Watching support apparatus and program recording system

[0092] (Embodiment 1)

[0093] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the structure of a viewing support device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

[0094] The viewing support device 100 is a device that supports viewing of a user's program, and has a recording device position acquisition unit 101, a recordable program list acquisition unit 102, a browseable program list acquisition unit 103, a same program determination unit 104, and a display unit 105.

[0095] The recording device position acquisition unit 101 acquires the installation location of the recording device (hereinafter referred to as the recording device installation location). The recordable program list acquisition unit 102 acquires a program list (hereinafter referred to as a recordable program list) of broadcast content (program) at the location where the recording device is installed. The browseable program table acquiring unit 103 obtains the program table of the broadcast content at the current position (hereinafter referred to as the browseable program table). The same program judging unit 104 compares the browseable program table and the recordable program table, and judges the similarity of each program. The display unit 105 displays whether the currently viewed program can be recorded on the recording device based on the similarity of the programs determined by the same program determination unit 104.

[0096] 2 is a configuration diagram showing an example of the hardware configuration used by the audio-visual support device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. The system has: a digital TV 1201, which receives digital broadcasts; a hard disk video recorder 1202, which is a recording device that can store digital broadcasts in a hard disk; a home gateway 1203, which connects network equipment at home with the network outside the home; an electronic program table server 1204, an electronic program table is stored and can be accessed from an external network; a portable phone 1205, which can receive and display digital broadcasting, and has an audiovisual support device 100.

[0097] Next, the operation when the user uses the mobile phone 1205 having the viewing support device 100 configured as described above to view a program at a place far away from the installation place of the recording device (hard disk recorder 1202) will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the flow of operations when the user views a program using the mobile phone 1205. Here, it is assumed that, for example, the installation location of the recording device is Osaka (home or the like), and the user goes to Tokyo due to a business trip or the like.

[0098] First, the browsable program list acquisition unit 103 acquires the browsable program list as the program list of the current position through the received broadcast wave (step S101). In addition, the program schedule is multiplexed and transmitted in each area where the mobile phone 1205 is held. Therefore, the portable telephone 1205 with a built-in broadcast receiving tuner can receive program schedules related to programs that can be received in each area. In addition, the mobile phone 1205 may also have a GPS function, and by determining the current position, obtain the program schedule of the area from the electronic program schedule server 1204 via the network.

[0099] Then, the recording device position acquiring unit 101 acquires the installation location of a recording device that can be randomly accessed, such as a hard disk recorder and a DVD recorder (step S102). After receiving and broadcasting the program through a recording device, it is recorded on a storage medium, and the location of the recording device is generally the user's own home. In addition, the installation location of the recording device can also be preset.

[0100] The recordable program list acquisition unit 102 accesses the electronic program guide server 1204 via the network, for example, to acquire the program list of the recording device installation location (Osaka) acquired by the recording device position acquisition unit 101 as a recordable program list (step S103).

[0101] Then, the same program determination unit 104 determines whether the browseable program list and the recordable program list are different (step S104). In addition, in the example of the present embodiment, in the location where the recording device is installed (Osaka) and the location (Tokyo) where the user holding the mobile phone 1205 is currently located, since the programs of each region are being broadcast, the program schedules to be transmitted are different.

[0102] When the result of this determination is that the browseable program table and the recordable program table are different (Yes in step S104), the same program determination unit 104 determines whether the currently viewed program is also being played at the installation location (Osaka) of the recording device (step S105). In addition, even if it is not played in the same time slot but the time is changed in the future or the playback is delayed by one week, it is determined to be played. And, if it has already been played, it is determined not to play.

[0103] Here, when the currently viewed program is also being played at the installation location of the recording device (Osaka) (Yes in step S105), and when the browseable program list and the recordable program list are the same in the above determination process (step S104) (step S104) No), since it is possible to record at the location where the recording device is installed, the display unit 105 displays an icon "recordable" on the screen currently viewed by the portable terminal 1205 (step S106). Fig. 4 is a diagram showing a display example of a screen on which a program is being watched. In FIG. 4, since the golf program being played in Tokyo, where the user is currently located, is also a program played in the recording device installation location (Osaka), the icon "Recordable" is displayed. In addition, it is assumed that the user can perform recording settings on the recording device via the network, for example.

[0104] On the other hand, when the currently viewed program is not played at the location (Osaka) where the recording device is installed (No in step S105), since it cannot be recorded at the location where the recording device is installed, the display unit 105 uses the portable terminal 1205 to display it on the currently viewed screen The icon "cannot record" (step S107).

[0105] As mentioned above, after comparing the obtained browsable program table and the recordable program table, it is judged whether the currently viewed program is also being played at the place where the recording device is installed, and an icon indicating whether recording is possible is displayed on the screen, so that the user can simply determine the current viewing Can you set up video recording through the network? In addition, when the user requests the setting of the recording reservation, the desired setting can be made through the network recording device at home.

[0106] In addition, in this embodiment, an example of an audiovisual terminal using the hardware of a mobile phone is described, but this embodiment can also be implemented if it is a terminal connected to the network such as a general PDA.

[0107] In addition, in the determination process (step S105) determining whether the currently viewed program is also being played at the installation location of the recording device (step S105), the unique ID assigned to the program may be used. This ID is an ID assigned to each program being broadcast, and different IDs are assigned to different broadcast contents. In addition, if no such ID is assigned, it can be achieved by matching the broadcast time of the program with the title of the program and the performer.

[0108] In addition, the structure of the viewing support device described in this embodiment can also be realized by a program built in the portable terminal 1205. In addition, only the interface with the user may be installed in the portable terminal 1205. For example, a server device such as the electronic program table server 1204 may be configured as an audiovisual support device.

[0109] (Embodiment 2)

[0110] A modification of Embodiment 1 will be described. In the first embodiment, a case where a mobile phone has a built-in circuit for receiving digital broadcasts and the digital broadcast is received and viewed by the mobile phone has been described. In this embodiment, the mobile phone has a remote control function for operating the channels and screens of the digital TV.

[0111] FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the structure of a viewing support device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. In addition, the same symbols are assigned to the same parts as in the first embodiment, and detailed descriptions are omitted.

[0112] The viewing support device 200 has a program list display unit 203 instead of the display unit 105 in the configuration of the first embodiment. In addition, the operations of the recording device position acquisition unit 201 and the same program determination unit 202 are different from those of the first embodiment.

[0113] The program list display unit 203 adds information on whether each program can be recorded in the recording device to the browseable program list based on the similarity of the programs determined by the same program determination unit 202 and displays it.

[0114] FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram showing an example of the hardware configuration used by the audiovisual support device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. The system has: digital TV 1601, which receives digital broadcasts; hard disk video recorder 1602, which is a recording device that can store digital broadcasts in the hard disk; home gateway 1603, which connects network equipment at home with the network outside the home; electronic program table server 1604, an electronic program table is stored and can be accessed from an external network; a digital TV 1605, which can receive digital broadcasts and has an audio-visual support device 200; a portable phone 1606, which can operate the digital TV 1605 by remote control.

[0115] Next, the operation when the user views a program using the digital television 1605 with the viewing support device 200 configured as described above will be described. FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the flow of operations when the user views a program using the digital TV 1605. Here, suppose, for example, that the installation location of the recording device (hard disk video recorder 1602) is Osaka (home or the like), and the digital television 1605 is installed in Tokyo where the user goes on business trips or the like.

[0116] First, the browseable program table acquisition unit 103 obtains the browseable program table as the program table of the current position through the received broadcast wave (step S201). Here, for example, it is assumed that the browseable program table shown in FIG. 9 is acquired.

[0117]Then, the recording device position acquisition unit 201 receives the user's input of the recording device installation location, and acquires the recording device installation location (step S202). For example, the recording device position acquisition unit 201 displays a screen of the input recording device installation location on the screen of the digital television 1605 as shown in FIG. 8, and acquires the location selected by the user by dragging the menu as the recording device installation location. In addition, it may be configured to pre-record the user's recording device installation location in the mobile phone 1606, etc. (mostly the same as the residential area), and when the screen of the input recording device installation location shown in FIG. 8 is displayed, the mobile phone 1606 input area. In this way, it is possible to set the residential area using one button of the mobile phone 1606 without having to drag the menu to select each time.

[0118] The recordable program list acquisition unit 102 accesses the electronic program guide server 1204 via the network, for example, to acquire the program list of the recording device installation location (Osaka) acquired by the recording device position acquisition unit 201 as a recordable program list (step S203). Here, for example, the recordable program list shown in FIG. 10 is acquired.

[0119] Then, the same program judging unit 202 compares the browseable program table and the recordable program table and judges the same program (step S204). For example, in the list of browsable programs (Tokyo area) shown in FIG. 9, "T TV" is scheduled to broadcast the program "Long live entrustment" from 12:45, and in the list of recordable programs (Osaka area) shown in FIG. , "T TV Station" is scheduled to broadcast the movie "Magic Home Delivery". Moreover, in the list of browsable programs shown in Figure 9, "F TV Station" is scheduled to broadcast the program "Newlyweds" from 12:05, and in the recordable program list shown in Figure 10, "F TV Station" is scheduled to broadcast programs "Resident". In the example shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, since the programs other than "Long live entrusted" and "Newlyweds" are the same programs, the same program judging unit 202 judges programs other than the programs "Long live entrusted" and "Newlyweds" as The same program. In this case, for example, in the program schedule viewed by the user in the Tokyo area, the recording device (hard disk recorder 1602) has been set to record the program "Long Live" or "Newlywed" remote recording setting, but because it is in the Osaka area ( The installation location of the recording device) is not broadcast, so it cannot be recorded.

[0120] Then, the program list display unit 203 adds a mark indicating that the same program determined by the same program determination unit 202 in the browseable program list can be recorded on the recording device, and displays it as the program list shown in FIG. 11 (step S205). In the example shown in FIG. 11, programs other than "Long live entrusted" and "Newlyweds" are marked to indicate that remote recording of programs can be performed on the recording device by entering a reservation code with a mobile phone or the like. On the other hand, programs without additional marks indicate that they can only be viewed locally (Tokyo).

[0121] As mentioned above, compare the obtained browsable program table and recordable program table, determine the same program, and display it in the program table with a mark indicating that it can be recorded on the recording device, so the user can easily determine the program scheduled to be played at the current location Can the recording settings be made through the network?

[0122] In addition, in the present embodiment, the program guide display unit 203 displays a marked program guide, but it is not limited to this. For example, a selection accepting unit that accepts a user's selection instruction for a program table may be provided, and the program table display unit 203 displays one of a recordable program table, a browseable program table, and a marked program table according to the user's selection instruction.

[0123] (Embodiment 3)

[0124] In the above-mentioned Embodiments 1 and 2, the same program determining unit 104, 202 compares the browseable program table and the recordable program table and determines the same program, thereby determining whether the program currently being browsed can be recorded at a remote location. However, the acquired display content of the browseable program table and the recordable program table may not be the same. The abbreviation may also be used depending on the size of the screen on which the program content is provided. For example, there is a case where abbreviations such as "Professional Baseball N" are used in a program named "Japanese Professional Baseball News." However, the duration of the program is the same in most cases. Therefore, in this embodiment, a case where the sameness of the program is determined based on the information of the broadcast time of the program and the information of the text of the program information will be described.

[0125] Fig. 12 is a block diagram showing a specific structure of the same program judgment unit.

[0126] The same program judging unit judges the similarity of each program based on the browseable program table and the recordable program table. As shown in Figure 12, it has a show time extraction unit 1041, a search unit 1042, a text information extraction unit 1043, a program information storage unit 1044, and a match The degree calculation unit 1045 and the judgment unit 1046.

[0127] The show time extraction unit 1041 extracts the start time, end time, and show time of the show of the target program from the browseable program table acquired by the browseable program table acquisition unit 103. For example, the extraction target program starts at 19:00 and ends at 19:30 with the information that the show time is 30 minutes.

[0128] The search unit 1042 searches the recordable program list acquired by the recordable program list acquisition unit 102 using the start time, end time, and show time of the target program. If there are programs with the same start time, end time, and show time, then Extract text information indicating the title, performer, subtitle, and content of the program. Also, if there are no programs with the same start time, end time, and show time, the search unit 1042 uses the show time of the target program to search the recordable program list, and extract text information of the program with the same show time.

[0129] The text information extraction unit 1043 extracts text information indicating the title, performer, subtitle, program content, etc. of the target program from the browseable program table acquired by the browseable program table acquisition unit 103. The program information storage unit 1044 stores the text information extracted by the search unit 1042. For example, if the show time of the target program is 30 minutes, a collection of programs with a show time of 30 minutes is stored as the search result.

[0130] The degree of coincidence calculation unit 1045 calculates the degree of coincidence between the target program and the program stored in the program information storage unit 1044. That is, the matching degree calculation unit 1045 compares the text information of the target program extracted by the text information extraction unit 1043 with the text information of the program stored in the program information storage unit 1044, and calculates the matching degree of the program. For example, as shown in FIG. 13, the text information of the program is separated into information such as title, content, performer, etc., and sentence processing such as morpheme analysis is performed on each information, and the degree of agreement between words or words is calculated. Degree of agreement between. Here, the text information 801 of the program shown in FIG. 13 is an example in which the content is specifically described, and the text information 802 and 803 of the program are examples in which the content is omitted. For example, there are programs such as the text information 802 of the program in which only part of the information of the performer is recorded, and programs such as the text information 803 of the program in which only "N" is used to express the keyword "news". In this way, a program in which only a part of the information of the performer is described, and the case where it matches the text information of the program that is specifically described, and the title portion matches, are calculated as information with a high degree of match.

[0131] The judgment unit 1046 judges whether the degree of agreement between the programs calculated by the degree of agreement calculation unit 1045 is greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold, and if it is greater than or equal to the predetermined threshold, it is determined as the same program.

[0132] Next, the operation of the same program judging unit constructed in this way will be described. Fig. 14 is a flowchart showing the operation flow of the same program determination unit.

[0133] The show time extraction unit 1041 extracts the start time, end time, and show time of the show of the target program from the browseable program list (step S601). Then, the search unit 1042 determines whether there is a program with the same start time, end time, and show time as the target program in the recordable program list (step S602). Here, if there are programs with the same start time, end time, and show time (Yes in step S602), the text information representing the title, performer, subtitle, program content, etc. of the program is extracted and stored in the program information storage unit In 1044 (step S603). Then, the text information extraction unit 1043 extracts text information indicating the title, performer, subtitle, program content, etc. of the target program from the browseable program list (step S604).

[0134] On the other hand, the result of the above judgment (step S602) in the search unit 1042 is that there is no program with the same start time, end time, and show time (No in step S602), and the search unit 1042 uses the show time of the target program to search for recordable The program table determines whether there are programs with the same show time (step S609). Here, if there is a program with the same show time (Yes in step S609), text information indicating the title, performer, subtitle, program content, etc. of the program is extracted and stored in the program information storage unit 1044 (step S610) .

[0135] Then, the agreement degree calculation unit 1045 compares the text information of the target program extracted by the text information extraction unit 1043 with the text information of the program stored in the program information storage unit 1044, and calculates the degree of agreement between the programs (step S605 ). Then, the judgment unit 1046 judges whether the degree of coincidence between the programs calculated by the degree of coincidence calculation unit 1045 is greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold (step S606). As a result, if the degree of coincidence is greater than or equal to the specified threshold (Yes in step S606), the determination unit 1046 determines that the target program is also shown at the recording device installation location (step S607).

[0136] In addition, as a result of the aforementioned determination by the search unit 1042 (step S608), if there is no program with the same show time (NO in step S608), the determination unit 1046 determines that the target program is not shown at the recording device installation location (step S611).

[0137] In addition, in the second embodiment, the same program determination unit repeats the above-mentioned operation for each program in the browseable program table.

[0138] After performing the above actions, it is possible to use the information of the show time of the program and the text information recorded in the program table such as the title, subtitle, and performer of the program to determine whether they are the same program.

[0139] In addition, although TV dramas and the like have the same title, the content of the program may be different due to different times of broadcast. In this case, it is necessary to determine whether it is the same program by referring to the past program list and determining how many times it is being played. And, on the contrary, when a future program schedule is released, the number of broadcasts of the program up to the last time may be used to determine whether it is the same program.

[0140]That is, detect the interval of the target program broadcast, estimate the time of the previous broadcast based on the interval, continue to detect whether it has been broadcast before this time if the time has been played, and judge that this time is the first time if not detected On the broadcast day, the broadcast count calculation unit that calculates the broadcast count of the target program determines whether it is the same program. Explain specifically how to calculate the number of times a certain program has been played. For example, the case of counting the number of times "program A" is played is explained. When searching for "program A" in the published past program table, "program A" was played and ended, and then the number of times of broadcasting of "program A" was counted. As a result, all the times that "program A" was played in the past are counted, and will not become the times of "program A" in the current paragraph. Therefore, first, the broadcast interval of "program A" such as whether the target "program A" is a weekly program or a daily program is calculated. Then, it is assumed that it is played at the playing interval, and if it is played daily, it is retrieved whether to play in the time period of the previous play. Generally, with regard to programs that are broadcast daily, there are programs that are broadcast only on weekdays and programs that are broadcast every day including holidays. Therefore, with regard to programs that are broadcast every day, after distinguishing between programs that are broadcast only on weekdays or programs that are broadcast every day including holidays, the time zone that is presumed to be broadcast before is searched. When it is presumed to be played in the previous time period, it will continue to search for whether it has been played in the presumed time period of the previous play. Through this repetitive action, when it has not been played in the time period estimated to be the previous play, it is determined that this is the first play, and the play times of "program A" are calculated using the play times from this time to the current time.

[0141] In addition, in frequently occurring programs such as news and weather forecasts, there are cases where the content of the program is provided using icons or the like. Therefore, by providing an icon content storage unit that stores the corresponding relationship between the icon and its content in the text information, it is possible to determine the corresponding relationship of the program even when the content of a program table is represented by the icon.