WO2004066592A2

WO2004066592A2 - The advanced digital audio contents service system and its implementation method for mobile wireless device on wireless and wired internet communication network

Info

Publication number: WO2004066592A2
Application number: PCT/KR2004/000055
Authority: WO
Inventors: Kyoung Hoon Park; Soon Hee Jo
Original assignee: Utofos Co., Ltd.
Priority date: 2003-01-17
Filing date: 2004-01-14
Publication date: 2004-08-05
Also published as: WO2004066592A3

Abstract

Disclosed is an audio service system for mobile phone using wire/wireless communication networks and method thereof, by which audio of high sound quality becomes audible from a normal mobile phone for voice communications and by which a user (20) always enables to store user-produced audio files in a mobile phone to listen to. The present invention includes an audio file converting means (310) for converting general audio files to be regenerated (410) from a mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC (420), a storage means (110) for storing the converted audio files, and a server means (200) for transferring the audio file requested by a user (20) among the converted audio files stored in the storage means to a mobile phone of the user (20) among the converted audio files stored in the storage means to a mobile phone of the user (20) through a communication network (30).

Description

The advanced digital audio contents service system and its implementation method for mobile wireless device on wireless and wired internet communication network

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to an audio service system for mobile phone using wire/wireless communication networks and method thereof, and more particularly, to an audio service method for providing converted audio files, by which audios of high sound quality are audible from a normal mobile phone for voice communications.

BACKGROUND ART

Recently, rapid developments of technology raise the diversity and supply of mobile phones. The mobile phone as a personal information terminal (hereinafter called mobile phone) is equipped with functions of wireless communications, computing, and networking. There are various kinds of personal information terminals such as mobile phone enabling wireless Internet access, PDA phone, smart phone, etc.

The mobile phone is evolving from an early-stage simple voice communication apparatus to an information apparatus playing a role as a personal computer. Developments and changes of such functions are greatly affected by the radio communication network technologies such as wireless Internet and the various kinds of the developed hardware (H/W) and software (S/W) constructing the mobile phones.

A mobile phone user is no more satisfied with the simple phone function but intends to share various kinds of information through the mobile. In order to meet the user's intention, mobile communication providers provide a variety of music-relating contents such as bell-sounds, mobile phone karaoke, and the like through the mobile phone. And, the mobile phone user enables to utilize such contents downloaded to his or her mobile phone. CODEC (coding/decoding) closely related to audio playback (regeneration) in the previous mobile phone can be classified into CODEC for processing MIDI data and 'voice-exclusive CODEC (domestically used mobile phones adopt QCELP or EVRC CODEC)' for processing human voice in traffic.

Yet, the voice-exclusive CODEC, which is optimized to voice communications basically adopted by most mobile phones, puts emphasis on a frequency band for human voice and reduces the rest frequency bands, whereby the original audio signals are varied. If general audio data (hereinafter called audio file), which has a frequency band different from that of human voice, such as music data is processed using the voice-exclusive CODEC, a noise is generated from frequency distortion.

So, the current mobile communication service providers provide audio services mainly dealing with bell-sound type contents using MIDI.

Moreover, wireless Internet services utilizing the previous mobile phone are granted only with a function that a user simply downloads one-way contents provided by the mobile communication service providers, whereby the user is unable to play such user-requested information as user-producing audio files through her or his mobile phone.

Besides, the limited capacity of memory built-in the mobile phone causes inconvenience to the user in that the previously-downloaded paid-contents stored in the mobile phone should be deleted to secure the memory capacity in order to download new contents. It is very unreasonable that the same money has to be paid to purchase the same contents for download.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, the present invention is directed to an audio service system for mobile phone using wire/wireless communication networks and method thereof that substantially obviate one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.

An object of the present invention is to provide an audio service system for mobile phone using wire/wireless communication networks and method thereof, by which audio of high sound quality becomes audible from a normal mobile phone for voice communications.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an audio service system for mobile phone using wire/wireless communication networks and method thereof, by which a user always enables to store user-produced audio files in a mobile phone to listen to.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims thereof as well as the appended drawings.

To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, a mobile phone audio service system according to the present invention includes an audio file converting means for converting general audio files to be regenerated from a mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC, a storage means for storing the converted audio files, and a server means for transferring the audio file requested by a user among the converted audio files stored in the storage means to a mobile phone of the user through^' a communication network. To further achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, a mobile phone service method includes the steps of authenticating that a user has subscribed, converting an audio file purchased by the authenticated user to a file regenerative in a mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC and storing the converted file in a storage space, and transmitting the stored audio file to a user's mobile phone according to a request of the authenticated user.

To further achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, a mobile phone service method includes the steps of converting to store audio files through an audio file converting program to be regenerative in a mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC, if a user accesses a server, transferring an audio file regenerating program enabling to regenerate the converted audio files to the user, and if the user selects one of the converted audio files, transmitting the selected audio file to a mobile phone of the user.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a diagram of an audio service system for mobile phone using wire/wireless communication networks and method thereof according to the present invention; and

Fig. 2 is a diagram of a mobile phone audio file converting/generating system according to the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CA- RYING OUT THE INVENTION Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Relating to the following description of the present invention, general terms used in wide sense are selected. Yet, in some cases, there are terms randomly selected by the applicant in the description of the present invention. And, the detailed meanings of such terms are described in the following, whereby the present invention is understood not by the simple names of the terms but by the meanings of the terms. The present invention is characterized in that previous audio signals are converted to enable audios of high sound quality to be audible from a mobile phone including voice-exclusive CODEC. A detailed audio signal converting method is firstly explained by referring to FIG. 2, and an overall service method using the audio file converting/generating and system thereof according to the present invention is explained later by referring to FIG. 1.

Fig. 2 is a diagram of a mobile phone audio file converting/generating system according to the present invention. Referring to Fig. 2, sounds constructing an audio consist of mixed frequencies at different ratios such as a basic frequency and other frequencies corresponding to multiple sounds of the basic frequency. In viewpoint of human voice and music, the basic frequency for most frequencies lies within 8kHz. A voice- exclusive CODEC 420, which is built in a mobile phone based on 4kHz voice traffic, adopts 8kHz sampling to reduce a quantizing error, and selectively enhances audibility of voice in traffic by adopting a system of emphasizing frequencies corresponding to a voice range and reducing other frequency ranges.

Hence, in case of regenerating an audio through the mobile phone voice- exclusive CODEC 420, distortions of gain per frequency and overtone are brought about. And, in case of regenerating human voice, a tone distorted from an original tone is outputted. Hence, the present invention utilizes a processing procedure of the mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC 420 and a correction means 313 for correction a distorted portion per each frequency by calculating back by taking a characteristic of a regenerated frequency and then encodes data corrected by the correction means 313. Therefore, when a final result is regenerated, the corresponding sound is audibly generated similar to the original sound.

Specifically, the correction means 313 includes a compressor reducing an overall gain of a digital audio within a dynamic range of an earphone or speaker as a final output terminal of an audio and an equalizer correcting a difference between frequency gains. Yet, in using the compressor, variations of gain, attack, release, threshold, ratio, pre-delay value, and the like should not be tried since the music of the same genre is not constructed with the same tunes. Thus, the compressor is preferably used for volume adjustment only.

Namely, the core of the audio signal correction means 313 is the equalizer, by which the audio is converted to audio data that can be regenerated similar to the original audio by gain adjustment per corresponding frequency band through the equalizer according to the frequency band modulation of the voice-exclusive CODEC 420.

Besides, auxiliary techniques for improving the sound quality can be further used, but are basically included in the equalizer in aspect of correcting the audio " based on a musical range.

Specifically, when the audio such as ARS tone, call-connecting tone, etc. is carried via voice network of wireless Internet, the audio may be broken by such a factor as transmission rate decision after framing, packet loss, etc. Yet, if the audio is converted to a file format to transfer via data network of wireless Internet, it is more efficient to avoid the audio breaking.

In the present invention, the correction means 313 and the encoding means

314 are combined to be named an audio file converting/generating system 320. The audio file converting/generating system 320 can be constructed with hardware. Instead, the audio file converting/generating system 320 is preferably programmed to implement software functions.

An overall audio service method and system thereof using the above- explained audio file converting method are explained in detail as follows.

Fig. 1 is a diagram of an audio service system for mobile phone using wire/wireless communication networks and method thereof according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a user 20 can subscribe to a service provider 10. In this case, an Internet server system 100 of the service provider 10 writes subscription particulars in a user DB 120, and previously assigns a personal storage space 110 of an appropriate size to the corresponding user by referring to the subscription particulars.

And, the user 20 is provided with a mobile phone audio file converting/generating system 310 by the service provider 10 and installs it at her or his interactive computer 300. Thus, the user 20 enables to directly convert/generate audio files using the installed mobile phone audio file converting/generating system 310.

The audio file converting/generating system 310 provided by the service provider 10 is a program operating identically with an audio file converting/generating server system 320, in which the above-explained correction means 313 and encoding means 314 are programmed.

Besides, the audio file converting/generating system 310 may be installed

(downloaded) at the interactive computer 300 of the user 20. Without such installation, it is also able to directly convert/generate the audio file using the audio file converting/generating server system 320 existing in the Internet server system 100 of the service provider 10.

Namely, the user 20 accesses the Internet server system of the service provider 10 via an Internet communication network 30 and then stores the converted file in the user storage space 110 provided by the service provider 10. Later, the user 20 accesses a wireless Internet server system of the service provider through her or his mobile phone 400 and then downloads or streams to regenerate the converted audio file having been stored in her or his personal storage space 110.

Namely, the audio file converting/generating server system 320 provided by the service provider 10 means a sort of program converting the previous audio file to audible from a general voice-exclusive CODEC with high sound quality, which is described in detail through Fig. 2. Moreover, the user 20 may listen to the music she or he wants to hear by converting/generating the audio file through the above-explained process directly. Instead, the user 20 can purchase to use the contents from the service provider 10, which is explained in detail as follows. First of all, the user 20 having the voice-exclusive CODED built-in mobile

^• phone 400 accesses the service provided 10 according to the present invention to use the service according to the present invention. The user 20 downloads the mobile phone audio file regenerating system 410 from the service provider 10. The mobile phone audio file regenerating system 410 is a sort of a programmed private player enabling to regenerate the audio file converted by the present invention. Hence, the user 40 who once downloaded the mobile phone audio file regenerating system 410 need not further download it unless deleting the corresponding system 410.

Hence, the user 20 searches a sales-contents DB 210, in which converted audio files are stored by the service provider 10, and then purchases a specific audio file to download or stream to her or his mobile phone 400. In doing so, the converted audio file purchased by download or streaming is regenerated to be audible with high sound quality using the mobile phone audio file regenerating system 410 that has been installed by download.

Namely, the audio service method and system thereof, as shown in Fig. 1, according to the present invention include a pair of cases. First, the user directly converts a specific audio file to store in the storage means operated by the service provider 10, and then regenerates the stored audio file to listen to using her or his mobile phone 400. Second, the user directly accesses the service provider 10 and then purchases to listen to a specific audio file from the sales-contents DB provided by conversion of the service provider 10. Moreover, the wireless Internet server system 200 of the service provider 10 firstly charges money to the corresponding user 20 using a charge processing system 230, and updates purchase particulars of the user 20 in a corresponding user DB 120. Namely, when the same user 20 accesses the wireless Internet server system 200 through her or his mobile phone 400 later, the wireless Internet server system ^'200 refers to intrinsic information (mobile phone number, mobile phone model, etc.) provided by the mobile phone 400 of the user 20 or personal user information recorded in the user subscription procedure to internally authenticate that it is the same user 20, and then displays the particulars of the contents having been purchased by the authenticated user through a virtual storage space 220 to allow the user to use the previously purchased contents without a repurchasing procedure.

Different from the foregoing-explained user storage space 110, the virtual storage space 220 is substantially not a storage device for physical assignment to each user 20. Instead, when the use 20 makes an access through the user mobile phone 400, the virtual storage space 220 just displays the user-purchased contents as stored in the storage space by referring to the user DB 120 and the sales-contents DB 210 so that the user 20 takes advantage of solving the problem that all the purchased contents are unable to be stored in the mobile phone 400 due to lack of memory capacity. In another aspect, the service provider 10 provides benefits to the user without assigning a physical storage device, thereby enabling to saving costs as well as meet the user's satisfaction.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

Accordingly, the present invention has the following advantages or effects. First of all, when a user intends to receive various kinds of audio services through a mobile phone, the present invention enables to provide the user with the audio services of improved sound quality through voice-exclusive CODEC appropriate for the previous voice traffic.

Secondly, the present invention enables a user to produce various kinds of specific audio files from a mobile phone and to listen to the user-produced audio file.

Thirdly, the present invention enables to use the previously purchased contents, thereby enhancing user's convenience of use.

While the present invention has been described and illustrated herein with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, it is intended that the present invention covers the modifications and variations of this invention that come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A mobile phone audio service system comprising: an audio file converting means for converting general audio files to be regenerated from a mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC; a storage means for storing the converted audio files; and a server means for transferring the audio file requested by a user among the converted audio files stored in the storage means to a mobile phone of the user through a communication network.

2. The mobile phone audio service system of claim 1, wherein the storage means is a sales-contents DB for selling the converted audio files to the user.

3. The mobile phone audio service system of claim 2, wherein, when the user purchased the audio file from the sales-contents DB, the server means automatically generates a user's virtual storage space using user's intrinsic information at a purchasing time point, transfers the corresponding file purchased by the user to the user, and simultaneously, inputs information of the corresponding file to the user's virtual storage space to authenticate the user so that the authenticated user accesses the user's virtual storage space to download or stream the user- requesting file without a repurchasing procedure.

4. The mobile phone audio service system of claim 1, the audio file converting means comprising: a correction means for correcting to regenerate an audio signal from the mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC to be similar to an original audio; and an audio encoding means for encoding the corrected audio signal into a data format recognizable in the mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC.

5. The mobile phone audio service system of claim 4, wherein the

- correction means corrects a distorted portion per frequency through a processing procedure of the mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC and by referring to a characteristic of a regeneration frequency.

6. The mobile phone audio service system of claim 1, wherein the converted audio file is stored in the storage means after the user have directly converted the audio file through the audio file converting means.

7. A mobile phone service method comprising the steps of: authenticating that a user has subscribed; converting an audio file purchased by the authenticated user to a file regenerative in a mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC and storing the converted file in a storage space; and transmitting the stored audio file to a user's mobile phone according to a request of the authenticated user.

8. A mobile phone service method comprising the steps of: converting to store audio files through an audio file converting program to be regenerative in a mobile phone voice-exclusive CODEC; if a user accesses a server, transferring an audio file regenerating program enabling to regenerate the converted audio files to the user; and if the user selects one of the converted audio files, transmitting the selected audio file to a mobile phone of the user.