KR20070061224A - Apparatus and method for management of section filters in a digital broadcasting receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

An apparatus and a method for managing section filters in a digital broadcasting receiver are provided to prevent collision of hardware resources when a plurality of application software programs requires different section filters by efficiently managing section filter resources. Section filter resources are confirmed when arbitrary application software requests a section filter based on TS(Transport Stream) header information to be allocated(301,302). When the section filter based on the TS header information has been previously allocated to another application software, a previously allocated section filter is allocated to the application software. When the section filter resources have reserved section filters(305), a new section filter is allocated to the application software(306). When there is no previously allocated section filters and reserved section filters, a section filter with respect to TS header information similar to the TS header information is searched(307). A search factor of the searched similar section filter is corrected to combined header information corresponding to a combination of the TS header information and the similar TS header information(308), and the corrected similar section filter is allocated to the application software(310).

Description

Apparatus and Method for Management of Section Filters in a Digital Broadcasting Receiver

1 is a flowchart illustrating a method of extracting additional data from an MPEG transport stream (TS) using a section filter in a general digital broadcasting receiver;

2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a section filter management apparatus for processing additional data in a digital broadcast receiver according to the present invention;

3 is a flowchart illustrating a section filter management method for processing additional data in a digital broadcast receiver according to the present invention;

4 is a structural diagram of an embodiment of a section filter relationship list showing a relationship between a section filter securing state and application software according to the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawing

20: section filter management device 201: frequency filtering and demodulation unit

202: section filter control unit 203: section filter control unit

204 to 206: application software

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for managing a section filter for additional data processing in a digital broadcast receiver. More particularly, the present invention provides a hierarchical section filter that is limited to a plurality of applications in a digital broadcast receiving terminal. The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for managing a section filter for processing additional data in a digital broadcast receiver for increasing the utilization of limited resources (section filters).

The digital broadcast receiver uses a section filter to extract a desired stream from a multiplexed transport stream (TS), which is implemented through software or hardware as extracting an MPEG section.

In order to extract the MPEG section, a TS packet is extracted from the MPEG TS by comparing and analyzing the TS packet information including the TS header and other necessary information such as PID (Packet Identifier) and TID (Table Identifier) required by the user. Process (demultiplexing process) is required.

If the multiplexed MPEG TS contains high-definition content of HD (High-Definition) level, since the TS packet contains large TS packets of 19.392 Mbps or more, the demultiplexer of the digital broadcasting receiver analyzes and extracts large TS packets in real time. As a transfer to a decoding unit suitable for each media, high-speed processing power is required.

For this reason, the demultiplexing unit of a commercially available digital broadcasting receiver is maintained in high speed by being manufactured with specialized hardware or software with guaranteed performance.

However, considering the compatibility of the digital broadcasting receiver, the number of section filters of the demultiplexer made by hardware or software with guaranteed performance is limited to a finite number, which is why the number of TS packets that can be distinguished from one MPEG TS is limited. Kind is limited.

As described above, since the number of section filters for extracting TS packets from the MPEG TS received from the digital broadcast receiver is limited to a finite number, it is necessary to distinguish various types of TS packets required by an application operating in the digital broadcast receiver. In this case, when two or more applications require the same type of TS packet, a shortage of resources (limitation) occurs.

That is, the upper application software wants to obtain various kinds of additional data including MPEG Specific Program Specific Information (PSI) information and ATSC Program & System Information Protocol (PSIP) information. To this end, the application software should secure a section filter that can extract MPEG TS packets using packet information such as PID and TID as search factors.

In particular, in a situation where the range of services supported by a broadcast terminal is widening and the types of additional data for such various services are increasing, the types of sections provided for each application are not diverse, There is no intelligent section management module that can manage them consistently and efficiently. The problem (restriction of resources and inefficient use of resources) is even worse.

 The present invention has been proposed to solve the above problems, and by hierarchically distributing limited section filters for a plurality of applications in a digital broadcast receiving terminal, the utilization of limited resources (section filters) is increased. It is an object of the present invention to provide a section filter management apparatus and method for processing additional data in a digital broadcast receiver.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention can be understood by the following description, and will be more clearly understood by the embodiments of the present invention. It will also be appreciated that the objects and advantages of the present invention may be realized by the means and combinations thereof indicated in the claims.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for identifying a section filter resource when a section filter allocation based on specific transport stream (TS) header information is requested from any application software; A first allocation step of allocating a previously allocated section filter (first common section filter) to the application software if the section filter for the TS header information is already assigned to another application software as a result of the filter resource checking; A second allocating step of allocating a new section filter to the application software if the filter resource is confirmed as a result of the filter resource; A similar filter searching step of searching for a section filter (similar section filter) for TS header information similar to the TS header information if there is no pre-allocated section filter and filter resource margin as a result of the filter resource checking; And modifying the search factor of the found similar section filter to 'combination header information' combining the TS header information and the similar TS header information, and modifying the modified similar section filter (second common section filter) to the application software. And a third assigning step of allocating. In addition, the present invention, before performing the third allocation step, if there is a section filter (third common section filter) previously assigned to the combined header information by checking the section filter resource is found in the similar filter search step And allocating the third common section filter to the application software to which the pseudo section filter is assigned and the application software.

On the other hand, the present invention is a section filter management apparatus in a digital broadcast receiver,

A plurality of section filters for determining validity for each section of the input transport stream TS and delivering only valid sections to the corresponding application software; And when a section filter assignment based on specific transport stream (TS) header information is requested from any application software, the section filter is hierarchically determined by using registration of a corresponding section filter, a margin of section filter resource, and registration of a similar section filter. Section filter control means for assigning a section filter.

The present invention provides a plurality of software modules using resource filters that are resource-limited in matching between section filters and application software required for processing MPEG sections of broadcast terminals receiving digital broadcasts. This section relates to a technique for distributing section filters efficiently and hierarchically.

That is, the present invention efficiently utilizes a section filter resource for extracting additional data received multiplexed together with audio and video information to MPEG TS, including basic PSI (Program Service Information) in a broadcast receiver supporting additional data reception using a digital broadcasting network. To allocate (distribute)

The above objects, features and advantages will become more apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, whereby those skilled in the art may easily implement the technical idea of the present invention. There will be. In addition, in describing the present invention, when it is determined that the detailed description of the known technology related to the present invention may unnecessarily obscure the gist of the present invention, the detailed description thereof will be omitted. Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a flowchart illustrating a method of extracting additional data from an MPEG transport stream (TS) using a section filter in a general digital broadcasting receiver.

First, when a frequency band suitable for a channel requested by a viewer is filtered out of a plurality of frequency bands existing in a broadcasting network, and a demodulation method corresponding to a modulation method suitable for each broadcasting network is performed, an MPEG transport stream TS is continuously output. (101).

In order to obtain basic PSI information, a section filter for extracting sections of information such as MPEG System Information (SI) information, that is, Program Association Table (PAT) and Program Map Table (PMT), must be secured.

Using the prepared (secured) section filter, the PID and the TID of the 'media stream (audio / video stream) to be played' are obtained from the PAT and PMT tables. Then, for media playback, the section filter is required to extract a section of the audio / video and pass it to the decoding module. The section filter having such a request allocates the reserved resources and prepares to analyze the input MPEG TS. (102).

When the MPEG TS stream is input, the section filter checks the validity (satisfaction of the filtering condition) for each section (103), discards the invalid section and passes only the valid section to the corresponding application software (104). At this time, if there are a number of valid sections, they are collected and delivered to the application software as a table.

2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a section filter management apparatus for processing additional data in a digital broadcast receiver according to the present invention. In FIG. 2, 201 to 206 indicate a digital broadcast receiver, and a portion including the section filter unit 202 and the section filter control unit 203 represents the section filter management apparatus 20 according to the present invention.

The frequency filtering and demodulation unit 201 filters a frequency band of a channel that a user requests to watch from a broadcast signal having various broadcast frequencies received through a broadcast network, and corresponds to a modulation scheme used by each broadcast transmitter. Perform demodulation with.

The section filter unit 202 analyzes the information of the MPEG TS packet inputted from the frequency filtering and demodulation unit 201 and extracts a desired TS packet from the MPEG TS. It consists of a number of section filters that validate. That is, the section filter unit 202 determines the validity for each section of the input transport stream TS and delivers only valid sections to the corresponding application software.

On the other hand, the section filter control unit 203 manages the filter resources of the section filter unit 202 and integrates and controls the requests of the application software 204 to 206. That is, if the section filter control unit 203 is requested to allocate a section filter based on specific transport stream (TS) header information from any application software, whether the section filter is registered, the margin of the section filter resource, the registration of the similar section filter A function of allocating section filters hierarchically using whether or not is performed is described in detail with reference to FIG. 3.

The application software 204 to 206 use the broadcast information, MPEG TS media information, and additional data as requesting section filter resource acquisition (allocation).

3 is a flowchart illustrating a section filter management method for processing additional data in a digital broadcast receiver according to the present invention, and illustrates a section filter management method performed by the section filter control unit 203 of FIG. 4 is a structural diagram of an embodiment of a section filter relationship list showing a relationship between a section filter securing (allocation) state and application software (application software requesting section information) according to the present invention.

The application software requests the section filter resource allocation to the section filter control unit based on specific transport stream (TS) header information (PID, TID) for collecting media (audio / video) or additional data (301).

Then, the section filter control section has already requested a section filter resource allocation that uses the same TS header information as a search factor from other application software, and checks whether the section filter is already assigned (registered in the section filter relation list). (302). Here, the section filter control unit checks through the section filter relationship list (see FIG. 4) connecting the TS header information 401 and the application software 402 requesting the same.

As a result of the inspection 302, if the corresponding section filter has already been assigned, the section filter control unit may add new application software (e.g., application software 3) to the end of the application software (e.g., application software 3) item connected to the TS header information (e. After adding application software p) 410 (that is, adding application software that requires a pre-registered (allocated) section filter to the section filter relation list) (303), an existing section filter (first public) Section filter) as it is (304). That is, the section filter control unit checks the validity of the 'input section' with the assigned section filter (first public section filter), and the applicable section is included in the section filter relation list (see FIG. 4). Deliver to all software (eg application software 3, application software p).

As a result of the check 302, if the corresponding section filter is not assigned, it is checked whether there is a margin (resource margin) to allocate a new section filter to satisfy the request of "301" except for the section filter already assigned ( 305). As a result of the check, if there is sufficient resource, after allocating a new section filter (306), a new item 420 is added to the section filter relation list.

On the other hand, as a result of the verification (305), if there is no resource, new section filters cannot be allocated, so that the existing section filters cannot be shared. Accordingly, a section filter (similar section filter) 430 for TS header information similar to the newly input TS header information at “301” is searched among the TS header information of the previously allocated section filter (307). For example, if the TS header information of the previously assigned section filter is called TSH [n] and the input TS header information is called TSHp, all the TSH [n] and TSHp are XORed and the results are returned. In comparison, the section filter having the least bit '1' information is selected as the pseudo section filter. If TSHp is 16 bit information and the actual value is 0x1001000011110000, XOR operation with 0x1000xxxxxxxxxxxx (x is not considered in section filter, that is, don't care) among TSH [n] results in 0x0001000000000000, which is bit Since there is only one '1' (the smallest number of bits '1'), it can be selected as a pseudo section filter. Can be used.

In addition, by performing an OR operation to extract the TS packets corresponding to both header information, header information (eg, header information 2 ′) to be used as a new search factor (hereinafter referred to as combined header information) (405) (308).

Since there may exist an existing section filter whose newly obtained 'combined header information' is a search factor, the existing section filter resource is checked again (309).

As a result of the check (309), if there is no section filter already registered with respect to the 'combined header information', the existing similar section filter found in "307" is modified and allocated (310, 431). Here, in the section filter relationship list, the header information is modified in the item 430 of the existing similar section filter (for example, the header information 2 is changed from the header information 2 to 'combined header information' to the corresponding application software (eg, Add application software q) (431).

That is, the process "310" allocates the existing similar section filter searched at "307", in which the header information used as the search factor is modified to "combined header information" and assigned. Here, the modified similar section filter is called a 'second common section filter'.

The TS packet extracted by the 'modified similar section filter (second common section filter)' assigned at " 310 " has two or more application softwares on the section filter relation list, but, unlike the above-described method, once again, the TS header Validation is performed on the information and the input TS packet is returned to the correct application software.

In FIG. 4, the solid arrows 41 mean that the TS packets are delivered to all connected application software as described above. However, since the application software connected by the dotted arrow 42 is not the section filter corresponding to the correct TS header value, but the application software assigned the 'modified pseudo section filter (second common section filter)', In this case, the TS packet is transmitted only to the appropriate application software by validating again. That is, the second common section filter includes original header information (header information 2 for application software 2 and header information q for application software q) of each corresponding application software (431 in FIG. 4) and header information of the input TS packet. Compare each and deliver TS packet only to appropriate application software.

As a result of the check (309), if there is already registered section filter (hereinafter referred to as 'third public section filter') for the combined header information, after the application software is added to the section filter relation list (303), The application software is allowed to use the existing section filter (third public section filter) which is already assigned as it is (304).

Here, the method of adding the application software to the section filter relationship list uses the same method as that of 430 and 431 of FIG. 4. If the header information 4 of FIG. 4 is the most similar header information (see 440), and the combined header information is the same as the header information 1, the application software 1 allocated to the existing header information 1 is kept, and the application software 4 ( The existing application software to which the similar section filter searched at "307" is assigned) and the added application software r are connected by the dotted arrow 43 (441).

When the third common section filter processes the actual data packet, the packet corresponding to the header information 1 is first delivered to all application software connected to the solid arrow 41 (that is, application software 1 in the example of FIG. 4). As described above, the application software 4 and the application software r connected by the dotted line arrow 43 perform the second validity check and deliver the TS packet only to the appropriate application software. That is, to the application software to which the third common section filter was originally assigned (that is, application software 1 in the example of FIG. 4), a valid section is unconditionally passed to the application software, and the application software allocated to the public purpose later (application software). 4, with respect to the application software r, the validity of the section is transmitted only when the suitability is verified by comparing the original header information with the header information of the input TS.

As shown in FIG. 4, the section filter relationship list includes section filter information allocated to application software through the process of FIG. 3, and for each of the assigned section filters, TS header information as a search factor and corresponding application software information. A list containing.

As described above, the method of the present invention may be implemented as a program and stored in a recording medium (CD-ROM, RAM, ROM, floppy disk, hard disk, magneto-optical disk, etc.) in a computer-readable form. Since this process can be easily implemented by those skilled in the art will not be described in more detail.

The present invention described above is capable of various substitutions, modifications, and changes without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention for those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains. It is not limited by the drawings.

As described above, the present invention has an effect of efficiently distributing (allocating) and utilizing a limited section filter resource through a hierarchical central management scheme.

That is, the present invention solves the finiteness problem (resource limitation problem) of the MPEG section filter for extracting some information from the MPEG transport stream (TS) through efficient management of the section filter, thereby allowing different types of application software to be different from each other. It is effective to prevent the collision of hardware resources when requesting the section filter of, and to pass the same or another similar kind of section information to the application software.

Claims (12)

In the section filter management method in a digital broadcast receiver, A first filter resource identification step of identifying a section filter resource when a section filter allocation based on specific transport stream (TS) header information is requested from any application software; A first allocation step of allocating a previously allocated section filter (first common section filter) to the application software if the section filter for the TS header information is already assigned to another application software as a result of the filter resource checking; A second allocating step of allocating a new section filter to the application software if the filter resource is confirmed as a result of the filter resource; A similar filter searching step of searching for a section filter (similar section filter) for TS header information similar to the TS header information if there is no pre-allocated section filter and filter resource margin as a result of the filter resource checking; And Modify the search factor of the found similar section filter to 'combination header information' combining the TS header information and the similar TS header information, and assign the modified similar section filter (second common section filter) to the application software. Third allocation step Section filter management method in a digital broadcast receiver comprising a. The method of claim 1, Before performing the third allocation step, if there is a section filter (a third common section filter) previously assigned to the combined header information by checking a section filter resource, the application to which the similar section filter retrieved in the similar filter search step is allocated. Allocating the third common section filter to software and the application software as well Section filter management method in a digital broadcast receiver further comprising. The method of claim 1, The section filter assignment request in the first filter resource confirmation step is And a section filter assignment request for validating additional data of a transport stream (TS). The method of claim 3, wherein The header information is A method of managing a section filter in a digital broadcast receiver comprising a PID (Packet Identifier) and a Table Identifier (TID). The method of claim 1, The section filter resource check in the first allocation step, A method of managing a section filter in a digital broadcast receiver, characterized by identifying a resource of a section filter using a section filter relationship list. The method of claim 5, The section filter relationship list, The method of managing a section filter in a digital broadcast receiver comprising TS header information as a corresponding search factor and corresponding application software information for each assigned section filter. The method of claim 1, The second allocation step, And a new section filter is allocated when there is no pre-allocated corresponding section filter but resource resources for allocating a new section filter. The method of claim 1, The combined header information, And generating the logical sum (OR) operation of the TS header information and the similar TS header information. The method of claim 1, The similar filter search step, Performing an exclusive OR operation on the TS header information with the header information of each pre-assigned section filter, and selecting a section filter having the smallest number of bits '1' as a pseudo section filter among the calculation results. A method of managing section filters in a digital broadcast receiver. An apparatus for managing a section filter in a digital broadcast receiver, A plurality of section filters for determining validity for each section of the input transport stream TS and delivering only valid sections to the corresponding application software; And When a section filter allocation based on specific transport stream (TS) header information is requested from any application software, the section is hierarchically hierarchically by using whether to register the corresponding section filter, the margin of section filter resources, or the registration of similar section filters. Section filter control means for assigning filters Apparatus for managing a section filter in a digital broadcast receiver comprising a. The method of claim 10, The section filter control means, 10. An apparatus for managing a section filter in a digital broadcast receiver, comprising performing the section filter management method according to any one of claims 1 to 9. The method of claim 11, The first common section filter of the section filter, Pass the validated section to all of the application software through the filtering process; The second common section filter, Comparing the header information of the input TS with the original header information of each corresponding application software, and delivering a section validated only to the appropriate application software; The third common section filter, The application software to which the third common section filter was first allocated is unconditionally delivered to the application that has been validated, and the original header information is compared with the header information of the input TS for the corresponding application software that is allocated later on for public purpose. Apparatus for managing a section filter in a digital broadcast receiver, wherein the validity of the section is transmitted only when the suitability is recognized.

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