KR20060005597A - Apparatus and method for automatic renewal of digital broadcasting service channel - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an automatic update of a service channel in digital broadcasting, and more particularly, by newly reflecting the status of a channel newly added, deleted or changed in digital broadcasting, the user can add, delete or change a new channel immediately without any other operation. It is about automatic update of a service channel which can use a channel.

The method for automatically updating a service channel according to an embodiment of the present invention receives a digital broadcast signal, extracts SDT information from the received signal, and transmits a service update process start command when the SDT information is changed. If there is a channel selected by the user in the SDT information, the service monitoring step of displaying and broadcasting the name of the channel and the storage channel list information indicating the pre-stored channel list activated by the service update process start command and the storage channel if the received SDT information are different And updating the list information with the received SDT information.

SDT, storage channel list, service monitoring process, service update process

Description

Method and apparatus for automatic renewal of service channel in digital broadcasting {Apparatus and method for automatic renewal of digital broadcasting service channel}

1 is a structure of a transport stream.

2 is an exemplary view showing the structure of the SDT.

3 is a flow chart illustrating a conventional service monitoring process.

4 is a block diagram schematically illustrating an internal configuration of a digital broadcast receiver and a digital TV according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of operating a service monitoring process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

6 is a flowchart illustrating a process of operating a service update process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention relates to an automatic update of a service channel in digital broadcasting, and more particularly, by newly reflecting the status of a channel newly added, deleted or changed in digital broadcasting in real time, a user can add, delete or change a new channel immediately without any other operation. It is about automatic update of a service channel which can use a channel.

Image information, audio information, and additional information to be transmitted in digital broadcasting are transmitted through a transport stream (hereinafter, referred to as TS), which is a multiplexed signal. The structure is shown. The TS is largely divided into an elementary stream and a program specific information / service information (PSI / SI). The elementary stream includes video information transmitted through an analog broadcast, audio information, and information added from a digital broadcast.

The main purpose for broadcasting is to send an elementary stream and the RSMS stream is side information.

At this time, the PSI / SI is divided into PSI (Program Specific Information), which is program designation information for enabling the receiver to demultiplex TS, and SI (Service Information), which is program guide information. In addition, the SI is subdivided into a network information table (NIT), a service description table (SDT), an event information table (EIT), and a time data table (TDT).

The dual SDT records information such as service name for each service included in a specific transport stream. 2 is an exemplary view showing the structure of the SDT.

TS_id is identification information for identifying TS, and FIG. 2 shows that TS_id is set to "0x0001". In addition, a service whose service_id is identified by "0x0001" is included, and information such as a service name of the service is displayed as "information such as a service name".

The SDT updates the contents at regular intervals and indicates that the version name has been updated at the beginning.

3 is a flow chart illustrating a conventional service monitoring process.

In order to facilitate the description, a set-top box is used as an example of a digital broadcast receiver and a digital TV is used as an example of a digital broadcast broadcaster.

The operation starts when the user turns on the set-top box and the digital TV. At this time, when the operation starts, a process for monitoring a service channel (hereinafter, referred to as a 'service monitoring process') is an SDT of the decoded information of the digital broadcast signal received by the broadcast receiving module in the set-top box. Request (S110). The broadcast receiving module receiving the SDT continuously transmits the SDT to the service monitoring process.

If the SDT received by the service monitoring process is the same as the existing SDT, the SDT continues to wait until another SDT comes (S120).

If the SDT received by the service monitoring process is different from the existing SDT, it is checked whether there is a channel currently used in the SDT (S120 and S130). In this case, for example, when the SDT is different, the user may select a channel other than the channel included in the current TS. The classification of the SDT is determined by whether the version name is the same.

If there is no channel currently being used in the SDT, the above steps are repeated until another SDT is transmitted or the channel is changed (S130, S120, S130).

If there is a channel currently used in the SDT, the channel name in the SDT is temporarily stored in the memory and displayed on the screen of the digital TV (S130 and S140). At the same time, the content corresponding to the channel is broadcasted through the screen of the digital TV, and a new SDT is received (S130, S140, S120).

If you follow the conventional method, you can detect the change of service name, but you can't know whether other channels are actually broadcasting or other channels have been added. Even if it was not found, it was not known until it was added.

An object of the present invention is to solve the inconvenience of a user scanning by automatically updating a digital service channel that is newly added, deleted, or changed in real time as soon as it is newly added, deleted, or changed using a service update process.

Another object of the present invention is to update the digital service channel by using the SDT, so that the update can be performed only by changing the contents of the channel.

The objects of the present invention are not limited to the above-mentioned objects, and other objects that are not mentioned will be clearly understood by those skilled in the art from the following description.

In order to achieve the above object, a method of automatically updating a service channel according to an embodiment of the present invention receives a digital broadcast signal, extracts SDT information from the received signal, and then starts a service update process command when the SDT information is changed. In this case, if there is a channel selected by the user in the SDT information, the service monitoring step of displaying and broadcasting the name of the channel and the storage channel list information indicating the pre-stored channel list activated by the service update process start command and the received SDT If the information is different, a service update step of replacing the storage channel list information with the received SDT information.

An apparatus for automatically updating a service channel according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an information restoration module for receiving a digital broadcast signal and restoring SDT information from the received signal, a storage module for storing a storage channel list indicating a previously stored channel list, and And a control module for comparing the SDT information and the storage channel list information when the SDT information is changed, and updating the storage channel list information by using the SDT information.

Specific details of other embodiments are included in the detailed description and the drawings.

Advantages and features of the present invention and methods for achieving them will be apparent with reference to the embodiments described below in detail with the accompanying drawings. However, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed below, but can be implemented in various different forms, and only the embodiments make the disclosure of the present invention complete, and the general knowledge in the art to which the present invention belongs. It is provided to fully inform the person having the scope of the invention, which is defined only by the scope of the claims. Like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout.

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

4 is a block diagram schematically showing the internal configuration of the digital broadcast receiver 200 and the digital TV 205 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The digital broadcast receiver 200 includes a control module 210 and a control module 210. The information restoration module 220 and the storage module 230 are controlled through the control panel 220. The digital TV 205 includes a user input module 240 and a display module 250.

The control module 210 controls the information flow or operation between other modules and calculates a program.

The information restoration module 220 receives a digital broadcast signal transmitted from a broadcasting station and restores image information, audio information, and other information from the received signal.

The storage module 230 may include a flash memory format storage medium for storing a storage channel list including information about a channel of a TS used by a user, and a RAM format storage medium for temporarily storing a channel name.

The user input module 240 is an input device that allows a user to select and input a desired channel. The user input module 240 may include a button attached to the TV itself or may use a remote controller.                     

The display module 250 broadcasts according to the information decoded by the information reconstruction module 220 or provides a user with a message regarding a channel name or a user input restriction according to an embodiment of the present invention.

 Hereinafter, a detailed operation process of the modules will be described.

When the user selects a channel desired by the user using the user input module 240, the control module 210 restores the SDT from the information restoration module 220 to execute a service monitoring process.

The control module 210 reads the storage channel list stored in the storage module 230 when a process for updating a service (hereinafter referred to as a 'service update process') is executed while executing the service monitoring process. Indented.

When the service monitoring process or service generation process is executed and the broadcasting step shown in FIG. 5 or 6 to be described later is performed, the control module 210 performs video or audio information and other information of the channel selected by the user from the information restoration module 220. Read the output to the display module 250.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of operating a service monitoring process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Operation of the present invention begins when the user turns on the set-top box and the digital TV. When the operation is started, the control module 210 executes the service monitoring process and activates the information recovery module 220 to receive the digital broadcast signals. The service monitoring process requests the SDT information from the information decoded from the digital broadcast signal received by the information restoring module 220, and a service update process is executed at this time (S310). At this time, the service update process is in a wait state. The information restoration module 220, which has received the SDT information, continuously transmits the SDT information to the service monitoring process.

If the received SDT is the same as the existing SDT, the service monitoring process continues to receive the SDT until another SDT comes (S320).

If the received SDT is different from the existing SDT, the service monitoring process transmits a start command to the service update process (S320 and S330). In this case, for example, when the SDT is different, a predetermined time passes or the user selects a channel other than the channel included in the current TS. The classification of the SDT is determined by whether the version information of the SDT described above is the same.

The service monitoring process checks whether there is a channel currently used in the SDT after transmitting a start command to the service update process (S340).

If there is no channel currently being used in the SDT, the service monitoring process repeats the above steps until another SDT is transmitted or the channel is changed (S350, S320). This process can occur if the user changes the channel before the service update process completes its operation.

If there is a channel currently in use in the SDT, the service monitoring process temporarily stores the channel name in the SDT in the storage module 230 and displays it on the display module 250. At the same time, the content corresponding to the channel is broadcast using the display module 250 to check whether a new SDT is received (S350 and S320).

6 is a flowchart illustrating a process of operating a service update process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The service update process continues to wait until the service update process start command is received (S410).

If the service update process receives the service update process start command, it checks the prerequisites for starting the operation of the process (S410, S415). The checking of the process start prerequisite is because the user may change the channel through the user input module 240 even after the process start command is issued. The service update process checks whether the current service update is not taking place and if the SDT is received and other menus are not used at all, and if all of the above conditions are not met, the service update process returns to the process start command waiting state again (S415, S410). ). If the conditions match, the service update process creates a channel list table (hereinafter referred to as "table 1") to be compared with the existing information using the newly received information of the SDT (S415, S420).

After the creation of the table 1, the service update process creates a channel list table (hereinafter referred to as 'table 2') using the storage channel list already stored in the storage module 230 (S425).

The channel list table is a list for finding the difference between the SDT information and the already stored channel list, and preferably includes the names, service ids, service types, and number of channels.

If any one of the service number and channel name of Table 1 and Table 2 is different, the service update process limits the user's input and stops broadcasting (S440). However, if the user manually changes the information in the storage channel list, it is regarded as unconditional. If both the service number and the channel name match, the service update process returns to the wait state of the process start command again (S430, S435, S410).

Meanwhile, in step S440 illustrated in FIG. 6, the service update process limits the input of the user and prevents the user from changing the channel while changing the information of the storage channel list stored in the storage module 230. 160) outputs a message such as "Stop the broadcast for a while to update the channel information and fix the channel" and stops the broadcast (S440).

After the service update process restricts the user's input and stops broadcasting, the service update process deletes all information in the storage channel list and stores the channel list created from the newly received SDT information in the storage channel list (S445 and S450). Then, the user input restriction is released to complete the service update (S450, S455).

After the service update process, the service update process checks whether there is a channel watched by the user, and if there is a channel, broadcasts the watched channel (S460 and S475).

If the channel viewed by the user is deleted or modified, the service update process broadcasts the first channel of the updated storage channel list (S460 and S470).

While updating the channel, the service update process returns to the state waiting for a process start command again (S410), at which time the service monitoring process checks whether a new SDT has been received.

Although embodiments of the present invention have been described above with reference to the accompanying drawings, those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains may implement the present invention in other specific forms without changing the technical spirit or essential features thereof. You will understand that. Therefore, it should be understood that the embodiments described above are exemplary in all respects and not restrictive.

According to the method for automatically updating a service channel in the digital broadcasting of the present invention as described above, there are one or more of the following effects.

First, there is an advantage of eliminating the inconvenience of the user having to scan one by one by automatically updating the digital service channel newly added, deleted, and changed in real time.

Second, the digital service channel can be updated with SDT so that the contents can be updated even if the contents of the channel are changed.

Claims (8)

Receives a digital broadcast signal, extracts SDT information from the received signal, and transmits a service update process start command when the SDT information is changed, and if there is a channel selected by the user in the SDT information, displays the name of the channel. Service monitoring step of broadcasting; And And a service update step of replacing the storage channel list information with the received SDT information when the storage channel list information activated by the service update process start command and the received SDT information are different from each other. To auto-update The method of claim 1, Whether to change the SDT information is compared with the version information included in the most recently received SDT compared to the version information included in the SDT to automatically update the service channel that determines that the SDT information has been changed when it is not the same version information. Way The method of claim 1, wherein the service update step Confirming a service update process start command; Identifying a precondition for starting the service update process; Checking whether the SDT information and the storage channel list information match; And Storing the SDT information in the storage channel list when the SDT information and the storage channel list information do not match. The method of claim 3, wherein The step of checking whether the SDT information and the storage channel list information match Creating a first channel list table for the SDT information; Creating a second channel list table for the storage channel list information; And Comparing the number of services included in the first channel list table and the second channel list table. The method of claim 4, wherein The step of checking whether the SDT information and the storage channel list information match And comparing the channel names included in the first channel list table and the second channel list table. The method of claim 3, wherein If the SDT information and the storage channel list information does not match, storing the SDT information in the storage channel list Limiting user input and stopping broadcasting; Deleting contents of the storage channel list; Storing the contents of the SDT in the storage channel list; And Canceling the user's input restriction; The method of claim 3 Broadcasting a channel to watch if the user has a channel, and broadcasting the first channel of the storage channel list if the channel is not visible to the user. An information recovery module for receiving a digital broadcast signal and restoring SDT information from the received signal; A storage module for storing a storage channel list indicating a previously stored channel list; And The apparatus for automatically updating a service channel comprising a control module for updating the storage channel list information by using the SDT information when the SDT information is changed and compare the SDT information and the storage channel list information does not match.

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