KR20090043191A - Internet protocol broadcasting setop box - Google Patents

Abstract

An IP broadcast set-top box according to the present invention includes an IP network access module for receiving image content from an external server through an IP (Internet Protocol) network; A database for holding one or more multimedia data; A data capture unit for extracting one or more multimedia data from the database and capturing the image content when receiving the image content; And a multicasting unit configured to multicast the multimedia image content, the multimedia data of which is captured in the image content, to one or more display terminals.

IPTV, SETOP BOX, Broadcasting, Multicasting, Capture, Multimedia

Description

IP broadcasting set top box {INTERNET PROTOCOL BROADCASTING SETOP BOX}

The present invention relates to an IP (Internet Protocol) broadcast set-top box, and more particularly, to generate multimedia video content by capturing one or more multimedia data to an image content received from an IP broadcast server connected through an IP network. The present invention relates to an IP broadcast set-top box for multicasting the multimedia video content to one or more display terminals.

Digital TV is revolutionizing life by not only improving image quality and sound quality, but also changing the existing broadcasting culture. Unlike conventional TV that only unilaterally receives broadcasts, the so-called "TV portal" era, which is a gateway for all information and entertainment such as entertainment, education, shopping, finance, Internet, home network, etc., is possible, as is the Internet. Therefore, the concept of viewers is disappearing, and the age of viewer sovereignty, which talks with each other and participates in program production, is coming.

In this digital TV era, users can input desired movies and contents and watch them at a desired time, and additional information such as tourist information, transportation, accommodation, and food can be obtained by selecting local attractions introduced on TV on the spot. In addition, you can also directly send a testimonial or rating about the drama. In addition, as well as financial operations such as deposit and withdrawal of deposits, information retrieval, home shopping can be done through digital TV, and polls and various voting can also be implemented through digital TV. In other words, the audience rating survey can be conducted during the TV program, the presidential election or the parliamentary election survey can be conducted through the TV, and the viewer can vote through the TV.

In the case of apartments with a home network, it is possible to gather information and public opinions for residents through the apartment-only TV homepage. Digital TV is transforming into a portal that integrates various contents and living devices based on the high-speed internet network, and dramatically changes the personal life, society and industry.

Recently, as HD TVs such as PDPs and LCD TVs are widely used, the necessity for the IP TV or TV portal service as described above is increasingly needed. However, various various services using such a digital TV are currently in a distant state. In particular, hospitals, public institutions, large apartment complexes, and large marts need to provide individual broadcasting contents according to the characteristics of each industry, but until now, there is no service model for providing such broadcasting contents by providing bidirectional support.

The present invention has been made to improve the prior art as described above, generating one or more multimedia data by capturing one or more multimedia data in the video content received from an IP broadcast server connected through an IP network, the multimedia It is an object of the present invention to provide an IP broadcast set-top box that multicasts video content to one or more display terminals so that multimedia data corresponding to the needs of local users can be immediately reflected in the video content.

In addition, the present invention is the IP broadcast set to the local IP broadcasting set-top box captures the multimedia data desired by the local users to the display content in the local multi-casting, IP broadcasting to enable more efficient use of network resources It is an object to provide a set top box.

An IP broadcast set-top box according to the present invention for achieving the above object and to solve the problems of the prior art, IP network access module for receiving image content from an external server via an Internet Protocol (IP) network; A database for holding one or more multimedia data; A data capture unit for extracting one or more multimedia data from the database and capturing the image content when receiving the image content; And a multicasting unit configured to multicast the multimedia image content in which the multimedia data is captured to the image content to one or more display terminals.

In addition, the IP broadcasting system according to the present invention maintains a set-top box identifier and organization information corresponding to each of the one or more set-top boxes, and the set-top box having a set-top box identifier corresponding to the organization information to the video content according to the organization information An IP broadcast server broadcasting through an IP network; When one or more multimedia data are maintained and the video content is received from the IP broadcasting server through the Internet Protocol (IP) network, one or more multimedia data are extracted from the database and captured in the video content. An IP broadcast set-top box for multicasting multimedia image contents to one or more display terminals; And at least one display terminal for playing the multimedia video content multicast from the IP broadcast set-top box.

According to the IP broadcast set-top box of the present invention, by capturing multimedia data corresponding to the needs of users in the local area where the IP broadcast set-top box is installed in the video content received from an external server, the user in the local area can be provided. It is possible to obtain an effect that can immediately reflect and provide multimedia video content specialized to them.

In addition, according to the IP broadcast set-top box of the present invention, the IP broadcast set-top box performs the operation of capturing the multimedia data to the video content, wherein the IP broadcast set-top box is located within the local By multicasting one or more display terminals for streaming playback, the effect of enabling network resources to be used more efficiently can be obtained.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings will be described an embodiment of the present invention;

1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an IP broadcasting system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

IP broadcast system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an IP broadcast server 120, IP broadcast set-top box 111, one or more display terminals (112 to 114). In addition, the IP broadcasting system may further include a content providing server 130.

The IP broadcast server 120 may be connected to the IP broadcast set-top box 111 through the IP network. Accordingly, the IP broadcast server 120 may be implemented as, for example, a part of a communication company server or a broadcasting station server that provides an IPTV service.

The IP broadcast set-top box 111 is connected to one or more display terminals 112 to 114 located in the local area 110. The display terminals 112 to 114 are concepts including a PDP, an LCD TV, a CRT TV, a projection TV, a projector, a PC, a notebook, and the like.

The content providing server 130 is a server that supplies video content, and includes a broadcasting station server, a program maker server, or a client server in some cases.

The IP broadcast server 120 maintains set top box identifiers and organization information corresponding to each of the one or more set top boxes, and sets the video content according to the organization information into a set top box having a set top box identifier corresponding to the organization information. Broadcast through.

To this end, the IP broadcast server 120 maintains a client information table in which terminal identifiers, group identifiers, and organization information corresponding to one or more display terminals are recorded, respectively. The client information table will be described with reference to FIG. 3.

3 is a diagram illustrating a structure of a client information table maintained by an IP broadcast server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 illustrates a client information table 300 according to a case in which an IP broadcasting server broadcasts video content to a display terminal 1, a display terminal 2, and a display terminal 3 installed in a local area of a hospital.

In the client information table 300, a terminal identifier, a group identifier, and organization information corresponding to each display terminal are recorded.

The terminal identifier is an identifier for identifying each of the display terminals and may be set to unique information of each display terminal.

 For example, the terminal identifier may be implemented as IP address information of each display terminal. That is, the IP address of each of the display terminals through the IP broadcasting set-top box installed in the local area hospital may be implemented as the terminal identifier. However, this is merely an example for convenience of description, and the terminal identifier may be implemented as various types of identifiers that can be given to each display terminal by a person skilled in the art as well as the IP address.

The group identifier may be set for display terminals grouped with each other in a local area hospital. That is, the group identifier may be implemented as an identifier for the IP broadcast set-top box in which the display terminal 1, the display terminal 2, and the display terminal 3 are grouped.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, display terminals located in a predetermined area may be grouped together. For example, display terminals installed in each home located in the same building in an apartment complex may be grouped together. In addition, a plurality of display terminals installed in a general hospital or school may be grouped together.

In addition, each display terminal may be grouped with each other according to the judgment of one skilled in the art even if not located within a certain area. For example, display terminals installed in a branch of a specific company located in each city of the country may be grouped together.

As described above, display terminals grouped by various methods have the same group identifier. That is, the display terminal 1, the display terminal 2, and the display terminal 3 belonging to the local area hospital may have a group identifier of "S". In addition to the setting of the group identifier may be implemented in various ways according to the judgment of those skilled in the art.

Along with the recording of the terminal identifier and the group identifier, organization information is recorded in the client information table 300. The programming information includes information (eg, time information, program information, etc.) of broadcast content broadcasted to each display terminal.

The programming information may be set differently according to the area in which the display terminals are installed. For example, when the display terminal 1 is installed in the pediatric ward of the hospital, corresponding to the display terminal 1 "October 1 o'clock 1 o'clock" and "October 1 o'clock <enjoyable picnic>" Organization information may be recorded.

In addition, when the display terminal 2 is installed in the adult ward of the hospital, in response to the display terminal 2, the combination of "October 1 18:00 <Adult Disease Prevention>" and "October 1 19:00 <Diabetes Treatment>" Information can be recorded.

In addition, when the display terminal 3 is installed in the lobby of the hospital, corresponding to the display terminal 3, "1 October 18 o'clock <6 o'clock hometown" and "October 1 o'clock <Ahyeon-dong Madam>" Organization information may be recorded.

In this way, the IP broadcasting server may set different image contents for each display terminal installed in each ward of the local area hospital, thereby broadcasting the image contents necessary for each ward in a suitable place.

In FIG. 1, the IP broadcast server 120 broadcasts the video content according to the organization information to the IP broadcast set-top box 111 corresponding to the group identifier "S". As described with reference to FIG. 3, the IP broadcast server 120 may transmit a terminal identifier corresponding to each video content to the IP broadcast set-top box 111 when broadcasting the video content.

When the IP broadcast set-top box 111 maintains one or more multimedia data and receives the video content from the IP broadcast server through the Internet Protocol (IP) network, the IP broadcast set-top box 111 extracts one or more multimedia data from the database. The multimedia image content captured in the content is multicasted to one or more display terminals. The operation of the IP broadcast set-top box 111 will be described with reference to FIG. 2.

2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an IP broadcast set-top box according to an embodiment of the present invention.

IP broadcast set-top box 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention is the IP network access module 210, the controller 220, the image rendering unit 230, the data capture unit 240, encoding unit 250, database 260, and a multicasting unit 270.

The IP network access module 210 receives the image content from the IP broadcast server 120 through an Internet Protocol (IP) network. That is, the video content broadcasted from the IP broadcasting server 120 to the display terminals 1 112 to N 114 that are located in the local area 110 is transmitted through the IP network access module 210. May be first transmitted to 200.

The image rendering unit 230 renders the image content.

The data capture unit 240 extracts one or more multimedia data from the database 260 to capture the captured image content.

Database 260 maintains one or more multimedia data. The multimedia data may be implemented to include various types of files according to the decision of the operator of the IP broadcasting set-top box 200 such as a text file, an image file, a flash file, and a video file.

The database 260 may further include a display terminal identifier corresponding to each of the one multimedia. This will be described with reference to FIG. 4.

4 is a diagram illustrating a structure of a multimedia data table maintained by a database of an IP broadcast set-top box according to an embodiment of the present invention.

4 is an IP broadcasting set-top box installed in a local area hospital, a display terminal 1 is installed in a pediatric ward of the hospital, and a display terminal in an adult ward of the hospital, as in the case of the client information table 300 of FIG. 2 is provided and illustrates the structure of the multimedia data table 400 according to the case where it is installed in the lobby of the hospital.

The multimedia data table 400 includes a display terminal identifier and multimedia data corresponding to each of the one or more display terminals. For example, the multimedia table 400 may record the display terminal identifier "208.111.111.1", the multimedia data "announcements.txt" and "child quiz.ppt" corresponding to the display terminal 1.

In addition, the multimedia data table 400 may record the display terminal identifier "208.111.222.2" and the multimedia data "announcement.txt" and "stock information.flv" corresponding to the display terminal 2. FIG. In addition, the multimedia table 400 may record the display terminal identifier "208.111.333.3" and the multimedia data "announcements.txt" and "real-time news.txt" corresponding to the display terminal 3.

The data capture unit 240 may extract, for example, "notice.txt", which is multimedia data corresponding to both the display terminals 1 to 3, from the database 260 to capture the captured image content. . Therefore, all the announcement information according to the multimedia data "notice.txt" may be displayed through the display terminal 1 of the pediatric ward, the display terminal 2 of the adult ward, and the display terminal 3 of the lobby.

In addition, when the video content received from the IP broadcasting server 120 through the IP network access module 210 includes a terminal identifier, the data capture unit 240 corresponds to the terminal identifier from the multimedia data table 400. The multimedia data is further extracted and captured in the video contents.

For example, when the first image content received from the IP broadcast server 120 includes the terminal identifier "208.111.111.1", the data capture unit 240 may display the terminal identifier "208.111." From the multimedia data table 400. Retrieve the display terminal identifier equal to 111.1 ". The data capture unit 240 extracts "notice.txt" and "child quiz.ppt", which are multimedia data corresponding to the searched display terminal identifier "208.111.111.1", from the database 260.

The data capture unit 240 captures the extracted multimedia data "announcements.txt" and "child quiz.ppt" to the first image content rendered by the image rendering unit 230. Therefore, in the pediatric ward of the hospital where the display terminal 1 is installed, the first image content including the announcement and the child quiz may be viewed according to the capturing of the multimedia data.

In addition, when the second video content received from the IP broadcast server 120 includes the terminal identifier "208.111.222.2", the data capture unit 240 may determine the terminal identifier "208.111.222.2" from the multimedia data table 400. Retrieve the same display terminal identifier as. The data capture unit 240 extracts "notice.txt" and "stock information.flv", which are multimedia data corresponding to the searched display terminal identifier "208.111.222.2", from the database 260.

The data capture unit 240 captures the extracted multimedia data "announcements.txt" and "stock information.flv" in the second image content rendered by the image rendering unit 230. Therefore, in the adult ward of the hospital where the display terminal 2 is installed, the second image content including the announcement and stock information may be watched according to the capturing of the multimedia data.

In addition, when the third video content received from the IP broadcast server 120 includes the terminal identifier "208.111.333.3", the data capture unit 240 may be configured to read the terminal identifier "208.111.333.3" from the multimedia data table 400. Retrieve the same display terminal identifier as. The data capture unit 240 extracts "notice.txt" and "real-time news.txt", which are multimedia data corresponding to the searched display terminal identifier "208.111.333.3", from the database 260.

The data capture unit 240 captures the extracted multimedia data "announcements.txt" and "real-time news.txt" in the third image content rendered by the image rendering unit 230. Therefore, in the lobby of the hospital where the display terminal 3 is installed, the third image content including the announcement and the real-time news can be viewed according to the capturing of the multimedia data.

The encoder 250 encodes the video content captured by the data capture unit 240 to generate multimedia video content.

The multicasting unit 270 multicasts the multimedia image content to one or more display terminals. The multicasting unit 270 may control the multicasting so that the multimedia image content is reproduced by streaming on the one or more display terminals.

The controller 220 controls the operation of the one or more display terminals. For example, the controller 220 may control on / off of the one or more display terminals, and control the volume of the one or more display terminals.

In addition, according to another embodiment of the present invention, the operation control of the display terminal may be performed by the IP broadcast server 120. That is, the IP broadcast server 120 may control on / off of the one or more display terminals, and may control the volume of the one or more display terminals.

As described above, the present invention has been described by way of limited embodiments and drawings, but the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, which can be variously modified and modified by those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains. Modifications are possible. Accordingly, the spirit of the present invention should be understood only by the claims set forth below, and all equivalent or equivalent modifications thereof will belong to the scope of the present invention.

1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an IP broadcasting system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an IP broadcast set-top box according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a diagram illustrating a structure of a client information table maintained by an IP broadcast server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a diagram illustrating a structure of a multimedia data table maintained by a database of an IP broadcast set-top box according to an embodiment of the present invention.

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

200: IP broadcast set-top box 210: IP network connection module

220: control unit 230: image rendering unit

240: data capture section 250: encoding section

260: database 270: multicasting unit

Claims (12)

An IP network access module for receiving image content from an external server through an IP (Internet Protocol) network; A database for holding one or more multimedia data; A data capture unit for extracting one or more multimedia data from the database and capturing the image content when receiving the image content; And A multicasting unit for multicasting the multimedia image content in which the multimedia data is captured to the image content to one or more display terminals. IP broadcast set-top box comprising a. The method of claim 1, An image rendering unit which renders the image content; And An encoding unit for generating the multimedia image content by encoding the image data captured by the multimedia IP broadcast set-top box further comprises. The method of claim 1, The database maintains a display terminal identifier corresponding to each of the one or more display terminals and the multimedia data corresponding to the display terminal identifier, And the video content comprises at least one terminal identifier. The method of claim 3, The data capture unit extracts multimedia data corresponding to the same display terminal identifier as the terminal identifier included in the image content from the database and captures the captured image content. And the multicasting unit multicasts the multimedia video content to one or more display terminals having the same display terminal identifier as the terminal identifier included in the video content. The method of claim 1, The multicasting unit IP broadcast set-top box, characterized in that for controlling the multi-casting so that the multimedia image content is streamed on the at least one display terminal. The method of claim 1, Control unit for controlling the operation of the at least one display terminal More, The control unit IP broadcast set-top box, characterized in that for controlling the ON / OFF and volume status of the at least one display terminal. Maintaining a set-top box identifier and organization information corresponding to each of the one or more set-top boxes, and broadcasting image content according to the organization information to a set-top box having a set-top box identifier corresponding to the organization information through an IP network. IP broadcast server; When one or more multimedia data are maintained and the video content is received from the IP broadcasting server through the Internet Protocol (IP) network, one or more multimedia data are extracted from the database and captured in the video content. An IP broadcast set-top box for multicasting multimedia image contents to one or more display terminals; And At least one display terminal for playing the multimedia video content multicasted from the IP broadcast set-top box IP broadcasting system comprising a. The method of claim 7, wherein The IP broadcast server further maintains a terminal identifier corresponding to each of the one or more display terminals, and broadcasts to the IP broadcast set-top box by including the one or more predetermined terminal identifiers in the video content. IP broadcasting system. The method of claim 8, The IP broadcast set-top box maintains a display terminal identifier corresponding to each of the one or more multimedia, and corresponds to the same display terminal identifier as the terminal identifier when the terminal identifier is included in the video content received from the IP broadcast server. And generating multimedia content data by capturing the multimedia data into the video content, and multicasting the multimedia content data to a display terminal corresponding to the display terminal identifier. The method of claim 7, wherein The IP broadcast set-top box controls the multicasting such that the multimedia video content is streamed and reproduced on the one or more display terminals. The method of claim 7, wherein The IP broadcast server controls the operation of the at least one display terminal, the operation control of the display terminal is an IP broadcasting system, characterized in that the ON / OFF control and volume control of the display terminal. The method of claim 7, wherein The IP broadcasting set-top box controls the operation of the one or more display terminals, and the operation control of the display terminal is the ON / OFF control and the volume control of the display terminal.

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