unit 357 outputs to the interface port 240.

The signal processor 300 was originally developed by the present applicant for signal processing of a camera phone, and according to the characteristic structure of the present invention, the TV receiver 700 was adopted as it is without any special structural change. In addition, it is a characteristic advantage of the present invention that the existing signal processing unit 300 for the camera unit 500 can be used in common without adding a separate signal processing module for the TV receiving unit 700.

The media interface unit 355 receives 8-bit image data in YUV format and buffers it in the internal memory. The image processor 321 converts the progressive scan type TV signals into a sequential scan method, and scales them by interpolation and / or decimation processing to match the resolution of the display device. A codec is included for storing or decompressing image data. In one embodiment, the codec includes an MPEG encoder / decoder and a JPEG encoder / decoder for compressing, storing and reading the captured image frame as a still image. These are implemented by the DSP and the core. In addition, the image processor 321 may include a sharpness enhancement circuit for improving image quality, and a contrast and contrast control function. You can even include some simple filter functions to give you graphical effects.

In an exemplary embodiment, the image output unit 323 outputs the image data output directly from the media interface unit 355 or from the image processing unit 321 to the display unit 270 in a 16-bit RGB data format. In the present exemplary embodiment, the image received by the TV receiver 700 may be compressed by the image processor 321 in an MPEG manner and stored in the flash memory 290 via the memory controller 331 and the memory interface 333. . In addition, the image received by the TV receiver 700 is frame-captured by the image processor 321 and compressed in a JPEG manner to be stored as a still image in the flash memory 290 via the memory controller 331 and the memory interface 333. Can be. Also, the moving image or the still image stored in the flash memory 290 may be decompressed by the image processor 321 and displayed on the display unit 270 through the image output unit 323.

In another embodiment, the terminal further includes a mass memory capable of recording an image, and the signal processor 300 controls a process of recording and reading image data processed by the image processor 321 into the mass memory. The apparatus may further include a memory controller 331. In this case, the memory controller 331 may exist as a module for controlling the internal memory and a module for controlling the external memory such as a large-capacity flash memory. In this case, the external memory may be a removable card type flash memory such as a SIMM module.

The mobile communication terminal according to an additional aspect of the present invention includes, for example, an internal memory 333 for storing data processed by the signal processor, and the signal processor 300 includes a memory controller 331 for controlling the memory. do. The internal memory 333 may be configured to include a large capacity flash memory and RAM for buffering internal data.

In the present embodiment, the external device interface unit 357 is a USB slave controller. The external device interface unit 357 configures the video data compressed in the currently broadcast frame stored in the internal memory 333 in a USB streaming format and outputs it through the USB interface port 240. However, the present invention is not limited thereto, and includes, for example, an IR interface or Bluetooth.

In more detail, the YUV format image data received by the TV receiver 700 is buffered and input to the image processor 321 by the media interface 355. The image processing unit 321 processes the data with improved image quality and set contrast and contrast values, and then compresses the data using an internal codec in the MPEG method. The compressed image data is buffered in the internal memory 333 via the memory controller 331. The external device interface unit 357 reads the compressed image data of the buffered internal memory 333 through the memory control unit 331, converts the compressed image data into a USB streaming packet, and outputs the converted video stream to the USB interface port 240.

However, such image processing is not essential, and when the external device interface 357 is a high speed, it may be directly input from the media interface 355 to the external device interface 357. In this specification, the image processing unit 321 is interpreted to include a configuration including only a minimum function of simply distributing image data input from the media interface unit 355 to the external device interface unit 357 and the image output unit 323. .

According to a characteristic aspect of the present invention, the signal processor 300 controls the operation of the TV receiver 700 by using a serial bus. In one embodiment, the serial bus is an I ² C bus. Also called Inter-IC, I ² C is a two-wire, bidirectional serial bus that provides a communication link between integrated circuits. Philips introduced the I ² C bus 20 years ago for mass production products such as TVs, VCRs and audio equipment.

In the present invention, the video signal inside the terminal is distributed on the bus in a single format, which in one embodiment is the YUV format. Therefore, each image processing module converts the internal output into YUV format and outputs the internal input. The interface configuration with the outside will be described later in detail.

In one embodiment, the TV receiver 700 includes a tuner unit 710 for demodulating the radio broadcast signal received from the antenna, a decoder unit 730 for decoding the demodulated broadcast signal and outputting it as digital data; TV control unit 750 for controlling the operation according to the control command signal of the. The TV receiver 700 includes an antenna for receiving an air wave signal. This antenna may exist separately from the antenna for mobile communication, or in the case of a strip patch antenna type, may be physically shared as one antenna.

According to a characteristic aspect of the present invention, the mobile communication terminal further includes an audio output unit 220 for outputting an audio signal output from the TV receiver 700 as an audible sound, and the TV receiver 700 in the tuner unit 710. The apparatus may further include an audio processor 790 that processes the output audio data and outputs the audio data to the audio output unit 220. At this time, the audio signal of the television signal demodulated by the tuner unit 710 is directly supplied to the audio output unit 220 in analog form. The image data may be processed by the signal processor 300 to be transmitted to an external device, and the audio output unit 220 may include a delay circuit for delaying the output audio signal in consideration of a delay required for playback on the external device.

The tuner unit 710 may be one of the existing analog broadcast tuners such as NTSC and PAL, or a common tuner that supports all of them. In another embodiment, the tuner 710 may be a multimedia broadcasting for mobile communication, such as a satellite based digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) scheme or a wireless LAN based multimedia broadcasting.

4 illustrates one embodiment of a tuner portion 710. The radio broadcast signal received from the antenna passes through the UHF filter 711 and the VHF filter 712, and is separated into a signal of the UHF band and a signal of the VHF band, respectively. Signals in each band are filtered through their respective Low Noise Amplifiers (713, 714). The filtered signal is supplied to the PLL IC 717 to select a signal for each channel according to a channel tuning command, mixed with a local oscillator, and demodulated into an intermediate frequency signal. At this time, the local oscillation frequency for each signal is supplied from a voltage controlled oscillator (715, 716) for each band. The oscillation frequencies of these oscillators are controlled by the TV control unit 750 of FIG. 3 that controls channel tuning. The first demodulated intermediate frequency signal is second demodulated by an IF (Intermediate Frequency) signal processor 725 and outputs to an image output unit 726 and an audio output unit 727 as analog video signals and audio signals, respectively. . In this case, the IF signal processor is controlled by the TV controller 750 of FIG. 3 that controls channel tuning. In addition, the output level, ie, volume, of the voice output unit 727 is controlled by the TV control unit 750 of FIG. 3.

In one embodiment, the decoder 730 generates and outputs a digital YUV signal from the analog video output of the video output unit 726. The operation of the decoder unit is controlled by the TV control unit 750.

Hereinafter, a control configuration of the TV receiver 700 of the signal processor 300 serving as a host in media signal processing will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 3.

According to a characteristic aspect of the present invention, the TV receiver 700 operates according to a bus interface unit 773 for receiving a serial bus control signal from the signal processor 300 and a control signal received from the bus interface unit 773. TV control unit 750 to control the.

According to a characteristic aspect of the present invention, the signal processor includes a media interface unit 355 that receives an image signal from the TV receiver 700, a bus interface unit 353 that controls the operation of the TV receiver 700, and a bus. The controller 310 controls an external module through the interface unit 353. The signal processor 300 selectively activates the tab receiver 700 by known chip select logic.

At this time, according to an additional aspect, the control unit 310 of the signal processor 300 may separately access the tuner unit 710 and the decoder unit 730 of the TV receiver 700 by assigning a plurality of addresses to the bus interface unit 353. To control.

Once a module is selected by the chip select logic, the control unit 310 of the signal processing unit 300 sets the operating environment of these modules through the bus interface unit 353 or maintains the bus interface unit 353 even during operation. Control the operation of each module. In one embodiment, the communication interface of the bus interface portions 353, 573, 773 is an I ² C bus. In the TV receiver 700, one address may be allocated to each of channel selection, audio output level, and decoder operation. The controller 310 may control an operation of changing a TV channel, adjusting a volume, or changing the format of an output image by recording a control command at these addresses through the bus interface 353.

The signal processor 300 according to the present invention includes a chip select logic and a bus interface 353 and has a very flexible design scheme. Therefore, for example, by simply adding a camera module designed to output image data in YUV format supported by the media interface unit 355, the camera can be expanded to a phone capable of simultaneously shooting and watching TV.

As described in detail above, the mobile communication terminal according to the present invention transmits an image signal input from the TV receiving module to an external device such as a personal computer, so that the TV can be viewed on a computer rather than a small screen of the terminal.

Furthermore, the mobile communication terminal according to the present invention has an advantage in that the image received from the TV is transmitted to an external device such as a personal computer, so that the computer can record or capture the image or perform additional processing.

Furthermore, the mobile communication terminal according to the present invention can record the image received from the TV in a large memory inside the terminal, and can reproduce the recorded image not only in the terminal but also in an external computer.

Furthermore, the terminal according to the present invention has a bus for controlling operation separately from the image processing path, and thus can control the complicated modules uniformly, so that the system design, the function addition, and the design change can be easily performed.

The present invention has been described above with reference to preferred embodiments, but is not limited thereto, and is interpreted by the appended claims, which are intended to cover many variations that will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the present invention. Should be done.

1 illustrates an example in which a mobile communication terminal according to the present invention is connected to an external device.

2 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of a mobile communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a block diagram illustrating the embodiment of FIG. 2 in more detail.

4 illustrates an embodiment of a tuner unit 710 according to an embodiment.

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

100: phone control unit 110: communication control unit

130: system control unit 210: voice input and output circuit

220: audio output unit 230: wireless communication unit

250: keypad 270: display unit

300: signal processor 310: controller

321: image processing unit 323: image output unit

331: memory control unit 333: internal memory

353: bus interface unit 355: media interface unit

357: external device interface unit

700: TV receiver 710: tuner unit

750: TV control unit 773: bus interface unit

790: audio processing unit

Claims (12)

A keypad; A display unit for displaying a menu and an operation state; A wireless communication unit for extracting a voice and data signal from a wireless signal transmitted and received through an antenna; A voice input / output circuit for inputting and outputting a voice call signal from the wireless communication unit through a microphone and a speaker; A phone control unit including a communication processing unit for controlling voice and data communication, and a system control unit for controlling the entire system according to an operation signal or an operation state input from the keypad; A TV receiver for extracting and outputting a video signal from a TV signal received through airwaves; A signal processor which processes the image signal output from the TV receiver and outputs the image signal to the display unit or converts the image signal into a digital image data format to an external interface port; Mobile communication terminal comprising a. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal processing unit: A media interface for receiving an image signal from the TV receiving unit, an image processing unit for processing a Youngshin signal input from the media interface unit, and an image for converting the image signal processed by the image processing unit into display data and outputting the display data to a display unit. And an external device interface unit for converting the image signal processed by the image processing unit into a digital image data format and outputting the converted image signal to the interface port. The TV receiver of claim 1, wherein the TV receiver comprises: And a tuner unit for demodulating the radio broadcast signal received from the antenna, and a decoder unit for decoding the demodulated broadcast signal and outputting the digital data as digital data. The method of claim 2 or 3, wherein the signal processing unit: The mobile communication terminal further comprises a serial bus interface for controlling the operation of the TV receiver. The TV receiver of claim 4, wherein the TV receiver comprises: And a TV control unit for receiving the serial bus control signal from the signal processing unit and a TV control unit for controlling the overall operation of the TV receiving unit according to the control signal received from the bus interface unit. The mobile communication terminal of claim 5, wherein the serial bus is an I ² C bus. The mobile communication terminal according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the TV receiver supports one of NTSC, PAL, or both. The mobile communication terminal according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the TV receiver is a DMB system. 6. The mobile communication terminal of claim 5, wherein the control unit of the signal processor controls the bus interface unit to individually access the tuner unit and the decoder unit of the TV receiver by a plurality of address assignments. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the terminal further comprises a mass memory capable of recording an image, and the signal processor further comprises a memory controller configured to control a process of recording and reading image data processed by the image processor from the mass memory. Mobile communication terminal, characterized in that. According to claim 3, The terminal further comprises an audio output unit for outputting the audio signal output from the TV receiving unit as an audible sound, The TV receiver further comprises an audio processor for processing the audio data output from the tuner unit and outputting the audio data to the audio output unit. 12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the audio output unit further comprises a delay circuit for delaying the output audio signal in consideration of the delay necessary for the image data to be processed by the signal processor and transmitted to the external device. Mobile communication terminal.