JPH07297796A - TV channel selection support device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] The broadcast program information of TV programs is searched for by words that classify the programs, the fields for each program are determined based on the classification weight of the words, and the fields are simultaneously classified in the program table. Show or show programs by field. This allows the viewer to quickly find a desired program from a plurality of broadcasting modes (terrestrial waves, BS, CATV, etc.) and multiple channels. [Structure] The program information stored in the program information storage means 12 is searched for by a word indicating the field of the program stored in the classified word storage means 14, and displayed on the program guide presenting means 18 so that the program field can be identified or the program is classified by field. Is displayed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a television channel selection support device for assisting in selection of programs to be received or recorded in home AV equipment such as televisions and videos.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, television program broadcast schedules (hereinafter referred to as program schedules) have been provided to general viewers as printed matter such as newspapers and magazines. Especially in magazines such as weekly magazines, whose main purpose is to provide program information at regular intervals, not only publish the program guides and content introductions announced by each broadcasting station, but also classify programs by field in the program guides. For convenience of magazine subscribers, that is, TV program viewers, color coding and a list of programs in a specific field to be broadcast in a specific period have been provided.

There is also a service in the United States that provides program information by personal computer communication and runs a dedicated program on the personal computer to facilitate the search for information provided in magazines and the like.

CAT offering more channels
In V, the service of providing a program guide using the set-top receiver of each home is about to begin.

On the other hand, even in television broadcasting, programs that introduce programs in a specific field (for example, movie programs and sports program introductions) are broadcast.

Further, television character multiplex broadcasting (hereinafter,
In July 1993, "Standard of TV program recording reservation system by teletext (BTA
T-003) ”was enacted, and in response to this, a service for directly distributing program information to each home is about to start.

Further, data broadcasting using a satellite broadcasting data channel and service provision by ISDB are also under study.

[0008]

In recent years satellite broadcasting and CAT
In response to the signs of the spread of V, the number of television channels is increasing, and viewers have a wider selection range of programs they want to watch, but the time and effort to search for programs they want to watch are increasing.

In newspapers and magazines, there is a limit to the amount of information (number of channels) that can be listed due to space limitations, and the time and effort for searching are increasing. Further, in order to watch TV, it is necessary to refer to other media such as newspapers and magazines. It hinders the convenience of viewers.

[0010] The program guide by broadcasting cannot be said to be sufficient because information is provided only for some programs and the broadcasting time is limited.

Since the provision of program information by teletext is performed within the range of the current teletext standard, only very simple information such as the start / end time of the program and the program name is provided.
Therefore, the viewer needs a lot of time and effort to search for a desired program.

When the provision of program information by a plurality of media is started in the future, it is conceivable that different types of information formats and services will be provided in order to bring out their uniqueness. For example, the terrestrial broadcasting may provide only the program information of each main broadcasting by the character broadcasting and the BS data broadcasting. In this case, even though the viewer is watching the same television, it is troublesome to search for a desired program without distinguishing between terrestrial and BS programs.

[0013]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention receives broadcast program information superposed on a broadcast by a television station or a CATV station, or acquires program information via a communication line. Program information input means for performing at least one of inputting program information supplied from a storage medium, program information storage means for storing the input program information, words for classifying programs into fields, and their classification Classification word storage means for storing a weight, word search means for searching for a program stored in the program information storage means by the word, and classification of the program from the word classification weight for each program searched by the word search means Field determining means for determining the field weight and determining the field of the program, and program guide presenting means for displaying the programs accumulated in the program guide and the fields determined by the field determining means together The television channel selection support device or the field input means for designating the field of the program is provided, and the program table presenting means assigns the program of the field designated by the field input means by the field determining means to the field weight of the program. The above-mentioned television channel selection support device is provided with a program guide presenting means for presenting in order.

Further, the present invention provides a television channel selection support device characterized by further comprising classification weight updating means for increasing the classification weight of words included in a program name of a program whose field is determined by the field determining means. .

[0015]

The television channel selection support apparatus of the present invention supports the selection of the program selected by the viewer by determining the field from the words included in the program name and presenting the program by dividing the field. is there. Since only the program name is used for dividing the field, existing program information can be used, and the field can be flexibly dealt with.

[0016]

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the first embodiment of the present invention, which will be described below.

Reference numeral 11 is a program information input means for inputting a program list of a television broadcast transmitted as a text broadcast program by a television station, 12 is a program information storage means for storing program information of each channel, and 24 is a program information field for each program field. Classification word storage means for storing a word indicating that the program is a field, 25 is a word search means for performing a word search from the program name stored in the program information storage means 12, 26 is a field determination means for determining the field of the program, Reference numeral 28 is a program guide presenting means for displaying the program name and the field of the program.

The operation of this embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS. The program information input means 11 selects a channel for which program information is provided by character broadcasting in order, and from a character multiplex broadcast program that provides TV program information, sends the broadcast channel, broadcast date, Extract start / end time and program name.

The program information accumulating means 12 accumulates information for each television program extracted by the program information inputting means, and erases the program information of the television program which has finished broadcasting. FIG. 3 is a part of an example of program information stored in the program information storage means 12. For example, this first item indicates that "news and commentary" will be broadcast on Channel 2 from 2:00 pm to 15 minutes on July 10.

The classified word storage means 24 stores, for each program field, a word indicating that the program belongs to that field. FIG. 4 shows an example of words stored in the classified word storage means 24. For example, the words "soccer" and "J League" indicate that the program including the word is a sports program.

The word search means 25 is a classified word storage means 24.
The words stored in the program information are taken out one by one, and the column of the program name of the program information stored in the program information storage means 12 is searched. For example, when the word "soccer" is retrieved from the classified word storage means 24, the third item in FIG. 3 is searched.

The field determining means 26 determines the field of each program based on the above-mentioned search results. For example, the program of the third item is "soccer", "J League", "Gamba" which are the words of the sports field. Since the search hits, it is determined that the program is in the sports field. However, since the program of the second item does not hit the search at all (it is assumed that words such as "TV", "telephone", and "consultation" are not stored in the classified word storage means 24), it belongs to any field. It is determined not to.

The program guide presenting means 28 displays the program information of a plurality of specific channels in a specific time zone as a list. In this display, programs in the sports field are displayed in light blue, and programs in the movie field are displayed in pink. When watching a sport, the program guide presenting means 28 pays attention to a light blue portion, and when recording a movie with a video, paying attention to a pink portion so that the viewer can quickly find a desired program. You can search.

There are various realization methods such as displaying the program list displayed by the program list presenting means 28 on a dedicated display device, superimposing on a television screen, etc. However, since it is beyond the scope of the present invention, it will be omitted. The method of designating the channels and time zones to be displayed in the program list is also beyond the scope of the claims of the present invention, and therefore omitted.

In addition, when the channel is changed to the program found by the television channel selection support device of the present invention or the recording reservation of the program is registered, the channel and recording reservation of the television or video are registered by the conventional method. In addition, there is also a method in which a switch is provided in the television channel selection support device so that the channel selection / reservation registration can be performed by pressing the switch corresponding to the program for which the channel selection / reservation registration is desired. Therefore, details are omitted.

In the above embodiment, the configuration for extracting the program information from the character broadcast has been described, but it may be configured to receive a service other than the character broadcast, which is an incidental service of TV broadcast / CATV, for example, a data broadcast dedicated to the program information. Further, a modem interface is provided to automatically connect to a host station for personal computer communication to obtain program information, such as a configuration for inputting program information online, and an external storage device such as a floppy disk or IC card. It is also possible to input the program information via a medium or to input the program information by offline input such as providing an OCR and reading an existing program information magazine.

Further, a configuration having an input means for two or more pieces of program information is also possible. For example, not all channels are used for teletext broadcasting, and it is also possible to use teletext broadcasting on channels. In some cases, a teletext program that provides program information may not be broadcast. In this case, a configuration in which the program information input from the text broadcast and the program information input by personal computer communication are combined is also possible. In this way, when the program information is input from a plurality of media, even if the format and content of the information are different, they can be handled in a unified manner by converting them into the same format in the program information input means.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG. 5 and FIGS. The description of the program information input means, the program information storage means 12, the classified word storage means 24, the word search means 25, and the field determination means 26, which are the same as those in the first embodiment due to the configuration and operation of each part of this embodiment, will be omitted.

Reference numeral 13 is a field input means for inputting a field of a program desired to be selected on a television or a program desired to be recorded and registered for video recording, and 58 is a field-specific presentation means for presenting program information for each field. The operation of this embodiment will be described below.

The field input means 13 is provided with a remote control device (remote control), and a button corresponding to each field of the word stored in the classified word storage means 24 is arranged. By pressing this button, the field is designated. For example, when trying to select a channel for broadcasting a sports program, the sports button on the remote controller is pressed.

The word search means 25 searches the program name column of the program information stored in the program information storage means 12 with the word stored in the classified word storage means 24 corresponding to the field designated by the field input means 13 to determine the field. The means 26 is the field input means 13
Only programs in the field input from are selected. For example, when the sports button is pressed with the word search means 25, the words "soccer", "J league", "professional baseball", etc. corresponding to the sports shown in FIG. "Football"
The third item in FIG. 5 is searched for in the case of searching with, and the same item can be searched also in the case of searching with “J League”, but there is no item to be searched when searching with “professional baseball”. A plurality of words "soccer" and "J" are placed in the search by the word search means 25.
Although there are items to be searched for in "league" and "Gamba", the field determining means 26 eliminates this duplication and determines that the same program is searched only once.

The field-based presentation means 58 presents the retrieved program. For example, when the sports button is pressed with the word search means 25, the third item in FIG. 3 is presented.

The present embodiment is more effective than the first embodiment in the case of wanting to select a specific field, for example, a sports program or movie. It is also possible to have a configuration having both the functions of this embodiment and the first embodiment. That is, when the field is designated by the field input means 13, the operation described in this embodiment is performed, and in other cases, the operation described in the second embodiment is performed.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG. 6 and FIGS.

Description of the same parts as those of the first and second embodiments will be omitted. Reference numeral 14 indicates a word indicating that the program is a program in each field of the program and classification word storage means for storing the classification weight thereof, and 15 is a word stored in the classification word storage means 14 and stored in the program information storage means 12. A word search means for searching the program name section of the information, 16 is a field determining means for determining the field of the program by obtaining the classification weight of the program, and 18 is a program table presenting means for displaying the program name and the field.

The operation of this embodiment will be described below. FIG. 7 shows an example of the stored contents of the classified word storage means 14. For example, the first item indicates that the word "soccer" is a word indicating a sports field and its classification weight is 100. The larger the value of the classification weight, the higher the possibility that the program including the word of the item in the program name is the program in the field.
That is, the program name including the word "soccer" is more likely to be a sports program than the program name including the word "Gamba".

The word search means 15 is the classified word storage means 14.
The column of the program name of the program information stored in the program information storage means 12 is searched with the word stored in. The search results are collected by the field determining means 16 for each program, and the sum of the classification weights for each field is calculated and used as the classification weight of the program.

The program field is designated by the field input means 13, and the program guide presenting means 18 is arranged in the descending order of program weight of the field.
To display.

In order to obtain the classification weight of the program by the field determining means 16, the sum of the classification weights of the words included in the program name is calculated, but the invention is not limited to this. In the above method, the program weight tends to increase as the program name includes more words and the program classification weight increases.To correct this, for example, the method of setting the maximum value of the word classification weight as the program classification weight is used. However, the correction method is not limited to this.

It is to be noted that the field input by the field input means 13 is omitted, the programs are colored in accordance with the classification weight for each field, and the program table presenting means 28 of the first embodiment is used. You may comprise so that it may display on the program guide presenting means 18. For example, programs with a classification weight of 200 or more in the sports field are displayed in blue, and programs with a classification weight of less than 200 in 100 are displayed in light blue.
Less than 100 or more programs are displayed in pink. In this case, when recording reservation registration of a sports program is to be performed, the blue portion is first focused on to search for a desired program, and if not found, the light blue portion may be searched. It is also possible to provide a means for changing the threshold for color coding.

If the field input by the field input means 13 is omitted, a default field may be provided for each day of the week / time zone and the field may be input. For example, assuming that the default field is sports on Wednesday and Saturday during the daytime and movie after 11:00 pm on all days, when recording reservations for J.League soccer and late-night movies, field input means 13
You can omit the field input in. Further, in the device in which the device of the present invention is incorporated into a television receiver or a video, the field of the program in which the channel is matched or the program for which the reserved recording is performed is automatically collected, and the most frequently watched / reserved recording is performed for each day / time. It is also possible to set the field that has been used as the default field.

Next, a fourth embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG. 1 and FIGS. 3, 7 and 8. The description of the same parts as those in the third embodiment will be omitted.

Reference numeral 17 is a classification weight updating means, which decomposes the program name into words for programs whose classification weight of the program obtained by the field determining means 16 is a predetermined value or more, and for each of these words. If there is a program name that does not include only that word, the classification weight of the program is calculated, and one minute (value rounded to 1/100) of that program is stored in the classified word storage means 14 if that word is stored. In addition to the classification weight, if the word is not stored, it is additionally stored.

For example, the sports classification of the program of the third item in FIG. 3 will be described in detail. The classification words of the sports field included in this program are "soccer" and "J League" from FIG.
And “Gamba”, the classification weight of each is 100, 90,
Since it is 60, the classification weight of the program is 250 of these sums. First, regarding "soccer", the classification weight of the program name "J League" Gamba x Jubilo "" that does not include only this word is 150, and 2 of this 1/100 (value rounded off to the nearest whole number) is the word "soccer". Classification weight of 100
In addition, the classification weight becomes 102. For the word "Jubilo", the classification weight of the program name "Soccer J League" Gamba x "" that does not include only this word is 250, and 1/3 of this is added to the classification word storage means 14 as the classification weight of the word "Jubilo". Remember. Do the same for other words. The contents stored in the classified word storage unit 14 at the time when these operations are completed are as shown in FIG.

Here, the classified word storage means 14 may be updated at regular intervals, for example, for one day, all at once at midnight. Further, instead of updating the classified word storage means 14 by classification weighted calculation of all programs, only the programs for which actual channel selection / recording reservations have been made may be updated. Also, the classification weight update is not limited to the method described in the above example.

Further, when the capacity of the classified word storage means 14 is insufficient, the classified weights may be simultaneously reduced by the same amount, and words having a value of 0 or less may be deleted.

Further, a means for inputting the contents of the classified word storage means 14 from the outside can be provided so as to be able to cope with the transition of the words used in the program name, and conversely, a means for outputting the contents is also provided to provide another invention. It is also possible to make the operation of a plurality of devices the same by inputting to the device of.

Compared to the third embodiment, the present embodiment is updated based on not only the previously registered words but also the program name actually viewed / reserved and recorded, so that it is expected to improve the field classification performance of the program.

In all the above-mentioned embodiments, the field is not limited to general fields such as "sports" and "movies", for example, fields such as "programs often watched by a specific viewer" and fields such as "specific person". Can be provided.

Further, when the program of which the channel is matched or the reserved recording is performed is input to the apparatus of the fourth embodiment and the classification weight is updated as the program of the field such as "favorite program", it is actually often viewed and reserved. The recorded program is displayed on the program guide presenting means 18 as a field of "favorite program". This is an application of the channel selection method according to the invention of Japanese Patent Application No. 5-279521 to the device of the present invention, and the present invention and the invention of the above application can also be realized by the same device.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the contents of program information storage means.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of stored contents of a classified word storage means in the first and third embodiments.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of stored contents of a classified word storage means in the third and fourth embodiments.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the classification weight updating means in the fourth embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Program Information Input Means 12 Program Information Accumulation Means 13 Field Input Means 14, 24 Classification Word Storage Means 15, 25 Word Search Means 16, 26 Field Determining Means 17 Classification Weighted Updating Means 18, 28 Program Guide Presenting Means 58 Field-wise Presenting Means

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A television station or a CATV station receives broadcast program information transmitted by being superimposed on a broadcast, acquires program information via a communication line, or inputs program information supplied by a storage medium. Program information input means for performing at least one, program information storage means for storing the input program information, classified word storage means for storing words for classifying programs into fields, and program information storage means for the words A word searching means for searching a program stored in the program, a field determining means for determining a field of the program stored in the program information based on the search result, a program stored in the program table, and a field determined by the field determining means. A television channel selection support device comprising a program guide presenting means for displaying together. 2. A field input means for designating a field of a program, the program table presenting means comprising a program table presenting means for presenting a program of the field designated by the field inputting means by the field determining means. The television channel selection support device according to claim 1. 3. The category weight is stored together with the words stored in the category word storage means, and the category determining means obtains the category weight of the program from the category weight of the word for each program searched by the word searching means, 3. The television channel selection support device according to claim 2, wherein the field of the program is determined and the program guide presenting means displays the program in the order of the field weight of the program. 4. A category weight updating means for additionally storing in a category word storage means a word included in a program name of a program whose category has been determined by the category determining means, or for increasing the category weight of the word. The television channel selection support device according to claim 3. 5. A field log means for deciding a selected program by a field deciding means and recording the program for each broadcasting day / time zone, and a day / time zone for selecting a program from the field log means. 4. The television channel selection support device according to claim 2, wherein the field input means is replaced by a time zone field determination means for determining a field selected by a large number of channels. 6. The time when the classified word storage means exceeds a certain capacity, or when a predetermined time elapses,
The television channel selection support device according to claim 4, wherein the keyword having a low appearance frequency is deleted or the score of the appearance frequency is rounded down.