JPH03146986A - Remote place educational system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a friendly conversation between an instructor and pupils by focussing automatically a TV camera on a pupil who makes a request to speak and sending its video signal to a studio side until his questioning ends. CONSTITUTION:In the studio 20, the video signal (b) of photography by the TV camera 10, the video signal (c) from a microphone 11, and the control signal (d) from a control part 2 are inputted to a transmission and reception part 1, multiplexed, and sent to all remote classrooms 21 at the same time through communication lines (a). In each classrooms 21, the signal is received by a video transmission and reception part 1 and separated into the image signal (b), video signal (c), and control signal (d), which are outputted to a TV monitor 12, a speaker 13, and a control part 3 to broadcast a lecture from the instructor to the pupils. When a pupil in the classroom 21, presses the switch of a speaking request part 4, a request (e) to speak is sent to a transmission permission part 5 through the control part 3, transmission and reception part 1, and the control part 2. When the instructor presses the switch of a permission part 5, permission information (f) and position information (g) are used to put the TV camera 10 in focus on the pupil, whose video signal is sent to the studio 2.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a distance education system for television education between remote locations.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of the conventional technology, in which one studio 20 and a plurality of remote classrooms 21 are connected to each other by the studio 20.
The studio 20 is connected to the TV camera 10 to enable two-way, multi-point communication.
The video signal captured by the camera, the audio signal C from the microphone 11, and the control signal d from the transmission permission control section 2 are multiplexed and simultaneously transmitted to all remote classrooms 21 at all times.

When a student makes a statement from the remote classroom 21, by pressing the switch on the statement request section 4 in the student's hand, statement request information e is sent to the studio 20, the lamp in the transmission permission section 5 lights up, and the instructor requests the statement. It turns out that there was.

The instructor presses the switch on the transmission permission section 5 to give permission to speak to the student who has requested to speak, and the control signal d from the transmission permission control section 2 is transmitted to the transmission control section 3, and the remote classroom 2
Transmission from 0 was permitted, and communication of audio signal C and video signal J was completed. Since the video signal j being communicated here is a video taken by a fixed TV camera 10 of the entire remote classroom, the facial expressions of the students who were speaking were not very clear.

If there is no student's request to speak from the remote classroom 21, the video signal j of the classroom captured by the fixed television camera 10 from the plurality of remote classrooms 21 is sent to the studio 2 in sequence at regular intervals.
It was being sent to 0.

Each remote classroom 2 is displayed on the TV monitor 12 of the studio 20.
The video signal j from 1 is sent at regular intervals, but in order to know which classroom the video is coming from, in the remote classroom 21, a piece of paper with the name of the classroom written on it is pasted at an appropriate position, and a
I took a picture and sent it.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In the conventional remote education system described above, the shooting range of the TV camera in the remote classroom was fixed, making it difficult to understand the facial expressions of the students. Also, in order to clearly capture the facial expressions of the students who were speaking, a full-time cameraman was required. Furthermore, if there is no request from a student to speak from a remote classroom, videos from each remote classroom are sent at regular intervals, but the classroom name in this video is taken with a camera, so it is unclear and difficult to understand. There was a problem.

[Means to solve the problem]

The remote education system of the present invention is a remote education system in which lectures are conducted by bidirectionally communicating video, audio, and control signals between one studio and a plurality of remote classrooms. - A video transmitting/receiving unit capable of multiplexing control signals and simultaneously performing two-way communication; a communication line capable of multi-point connection between the video transmitting/receiving units of the studio and the remote classroom; and a communication line from the studio to one of the remote classrooms. a transmission permission control unit that issues transmission permission;
a speech requesting section through which a student in the remote classroom makes a request to speak; a transmission control section that automatically adjusts the shooting range and focus of a television camera and controls transmission of the video transmitting/receiving section in the remote classroom; It consists of a seat position storage unit that stores the seat position, a synthesis unit that superimposes text information on the video signal taken by the television camera, and a memory that stores the text information. If not,
A video of the classroom with text information of the classroom name superimposed on the video from the remote classroom is sent to the studio at regular intervals,
When a student requests to speak, the focus of the television camera is automatically adjusted to the student who made the request to one of the remote classrooms allowed to transmit from the studio until the question is finished. The configuration is such that a video signal shot by the television camera is transmitted to the studio side.

〔Example〕

Next, the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a method for superimposing characters on an image.

First, in FIG. 1, a studio 20 and a plurality of remote classrooms 21 are connected at multiple points through a communication line a that allows bidirectional communication. In the studio 20, the video signal captured and output by the television camera 10, the audio signal C from the microphone 11, and the control signal d from the transmission permission control section 2 are input to the video transmitting/receiving section 1, respectively. After these signals are multiplexed in the video transmitting/receiving section 1, they are simultaneously transmitted to all the remote classrooms 21 via the communication line a. In each remote classroom 21, the signal multiplexed by the video transmitter/receiver 1 of the studio 20 is received by the video transmitter/receiver 1, separated into an image signal C, an audio signal C, and a control signal d, and then sent to the television monitor 12. ．． Speaker 13. The signals are outputted to the transmission control section 3, and the lecturer gives a lecture to the students.

When a student in the remote classroom 21 has a question or wants to have a conversation with the lecturer in the studio 20 during a lecture in this way, the student presses a switch on the comment requesting section 4 at hand, and the transmission control section 3゜Video transmitter/receiver section 1. The speech request information e is sent to the transmission permission section 5 via the transmission permission control section 2. The instructor sees this and presses the switch on the transmission permission section 5 to permit transmission to the remote classroom 21 that requested the speech, and the transmission permission information f is transferred to the transmission permission control section 2. It is transmitted to the transmission control section 3 via the video transmission/reception section 1. The transmission control unit 3 issues a request to speak based on the transmission permission information f from the studio, the above-mentioned speaking request information e, and the position information g from the seat position storage unit 8 that stores the position of the student's seat. A TV camera control signal that automatically adjusts the shooting range and focus of the TV camera is output to the students, and the TV camera is controlled to zoom in on the facial expressions of the students who are speaking, and images from the remote classroom 21 are sent to the studio 20. signal b
', an audio signal +, and control for transmitting a control signal d'. In addition, if there is no conversation between the instructor and the students, all remote classrooms 21 are scanned in sequence at regular intervals according to instructions from the transmission permission control unit 2 of the studio 2o, and images of the entire classroom are transmitted to the studio 20. are doing. in this case,
When received in the studio 20 and viewed on the TV monitor, the remote classroom 21 reads the character information i of the classroom name from the ROM 6, and writes the character information i of the classroom name to the remote video j of the classroom so that it can be seen from where the video comes from. It is superimposed and sent to Studio 2o.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a method for superimposing character information i on remote video j. Remote video j is output from the television camera 9, and character information i of the classroom name is output from the ROM 6. The character information a of the classroom name output from the ROM 6 is displayed at the bottom of the remote video j output from the TV camera 9.
is superimposed.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, when there is a question from a student, the focus is automatically set on the student without the need for cumbersome adjustments of the TV camera, allowing a friendly conversation between the instructor and the student. can. In addition, if there is no conversation between instructors and students, all remote classrooms are scanned at regular intervals and images of the entire classroom are sent, but the sending remote classroom side superimposes the text information of the classroom name on the classroom images. Because of this, when you receive the video in the studio and view it on a TV monitor, you can clearly see where the video is coming from.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a method of superimposing characters on a video in the same embodiment,
FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a conventional example. 1... Video transmission/reception unit, 2... Transmission permission control unit, 3...
- Transmission control unit, 4... Speech request unit, 5... Transmission permission unit, 6... ROM, 7... Synthesis unit, 8... Seat position storage unit, 9... With swivel base Electric zoom TV camera, 1o... TV camera, 11... Lecturer's microphone,
12...TV monitor, 13...speaker, 14...
-Student microphone, 20...Studio, 21...Remote classroom, a...Communication line, b, b'...Video signal, c, c'...Audio signal, d, d'- ··Control signal,
e...Speech request information, f...Transmission permission information, g...
・Position information, h...TV camera control signal, i...
Text information, j...Remote video.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Video, audio, and communication between one studio and multiple remote classrooms
A distance education system for conducting lectures by communicating control signals in both directions, comprising: a video transmitting/receiving unit capable of multiplexing video, audio, and control signals between the studio and the remote classroom and simultaneously performing bidirectional communication, and the studio and the remote classroom; a communication line capable of multi-point connection between the video transmitting and receiving units in the classroom; a transmission permission control unit that issues transmission permission from the studio to one of the remote classrooms; and a transmission permission control unit that allows a student in the remote classroom to request to speak. a speech request unit; a transmission control unit that automatically adjusts the shooting range and focus of a television camera to control transmission of the video transmission and reception unit of the remote classroom; a seat position storage unit that stores the seat positions of the students; It consists of a synthesis unit that superimposes text information on video signals captured by a television camera, and a memory that stores the text information.If there is no request from a student to speak, the video signal from the remote classroom is transferred to the classroom video. A video with text information of the classroom name superimposed is sent to the studio at regular intervals, and when a student requests to speak, the studio sends a request to speak to one of the remote classrooms that is permitted to send the video. The distance education system is characterized in that the focus of the television camera is automatically adjusted to the student who asked the question, and a video signal photographed by the television camera is transmitted to the studio side until the student finishes asking questions.