KR20070049041A - Method and apparatus for transmitting a service guide context in a mobile broadcasting system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transmitting a service guide context in a mobile broadcast system. The present invention relates to a service guide for receiving a service guide from a network entity generating a service guide. Improves reliability by informing the source provider of the result after creation. In addition, network efficiency may be improved by sending a response to a plurality of source providing requests in one message when generating a result.

Service Guide, Service Guide Context

Description

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING A SERVICE GUIDE CONTEXT IN A MOBILE BROADCASTING SYSTEM}

1 is a diagram illustrating a structure of a service guide for receiving a broadcast service in a portable broadcasting system to which the present invention is applied;

2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a process in which a mobile terminal receives individual fragments that are basic units of a service guide in a mobile broadcasting system to which the present invention is applied;

3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a portable broadcasting system to which the present invention is transmitted to transmit a service guide to a mobile terminal;

4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a message schema table applied to the present invention;

5 is a flowchart of message transmission between functions for generating a service guide in OMA BCAST;

6 is a diagram of a protocol stack used for transmitting information related to a service guide in an SG-2 interface according to an embodiment of the present invention;

7 is a flowchart for transmitting a service guide message via an SG-2 interface according to an embodiment of the present invention.

8 is a diagram illustrating a protocol stack used to deliver a request message for providing a service guide source according to an embodiment of the present invention;

9 is a flowchart illustrating an operation for delivering a request message for providing a service guide source according to an embodiment of the present invention.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transmitting a service guide for broadcast reception in a portable broadcasting system. In particular, the present invention relates to a service guide context for easily receiving a service guide by a mobile terminal in a portable broadcasting system. It is about the transmission method and apparatus.

The mobile communication market is continuously demanding the production of new services through recombination or integration of existing technologies. Today, due to the development of communication and broadcasting technologies, mobile terminals such as mobile phones and PDAs in conventional broadcasting systems or mobile communication systems are , A "mobile terminal"). IT is strengthening the mobile communication business by accommodating such potential and actual market demands, rapidly increasing user demands for multimedia services, strategies of operators to provide new services such as broadcasting services in addition to existing voice services, and demands of consumers. With companies' interests in mind, the convergence of mobile communication services and IP is becoming a big flow for the development of next-generation mobile communication technologies.

Meanwhile, the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is an organization that researches standards for interoperability of individual mobile solutions. The OMA mainly plays a role in setting various application standards for mobile communication games and Internet services. In particular, the OMA BAC BCAST (Open Mobile Alliance Browser and Content Mobile Broadcast Sub Working Group) of the working group of the OMA is studying a technology for providing a broadcast service using a mobile terminal.

A mobile terminal for receiving a broadcast service in a portable broadcasting system should receive service guide information including description information about the service itself, billing information for the service, and information on how to receive the service. The service is received using the guide information.

In this case, the above-mentioned conventional portable broadcasting system should be provided with a source for generating a service guide in order to generate a service guide. Among them, information about service, content, and schedule should be provided. In addition, it should be able to know whether to perform the provided message, and transmit the result of generating the message.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for transmitting a service guide context for easily transmitting a service guide from a portable broadcasting system to a mobile terminal.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for transmitting a service guide context for providing information about a service and content and scheduling information to generate a service guide in a portable broadcasting system.

In a method of transmitting a service guide context according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method of transmitting service guide information for using a broadcast service from a mobile broadcasting system to a mobile terminal may include various sources required for the configuration of a service guide delivered from a source provider. Generating service guide information using the service guide; and transmitting service guide context information including at least one fragment constituting the service guide to the mobile terminal.

An apparatus for transmitting a service guide context according to an embodiment of the present invention is an apparatus for transmitting service guide information for using a broadcast service from a mobile broadcasting system to a mobile terminal, and includes various sources necessary for constructing a service guide delivered from a source provider. And a service guide application unit for transmitting the service guide application through an interface and the service guide information using the various sources.

In the following description of the present invention, detailed descriptions of well-known functions or configurations will be omitted if it is determined that the detailed description of the present invention may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention. Terms to be described later are terms defined in consideration of functions in the present invention, and may vary according to intentions or customs of users and operators. Therefore, the definition should be made based on the contents throughout the specification.

Hereinafter, a description will be given based on the OMA BCAST technology, which is one of the portable broadcast technology standards, to give a concrete example in the prior art and the description of the present invention, but this description does not limit the content of the present invention.

1 is a diagram illustrating a structure of a service guide for receiving a broadcast service in a portable broadcasting system to which the present invention is applied, which is a structure proposed by the OMA BAC BCAST to provide a broadcast service to a mobile terminal. One service guide is composed of fragments having a respective purpose, and each fragment is divided into four groups as shown in FIG. 1 according to a purpose of use.

1 shows a service guide as an administrative group 100, a provisioning group 110, a core group 120 which is a core part of a service guide such as a service, content, and schedule, and an access group. An example of the configuration using the (Access Group) 130 is shown. In FIG. 1, a solid line connecting each fragment refers to a cross reference between each fragment.

The administrative group 100 is a group that provides basic information for the mobile terminal to receive a service guide. The management group 100 includes a service guide context fragment 101 and a service guide delivery descriptor fragment 102.

The service guide context fragment 101 is an operator or location information for distributing service guide identifiers (IDs), identification information and service guides of operators generating and transmitting service guides, and service guide delivery interpreter fragments (Service Guides). Delivery Descriptor (hereinafter referred to as 'SGDD') 102 provides connection information. The SGDD 102 informs delivery session information in which a service guide delivery unit (hereinafter referred to as 'SGDU') () containing a fragment which is a minimum unit constituting the service guide, and grouping information about the SGDU And an entry point for receiving an acknowledgment message.

In FIG. 1, the supply group 110 is a group providing fee information for receiving a service. The supply group 110 includes a purchase item fragment 111, a purchase data fragment 112, and a purchase channel fragment 113. The Purchase Item fragment 111 provides fee information for a service or a service bundle, and the Purchase data fragment 112 represents actual price information for a Purchase Item. The purchase channel fragment 113 provides access information so that a service user can actually purchase a service.

In FIG. 1, the core group 120 is a group providing information about a service itself. The core group 120 includes a service fragment 121, a schedule fragment 122, and a content fragment 123. The service fragment 121 provides a description of the service itself that the user will receive, information such as genre, service area, and information about what content the service may be configured with. The schedule fragment 122 provides information on a time at which a service is supplied and available, and the content fragment 123 provides information on a plurality of contents constituting the service, that is, the content. Detailed description, target user group, service area, genre, etc. are provided respectively.

In FIG. 1, the access group 130 includes an access fragment 131 and a session description fragment 132. The access group 130 provides service access information on how to receive services provided through the core group 120 and specific information on a session in which contents constituting the service are transmitted. Allow access to the service.

The access fragment 131 provides a method for accessing various additional services based on one service by providing a mobile terminal with a plurality of access methods for one service, and includes session information. to provide. The session description fragment 132 may be included in the access 131, the terminal informs the location information in the form of a URI so that the terminal can check the corresponding session interpretation information, and the session interpretation is multimedia content existing in the session. It provides address information, codec information, and so on. In addition, the service guide information may further include a preview data fragment 124 for providing a preview and an icon for a service and content in addition to the above four groups as shown in FIG. 1. The interactivity data 550 of FIG. 1 supports an interactive service that may exist on a specific schedule among services. Through the Interactivity Data 550, an interactive service such as music purchase or voting is supported during the broadcast service, and information on a document used for the corresponding interactive service is also provided.

2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a process in which a mobile terminal receives individual fragments that are basic units of a service guide in a mobile broadcasting system to which the present invention is applied.

In the portable broadcasting system, the service guide is transmitted to the mobile terminal as an object in binary form (Ojbect), and the service guide delivery unit (SGDU) (SGDU # 1 to SGDU # N) of FIG. It is shown. As shown in FIG. 2, one SGDU 204 includes fragments (Fragment1 to FragmentN) 205 for one or a plurality of service guides. The fragment 205 may be a service fragment 121, a schedule fragment 122, a content fragment 123, a preview data fragment 124, an access fragment 131, a session analysis fragment 132, purchase as described in FIG. The item fragment 111, the purchase data fragment 112, the purchase channel fragment 113, and the like.

The object of the SGDU 204 is delivered to the mobile terminal through a broadcast or interactive channel, and the Service Guide Delivery Descriptor (SGDD) (SGDD # 1 to SGDD # N) of FIG. 2 ( 202 includes information for receiving such an object. Therefore, the individual fragments constituting the service guide are included in the SGDU 204 indicated by the SGDD 202 and delivered to the mobile terminal.

Sessions to which service guides are delivered are classified into two categories: One is Announcement Session 201 and the other is Delivery Session 203. Through the announcement session 201, the mobile terminal receives the SGDD 202 from the system, checks the delivery session 203 through the received SGDD 202, and receives the SGDU 204 existing in the session. You receive the corresponding fragment that makes up the service guide.

3 illustrates a configuration example of a portable broadcasting system to which the present invention for transmitting a service guide to a mobile terminal is applied.

First, Tables 1 and 2 show the interfaces used between the components (logical entities) of FIG. 3.

In FIG. 3, the content creation block 301 is a provider of a broadcast service (hereinafter, referred to as a BCAST service), and the BCAST service may be a conventional voice / video broadcast service, a file download service of a music file, a data file, or the like. Can be. The content provider 301 uses service guide content creation source (hereinafter referred to as SGCCS) unit 302 to provide content information, performance information of a mobile terminal, and user profile necessary for constructing a service guide of a BCAST service. , The content time information, etc. are transmitted to the Service Guide Application Source (hereinafter referred to as SGAS) unit 305 of the BCAST service application block 304 through the SG1 interface 303 of Table 1 above.

In FIG. 3, the BCAST service application block 304 receives BCAST service data from the content provider block 301 and processes the BCAST service data into a form suitable for the BCAST network to create BCAST service data. In addition, the BCAST service application block 304 is responsible for generating standardized metadata for portable broadcast guidance. The SGAS unit 305 is a BCAST which will be described later through the interface SG2 306 for various sources necessary for the configuration of the service guide, including information received from the SGCCS unit 302, such as service and content detailed information, schedule information, location information The service guide generation (hereinafter referred to as SG-G) of the service distribution / adaptation block 308 is transferred to the unit 309.

In FIG. 3, the BCAST service distribution / adaptation block 308 sets a bearer for transmitting BCAST service data supplied from the BCAST service application block 304, determines a transmission schedule of the BCAST service, and portable broadcasting. It is responsible for generating guide information. The BCAST service distribution / adaptation block 308 is connected to a broadcast distribution system (BDS) 322, which is a network for transmitting BCAST service data, and a bidirectional network 323 supporting bidirectional communication.

The service guide generated from the SG-G unit 309 is sent to a terminal 319 through a service guide distribution unit (SG Distribution: SG-D) unit 310 and the SG-5 interface 317. Delivered. If the service guide is delivered through the BDS 322 or the bidirectional network 323 supporting two-way communication or matching is required in relation to the system or network, the service guide generated from the SG-G unit 309 may be a service guide. BSC Service Distribution block 321, which is matched in the SG-A unit 311 and delivered to the SG-D unit 310 or described later through the SG-B1 interface 316, will be described later. Is passed).

In FIG. 3, the BCAST Subscription Management block 313 manages subscription information and service provision information for receiving the BCAST service and device information for the mobile terminal receiving the BCAST service. The Service Guide Subscription Source (hereinafter referred to as SGSS) unit 314 of the BCAST subscription management block 313 is a subscription-related, provisioning-related source and purchase information, and promotion-related information related to the generation of a service guide. And the like to the SG-G unit 309 which generates a service guide via the SG4 interface 312.

In FIG. 3, the BDS service distribution block 321 distributes all received BCAST services through a broadcast channel or an interaction channel, and may exist according to the type of the BDS 322. An object that may or may not exist. The BDS 322 is a network transmitting BCAST service, and may be, for example, a broadcasting network such as DVB-H, MBMS of 3GPP, BCMCS of 3GPP2, and the like. The bidirectional network 323 transmits the BCAST service one-to-one or exchanges control information and additional information related to receiving the BCAST service in both directions, and may be, for example, an existing cellular network.

In FIG. 3, the mobile terminal 319 is a terminal capable of receiving a BCAST service and has a function of being connected to a cellular network according to the capability of the terminal. The mobile terminal 319 includes a service guide client (hereinafter referred to as SG-C) to receive a service guide transmitted through the SG5 interface 317 or a notification message transmitted through the SG6 interface 318. Receives and performs the appropriate operation for receiving BCAST service.

Tables 3 to 5 summarize the functions of the main components (logical entities) of FIG. 3 in the standard of the OMA BCAST service.

4 illustrates a configuration example of a message schema table applied to the present invention.

In FIG. 4, the name 401 indicates a name for an element value and an attribute constituting the message. The type 403 indicates whether the name 401 is in the form of an element value or an attribute value, and the element value has a value such as E1, E2, E3, or E4. Here, E1 represents the upper element value for the entire message, E2 represents the lower element value of E1, E3 represents the lower element value of E2, and E4 represents the lower element value of E3. The attribute value is represented by A, where A represents the attribute value of the element. For example, A below E1 represents the attribute value of E1.

In FIG. 4, the category 405 is used to distinguish whether a corresponding element value or an attribute value is a mandatory content or an optional content, and if it is required, has a M value and an O value if an option. Cardinality 407 represents a relationship between elements and has values of 0, 0..1, 1, 0..n, 1..n. 0 means option, 1 means mandatory relationship, and n means that it can have many values. Also 0..n means that the element value may or may not have n values. The description 409 indicates what the corresponding element or attribute value means, and the data type 411 means the type of the programming language in which the data is written. For example, it may be XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

5 shows a message transmission flow between functions for generating a service guide in OMA BCAST.

Referring to FIG. 5, in operation 501, the SGCCS 302 transmits information and an attribute value about content to the SGAS unit 305 in relation to a BCAST service. In step 503, the SGAS unit 305 delivers the information and the property value of the content and service to the SG-G / D / A 309, 310, and 311 according to the BCAST format as the attribute value received from the SGCCS 302. . In step 505, the SG-G / D / A 309, 310, and 311 requests information related to provisioning from the SGSS 314. In step 507, the SGSS 314 provides provisioning related information to the SG-G / D / A 309, 310, and 311. In step 509, the SG-G / D / A 309, 310, and 311 generates a service guide.

6 shows a protocol stack used for transmitting information related to a service guide in an SG-2 interface. The service guide message delivered through the SG-2 306 may be delivered in the form of text or XML. The service guide message will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 7. The service guide message through the SG-2 306 is transmitted using IP, TCP, HTTP, and the SGAS section 305 in the BSA 304 sends an HTTP POST to the SG-G 309 in the BSD / A 309. Send a service guide message via. In addition, the SG-G 309 may receive a message from the SGAS unit 305 and include a result of the service guide generation in an HTTP RESPONSE message, or may transmit a result message through an HTTP POST.

7 is a flowchart for transmitting a service guide request message through SG-2. In step 701, the SGAS unit 305 is an SG-G 309, a service for generating a core section of a structure of a service guide for receiving a broadcast service in a mobile broadcasting system to which the present invention described with reference to FIG. 1 is applied. And information about the content and the schedule information in the form of a service guide core fragment. The service guide core fragment has the same meaning as the service guide request message. The information on the schedule may not be provided among the transmitted information, and may be generated in the BSD / A 308 while generating a service guide in the SG-G 309. The service guide request message provided in step 701 is shown in Tables 6a to 6y below. In <Table 6a>, Service inherits ServiceInfo of <Table 6c>, Content of <Table 6b> inherits ContentInfo of <Table 6h>, and Schedule of <Table 6b> is ScheduleInfo of <Table 6n> The InteractivityData of <Table 6b> is used by inheriting InteractivityDataInfo of <Table 6w>, respectively. In step 703, the SG-G 309 generates a service guide with the information received from the SGAS unit 305, and then sends a service guide generation complete message to the SGAS unit 309 for completion of creation. If the service guide is generated and sent immediately, the result message may be included in the HTTP response for the request message in step 701. If it takes time to generate the service guide, the service guide may be configured between the SGAS unit 305 and the SG-G unit 309. After completing the session, the SG-G 309 may notify the SGAS unit 305 of the result message through the HTTP POST using the ID and the BSAAddress of the SGASReq. Details of the result message are shown in Table 7 below. In response to the service guide request of the SGAS unit 305 in step 603, a response to several requests of the SGAS unit 305 may be sent from the SG-G 309 to the SGAS unit 305 in one message.

Tables 6a to 6y below show detailed descriptions of each element value and attribute value constituting the service guide request message. In addition, in the following Tables 6a to 6y, the data type is XML, but other programming languages may be used.

8 illustrates a protocol stack used to deliver a request message for providing a service guide source according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown, a service guide message (SG-2) is used as a backend interface for a request for provision of a service guide source between the SGAS unit 305 and the SG-G unit 309.

Referring to FIG. 8, as shown in FIG. 6, HTTP 807 based on IP 803 and TCP 805 is used for message transmission through the SG-2 interface 801. In another embodiment, a Web Service Protocol (Web Service Protocol) for transmitting XML data such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), eXtensible Markup Language-Remote Procedure Call (XML-RPC), and Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP) ( 809 may be used in an upper layer of the HTTP 907. When the web service protocol 809 is used, the message of the present invention is included in the web service protocol body and transmitted.

9 is a flowchart illustrating an operation for delivering a request message for providing a service guide source according to an embodiment of the present invention. That is, a flowchart illustrating an operation for delivering a service guide source required for service guide configuration through the SG-2 interface.

In step 901, the SGAS unit 305 delivers the service guide source data necessary for constructing the service guide using the SG-2 interface 801 to the SG-G unit 309. The message format (XML Schema) for delivering the service guide source data is shown in Tables 8a and 8b below. In step 903, the SG-G unit 309 responds to the SGAS unit 305 as a result of processing the service guide source data as shown in Table 9 below.

Table 10 below shows examples of status codes included in the response message shown in Table 9 below. That is, the response messages include the status code indicating the result of service guide source data processing. If the service guide source data is normally processed, the status code is '000', and the terminal knows that the processing result is successful according to the corresponding status code. Tables 10a to 10g show the <Table 10> for convenience. <Table 11> is stored and used in the network entity and the terminal sending the response message, and additional status codes can be defined according to the purpose of the operator. The values of the status codes shown in Table 10 are global in all cases in which the system or the terminal providing the portable broadcasting service should respond to the results of the processing as well as the response message according to the embodiment of the present invention. It can be used for this purpose, and is also called a global status code in this respect.

In the present invention operating as described in detail above, the effects obtained by the representative ones of the disclosed inventions will be briefly described as follows.

The present invention improves reliability by receiving information and attribute values or schedule information about a service and content from a network entity generating a service guide in a mobile broadcasting system and generating a service guide and informing the source provider of the result of the generation. It can be effective.

In addition, the present invention has the effect of improving the network efficiency by sending a response to a plurality of source providing requests in a single message when transmitting the result.

In addition, the present invention has an effect that can easily transmit a service guide to the mobile terminal.

Claims (5)

A method for transmitting service guide information for using a broadcast service from a mobile broadcasting system to a mobile terminal, Generating service guide information using various sources necessary for the configuration of the service guide delivered from the source provider; And transmitting service guide context information including at least one fragment constituting the service guide to the mobile terminal. The method of claim 1, The various sources include service and content detailed information and schedule information. The method of claim 1, The service guide generation result comprises a step of informing the source provider. An apparatus for transmitting service guide information for using a broadcast service from a mobile broadcasting system to a mobile terminal, A service guide application source unit for transmitting various sources necessary for the configuration of the service guide delivered from the source provider through an interface; And a service guide generator for generating the service guide information using the various sources. The method of claim 4, wherein And the various sources include service, content detailed information, and schedule information.

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