WO2008125387A1

WO2008125387A1 - Network control device

Info

Publication number: WO2008125387A1
Application number: PCT/EP2008/052573
Authority: WO
Inventors: Andreas Foedrowitz
Original assignee: Thomson Licensing
Priority date: 2007-04-13
Filing date: 2008-03-03
Publication date: 2008-10-23

Abstract

A network control device for controlling one or more slave devices via a network comprises one or more hardware user interface elements, each of which has an operating parameter of at least one of said slave devices associated to it, for setting a value of said associated operating parameter. The network control device further comprises a configuration table specifying, for each of said user interface elements, the operating parameter currently associated to it, and means for accessing said configuration table and transforming a user input to one of said hardware user interface elements into an instruction for setting the operating parameter associated to said hardware user interface element to a value specified by the user input and transmitting said instruction to the slave device concerned.

Description

Network Control Device

The present invention relates to a network control device for controlling one or more slave devices via a network. In the art of television signal processing, devices of this kind, referred to as control panels, control the supply of video and/or audio signals from various sources and their processing into a unitary signal which is suitable for broadcasting.

Conventional Control panels for Vision Mixers have fewer hardware user interface elements (also referred to as "widgets" in the following) such as buttons, knobs, faders, etc. than there are functionalities or controllable operating parameters available in the controlled devices. As a result, a user can only set a certain fraction of the overall set of operating parameters at a time. What fraction this is depends on "well established" practices in video production and on the cultural environment. U.S. based users are accustomed to a different function set and widget layout than European or Asian users. To make things more difficult, there are different requirements for live production (e.g. sports) and for post production (film post processing) . Customers also could have a need for a tailored solution to make their particular work easier.

In order to solve these problems, control panels have conventionally been provided with personal setups where the operating parameter controlled by each widget is determined by a control software running on a control processor of the control panel.

In this conventional approach, changes of functionality require modifications in the program code. With every change of the program code, errors ("bugs") can be introduced. Finding and removing these requires extensive testing and debugging. Service staff which operate a control panel at a customer's premises, e.g. in a television studio, are generally not able modify a functionality on site, they usually send a request to an engineering division and wait until they get a new software revision.

The object of the invention is to provide a network control device in which the association of a given hardware user interface element to an operating parameter of a controlled device is easily adaptable to a user' s needs without requiring extensive software revisions.

This object is achieved by a network control device for controlling one or more slave devices via a network, the control device comprising one or more hardware user interface elements, each of which has an operating parameter of at least one of said slave devices associated to it, for setting a value of said associated operating parameter, characterized in that the network control device further comprises a configuration table storing, for each of said user interface elements, the operating parameter associated to it, and means for accessing said configuration table and transforming a user input to one of said hardware user interface elements into an instruction for setting the operating parameter associated to said hardware user interface element to a value specified by the user input and transmitting said instruction to the slave device concerned.

In this control device, if it is desired to change the control parameter associated to a given hardware user interface element, all that is needed is an adaptation of the configuration table; any software or other means that refer to said table may remain unchanged.

Preferably, the network control device should comprise means for replacing the operating parameter associated to at least one of said hardware user interface elements in said configuration table, such as e.g. a software module for enabling a user to edit the configuration table, so that the user can carry out all necessary adaptations without help from other persons or without requiring auxiliary apparatus to be connected to the network for modifying the configuration table.

At least one of said hardware user interface elements may comprise a user movable member such as a turning knob or a lever displaceable along a scale, the position of which is indicative of the value of the operating parameter currently associated to said hardware user interface element. In that case, it is preferred to provide a control processor and a motor for moving the user movable member to a position specified by said control processor, so that if the operating parameter associated to this hardware user interface element is changed, the position of the movable member may be changed automatically in order to reflect the value of the operating parameter newly associated to it.

There may be other hardware user interface elements such as e.g. on/off switches that usually will be associated to operating parameters which can take only a small number of values, and which have indicators such as indicator lights located in their proximity on the control device, the status of which is controlled by the control processor according to the value of the control parameter associated to that particular interface element .

Since the hardware user interface elements may be of various types, for ensuring correct control of the motor of any hardware user interface element the configuration table preferably comprises an entry representative of software for enabling the control processor to control the motor of said hardware user interface element so as to move its user movable member to the specified position. The entry may e.g. contain a pointer to appropriate control code, or it may itself contain this code .

Preferably each hardware user interface element has a group ID entry associated to it in the configuration table, and the operating parameter currently associated to any given hardware user interface element is dependent on the identity of said given hardware user interface element and the value of its respective group ID entry. Thus it is possible, based on the group identifier, to change the control parameters associated to a plurality of hardware user interface elements simultaneously, i.e. to switch between a plurality of pre-defined configurations of the control device.

Further features and advantages of the invention become apparent from the subsequent description of embodiments thereof relating to the appended drawings.

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a network comprising a control panel 5 and a plurality of mixers 7 and signal sources 1, 2 (also referred to as mainframes 1, 2, 7) according to an embodiment of the invention.

The control panel 5 has a board with a plurality of hardware user interface elements (widgets) arranged on it. The widgets comprise buttons, turning knobs, linear displaceable handles etc. for processing video signals. Those widgets which have a user movable portion such as a handle, whose position is indicative of the value of an operating parameter, comprise a motor controlled by a control processor. The functions of the widgets, i.e. the effects their operation by a user can have on a television signal output from one of the mixers, being conventional, need not be enumerated here.

Each widget has an ID, i.e. a unique number, associated to it, which is not modified under operation.

The control panel can be subdivided into several non- overlapping sections, i.e. there may be several sets of widgets located adjacent to one another on the board of the control panel. Every section uses a configuration file to specify its functionality and layout.

For simplicity, we will consider only the case of a control panel not subdivided into sections, i.e. having a single configuration file.

The configuration file contains :

• A table that associates the widgets' IDs with group IDs

• A table that contains local variables, referred by their IDs, with their initialization value and value range,

• A table for delegation conditions, with an entry being a tuple of o Group ID o Delegation index o Delegation condition : Logical condition (using local variables) that, if true, makes the delegation the active delegation for the given group

Upon change of a local variable, the delegation conditions are re-evaluated, active delegations are changed appropriately and hardware is driven in order to display the newly delegated state. A change of a local variable may be caused by a user, e.g. by operating a selection widget of the control panel. The selection widget may be a rotating knob having a plurality of locking positions, each of which corresponds e.g. to the selection of a specific one of the signal sources as an active source by the user. Thus, if the delegation condition of a particular tuple of the table for delegation conditions is found fulfilled, the delegation index of that tuple will be activated for all widgets having the Group ID of that tuple. The delegation determines the operating parameter controlled by each widget of said group. I.e. in case of the delegation index specifying the assignment of the widgets having a particular group ID to a particular signal source, a given key-type widget 3 may act as a start/stop key for signal source 1 if the delegation index is 1, or it may act as a start/stop key for signal source 2 if the delegation index is 2, etc.

If the signal sources 1, 2 are e.g. disk recorders 1, 2, one of said local variables might be representative of whether a disk is loaded into the disk recorder or not. If no disk is loaded e.g. in recorder 1, the delegation condition is true for another delegation in which actuation of widget 3 causes not start/stop of disk playback but an appropriate error message "No disk" to be displayed on a display 4 of control panel 5.

The reaction of the control panel to a user input at any of the widgets, such as starting/stopping playback, displaying the error message etc., is determined by

• A table for output functions, also forming part of the configuration table, with an entry being a tuple of o Widget ID o Delegation index o Event ID o Input function : Code sequence that is used by the mainframe driver to find out in widgets the feedback has to be displayed o Output functions : A list of code lines that are sent to the mainframe driver. Each code line can have a logical condition using local variables, if the condition evaluates to true then the code line is sent to the mainframe driver (part of software that controls a remote machine, e.g a Vision Mixer's video electronics mainframe) . An empty condition means true.

Based on widget ID (e.g. widget 3) and event ID (e.g. "key was pressed) the control processor 8 identifies one of the entries of the table for output functions. Using the output function of this entry, the control processor 8 sends the appropriate instruction (start/stop playback) to the concerned mainframe, e.g. the disk recorder, for setting an operating parameter of the mainframe. The input function may be transmitted to the mainframe to be carried out by it, for providing appropriate user feedback on the board of the control panel, for instance by toggling a control light associated to widget 3.

Alternatively, the control processor 8 may carry out the input function itself, either immediately after transmission of the output function to the mainframe or after having received from the mainframe a feedback indicating that the output function was successfully executed. In that case, if feedback from a mainframe is received relating to a change of an operating parameter which currently has no widget associated to it, no corresponding entry is found in the table for output functions. In that case the control processor merely stores the feedback value from the mainframe in an appropriate storage.

If the selection widget 9 is operated, no operating parameter of any of the mainframes 1, 2, 7 is changed. What changes is the active delegation index. Based on this changed delegation index the control processor updates the positions of a widget 6, e.g. of the slide controller type, where the position of a handle is indicative of the current value of an operating parameter associated to that widget 6, by using the input function of this widget 6 for setting the handle position. It is practical if the widget 6 is representative of homologous operating parameters of mainframes according to delegation index. I.e. if the handle position of widget 6 is e.g. representative of a volume of a signal from signal source 1 in a first position of selection widget 9 (i.e. in case of the delegation index having a first value) , it is practical to have it represent the volume of signal source 2 in a second position of selection widget (i.e. in case of the delegation index having a second value) . If the delegation index is at the first value, and no signal from the second source 2 is used in the mixer, the volume of the second source 2 will usually not have a widget associated to it, and its volume is stored in the above-mentioned storage of the control panel. When the delegation index switches to its second value, however, the widget 6 becomes associated to the volume of source 2, the control processor reads the value of the volume from the storage and uses the appropriate input function for moving the handle of widget 6 to a position representative of this volume.

For enabling a user to adapt the above-described control panel 5 flexibly to his wishes, it is sufficient to provide means enabling him to modify the table for delegation conditions. These means may be in the form of a software module executed by the control processor 8.

Claims

1. A network control device for controlling one or more slave devices via a network, the control device comprising one or more hardware user interface elements, each of which has an operating parameter of at least one of said slave devices associated to it, for setting a value of said associated operating parameter, characterized in that the network control device further comprises a configuration table specifying, for each of said user interface elements, the operating parameter currently associated to it, and means for accessing said configuration table and transforming a user input to one of said hardware user interface elements into an instruction for setting the operating parameter associated to said hardware user interface element to a value specified by the user input and transmitting said instruction to the slave device concerned.

2. The network control device of claim 1, further comprising means for replacing the operating parameter associated to at least one of said hardware user interface elements in said configuration table.

3. The network control device of claim 2, wherein at least one of said hardware user interface elements comprises a user movable member, the position of which is indicative of the value of the operating parameter currently associated to said hardware user interface element, a control processor and a motor for moving the user movable member to a position specified by said control processor.

4. The network control device of claim 3, further comprising a storage connected to the control processor for storing current values of the operating parameters of all said slave devices.

5. The network control device of claim 3 or 4, wherein the configuration table comprises an entry representative of software for enabling the control processor to control said motor so as to move the user movable member to the specified position.

6. The network control device according to any of the preceding claims, wherein each hardware user interface element has a group ID entry associated to it in the configuration table, the operating parameter currently associated to any given hardware user interface element being dependent on the identity of said given hardware user interface element and the value of its repective group ID entry.

7. The network control device according to any of the preceding claims, wherein said hardware user interface elements comprise at least one of the following: an on/off key, a turning knob, a linear encoder .

8. The network control device according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the network control device is adapted to control, as said slave devices, sources of video and/or audio signals and at least one mixer for receiving the video and/or audio signals from said sources.

9. A network comprising the network control device according to any of the preceding claims and a plurality of slave devices connected to it.