CN100559861C - Method and system for providing television program information via a television program guide - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for providing electronic program guide information, comprising the steps of: adding data indicating the episode number of a TV program played at a specific time period in the content descriptor of the event information table of the electronic program guide information; adding the episode number data Multiplexing the electronic program guide information and the video/audio stream to be sent into a transport stream and sending it; receiving the transport stream, and extracting the episode number data of the TV program added in the content descriptor; and The set ordinal data is converted into corresponding set ordinal information and displayed on the display. The invention also provides encoding and decoding methods of the electronic program guide and a system for providing the electronic program guide.

Description

Method and system for providing television program information via a television program guide

technical field

The present invention relates to a method and a system for sending information services through television channels, in particular to broadcasting to users through electronic program guides in digital video broadcasting the sequence number of the episodes containing the broadcasted television series, thereby reminding users to avoid missing their favorite television series Program methods and systems.

Background technique

Typically, in order to obtain a schedule of television programs, it is necessary to consult the television program section of a newspaper or magazine. With the development of Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), broadcasting stations can transmit data including video signals, audio signals, and various other additional information. The television receiver receives the additional information and uses the information in response to the user's request.

In digital video broadcasting, program information is compressed and multiplexed using the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standard before the signal is transmitted. An example of additional information is an Electronic Program Guide (EPG). Such an electronic program guide includes program schedule information related to television programs transmitted by a digital television broadcast system. These program schedules can be distributed over multiple channels, or sent entirely over one designated channel.

Digital television receivers receiving digital video broadcasting signals can watch television programs guided by relevant information contained in electronic program guides. However, there is currently no method of providing episode airtimes for television shows. In addition, the Digital Video Broadcasting Service Information (DVB-SI) specification followed by electronic programs, such as the DVB-SI standard, does not provide an information unit including the episode number of a TV series program. When people watch TV programs, they often miss their favorite programs because they miss the program preview. For example, when a user sees a favorite episode, he finds that the episode has already passed halfway. If the user can be reminded of the broadcast time of the first episode of the TV program, it will greatly facilitate the user's selection of the program. Although the episodes of the TV series are reminded to the user by means of advertisements and the like at present, this advertisement is always broadcast at a specific time, and the user is easy to miss it.

Contents of the invention

The object of the present invention is to provide a method and device for including additional information such as the episode number of a TV program in the electronic program guide, and extract the first broadcast time of the TV program according to the information, so that the user can see the first broadcast time of the TV program. You won't miss your favorite TV series after the episode reminder.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a method for providing electronic program guide information includes the steps of: adding data indicating the episode number of a TV program played at a specific time period to the electronic program guide information; adding the episode number data to the electronic program guide information Electronic program guide information and the video/audio stream to be transmitted are multiplexed into a transport stream and transmitted; receiving said transport stream, and extracting said episode number data of said television program included in the electronic program guide information; and displaying the extracted The set ordinal information corresponding to the set ordinal data.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for providing electronic program guide information, comprising the steps of: adding data indicating the episode number of a TV program broadcast at a specific time period to the electronic program guide information; adding the episode number multiplexing the electronic program guide information of the data with the video/audio stream to be transmitted into a transport stream and transmitting; receiving the transport stream, and extracting the episode number data of the television program included in the electronic program guide information; and displaying Set ordinal information corresponding to the extracted set ordinal data.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for encoding an electronic program guide for digital video broadcasting, comprising the steps of: setting a first indicator and a second indicator for indicating whether the episode number data of a TV program exists; making all The first indicator field and the second indicator field are cycled N times with the same combination, where N is equal to 2 or 3; and in each cycle, in the first indicator field and the second indicator field The data of the set sequence number of the TV program played at a specific time period is added to the TV program set sequence number field after the symbol field.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a decoding method of an electronic program guide for digital video broadcasting, including the steps of: receiving electronic program guide information, and cyclically reading the data indicating whether the episode number data of a TV program included in the electronic program guide information exists The value of the first indicator and the second indicator; store the data indicating the episode number of the TV program played at a specific time period in the TV program episode number field after the first indicator and the second indicator; and will indicate The data of the episode numbers of the TV programs played at a specific time period are converted into corresponding episode number information and displayed on the display.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for providing electronic program guide information, including: an electronic program guide database server for storing electronic program guide information; an electronic program guide editor for editing the electronic program guide The electronic program guide information read by the database server; the digital video broadcasting service information encoder, which is used to encode the episode number data and the edited electronic program guide from the electronic program guide database server about the TV programs to form a TV The electronic program guide data of the set sequence number data of the program; the multiplexer is used to multiplex the electronic program guide data from the digital video broadcasting service information encoder with the video/audio stream to be transmitted to form a transport stream; send a device for transmitting said transport stream; and a receiving device for receiving said transport stream and decoding said electronic program guide data, converting said episode number data of a television program into corresponding episode number information and displayed on the monitor.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording medium storing a program for executing a method for providing electronic program guide information, the method comprising the step of: adding an indication to the content descriptor of the event information table of the electronic program guide information The data of the episode number of the TV program played at a specific time period; the electronic program guide information added with the episode number data and the video/audio stream to be sent are multiplexed into a transport stream and sent; receiving the transport stream, and extracting adding the episode ordinal data of the TV program into the content descriptor; and converting the episode ordinal data into corresponding episode ordinal information and displaying it on a display.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording medium storing a program for executing an encoding method of an electronic program guide for digital video broadcasting, the encoding method comprising the step of: setting whether or not episode number data for indicating a television program exists The first indicator and the second indicator; each of the first indicator field and the second indicator field are cycled N times with the same value combination (N is equal to 2 or 3); and in each cycle In the above, the TV program episode number field after the first indicator field and the second indicator field is added with the episode number data of the TV program played in a specific time period.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording medium storing a program for executing a decoding method of an electronic program guide for digital video broadcasting, the decoding method includes the steps of: receiving electronic program guide information, and cyclically reading the electronic program guide The value of the first indicator and the second indicator indicating whether the episode number data of the TV program contained in the information exists; the TV program episode number field after storing the first indicator and the second indicator indicates that in a specific period of time The data of the episode number of the broadcasted TV program; and converting the data indicating the episode number of the TV program played in a specific time period into corresponding episode number information and displaying it on the display.

Utilize the present invention, as long as conform to the specification of Digital Video Broadcasting Service Information (DVB-SI) when broadcasting party edits electronic program information, and according to the method provided by the present invention, utilize the existing field to provide set serial number information, and the electronic program information at the receiving end The program guide decoding module extracts and analyzes the episode number information according to the present invention, so as to provide the user with a program guide about all the TV program information about the first episode to be broadcast.

Description of drawings

The above-mentioned and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be made clearer by describing in detail the preferred embodiments for explaining rather than limiting the present invention below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic structural diagram of an MPEG transport stream;

2 is a schematic diagram of a digital video broadcasting system providing an electronic program guide according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an interface for reminding users to broadcast the first episode of a TV program according to the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of encoding an electronic program guide that provides television program episode numbers in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of decoding an EPG at a receiving end according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The scheme of providing additional information to users in the electronic program guide in digital video broadcasting of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In order to facilitate the understanding of the present invention, first, the constitution of the MPEG transport stream and the electronic program guide will be described.

Referring to Fig. 1, the structure of an MPGE-2 transport stream is described. In digital video broadcasting, all video, audio, text, pictures and other information are converted into data after digital processing, and are packaged according to the MPEG-2 standard to form a fixed-length (188 bytes) transmission package. These packets are then multiplexed to form a Transport Stream (TS). Usually, one channel corresponds to one TS stream, and the TS stream of one channel consists of multiple programs and services. The service information (SI) inserted in the transport stream (TS) of digital TV carries all the data required by the electronic program guide (EPG). Service information includes data used to describe the transmission system, transmission content, and broadcast data flow schedule, etc. It helps the Integrated Receiver Decoder (IRD) to automatically tune, and provides additional information to the user, so that the IRD can automatically set optional services. As long as the broadcast front end inserts service information according to relevant standards, the decoder at the receiving end can take out service information from TS to form EPG with different functions.

If there is no guide information in the TS stream, the digital TV terminal equipment will not be able to find the required code stream, so in MPEG-2, the program description information (PSI) is specially defined, and its function is to automatically set and guide the receiver to decode . PSI information is inserted into the TS stream through a multiplexer during multiplexing, and is identified with a specific PID (packet identifier).

The program service information PSI defined in the MPEG-2 standard is a description of a single code stream. PSI consists of Program Association Table (PAT), Conditional Access Table (CAT), Program Mapping Table (PMT) and Network Information Table (NIT). Each table is divided into several segments and mapped (transformed) to the transport stream for transmission. PSI information is inserted into the TS stream through a multiplexer during multiplexing, and is identified with a specific PID (packet identifier). PSI specifies how to correctly find a specific program from a transport stream carrying multiple programs. When the receiver wants to receive a specified program, it first obtains the PID of the program mapping table of this program from the program association table (PAT) value, and then find out the program mapping table corresponding to this PID value from the TS, obtain the PID value of the basic code stream that constitutes this program from this program mapping table, and filter out the corresponding video, audio and data according to this PID value After decoding, the basic code stream is restored to the original signal, and the transmission packets of the remaining PIDs included are deleted.

As can be seen from the above description, to ensure that the transport stream can be received normally, there must be at least one complete and valid program association table (PAT) in the stream. The conditional mapping table (CAT) describes the encryption method of the program, which includes the EMM identification PID of the program, and only authorized decoders can receive the key from the CAT and decode the corresponding data stream. The network information table (NIT) contains the channel tuning parameters, frequency, symbol rate and other physical transmission network information of the program. This information enables the receiver to change the channel and tuning parameters with little or no delay according to the user's choice. TS is correctly decoded. Since the integrity of the PSI data is very important, a check code needs to be added to each PSI segment.

Since there are usually multiple code streams in the system, in order to enable users to quickly find the services they need in multiple code streams, digital video broadcasting has expanded the MPEG-2 program description information (PSI). On the basis of , nine more tables are added to form business information. Service information is a description of all code streams in the entire system, data describing system transmission content, arrangement and timetable of broadcast data streams, etc., and it includes PSI information.

In practice, the data provided by the business information is organized in an orderly manner to generate a form similar to a program report, which can be browsed on the TV in real time, which will greatly facilitate the use of users. This is the electronic program guide EPG.

The following describes the nine tables defined by the business information (SI)

1. Business group association table (BAT): used to provide information related to the business group, giving the name of the business group and the list of services in each business group.

2. Service Description Table (SDT): Contains data describing services in the system, such as service name, start time, duration, etc.

3. Event information table (EIT): contains data related to events or programs, and EIT is the main table for generating electronic program guides.

4. Running Status Table (RST): It is used to give the state of the event (running/non-running), and the running status table updates this information, allowing automatic adaptation to switching events.

5. Time and date table (TDT): It is used to give information related to the current time and date. Since this information is frequently updated, a separate table is required.

6. Time Offset Table (TOT): It is used to give information related to the current time, date and local time offset. Since these information are frequently updated, a separate table is required.

7. Stuffing table (ST): used to invalidate existing segments, for example at the boundary of a transmission system.

8. Selection information table (SIT): only used in the code stream segment, such as recording a code stream, it contains the place describing the service information interval of the code stream segment.

9. Discontinuity Information Table (DIT): It is only used for code stream fragments, such as a recorded code stream, it will be inserted into the place where the business information of the code stream fragments is discontinuous.

These functions of the electronic program guide can be realized through the data provided by the service information. That is to say, service information is the prerequisite for realizing the EPG function. In the business information table, the most important ones are NIT, EIT and SDT. Using the data in these three tables, EPGs with different functions can be constructed.

Among the various information tables in the DVB-SI specification, the Event Information Table (Event Information Table) (EIT) provides information related to events or programs contained in each service in chronological order, such as event name, start time, Duration, event type, etc. Any constituent EIT segments are transmitted in transmission packets with a PID of 0x0012. As additional information directly related to the TV drama program, the episode number of the TV drama is most suitable to be included in the EIT table.

In the reserved fields of the EIT table, convenient for storing additional information are the respective descriptors. The purpose of the content descriptor (content descriptor) is to provide a clear information description for the event, including content_nibble_level_1, content_nibble_level_2 fields and two user_nibble fields defined by the broadcaster. The 4-bit content category fields content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 respectively represent the primary and secondary classification of the content type of the TV program. For example, when content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 are 0x1 respectively, it means that the first-level classification of the TV program is movie/tv series/drama, and the second-level classification belongs to the detective/horror genre in the movie/tv series/drama. In another example, when content_nibble_level_1 is 0x1 and content_nibble_level_2 is 0x7, it means that the first-level classification of the TV program is movie/tv series/drama, and the second-level classification is classical/historical drama. The two four-bit long user_nibbles defined by the broadcaster in this descriptor are suitable for storing the set ordinal information in digital form, and can be used as the data unit for storing the set ordinal.

The content descriptor in the EIT table describes the category of program content, and for a program with category description, there is at least one content descriptor in the EIT table. The following is the syntax of the content descriptor content_descriptor in the DVB-SI specification:

content_descriptor(){

descriptor_tag 8 uimsbf

descriptor_length 8 uimsbf

for(i=0; i<N; i++){

content_nibble_level_1 4 uimsbf

content_nibble_level_2 4 uimsbf

user_nibble 4 uimsbf

user_nibble 4 uimsbf

}

}

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the method of adding the set sequence number information of a TV series program in the content descriptor utilizes the values (hexadecimal) of two user_nibble fields in the content descriptor content_descriptor, a total of 8 bits to represent the TV series The episode ordinal number of the show. The 8-bit field can represent the number range from 0 to 255, which is enough for current TV programs.

The broadcaster encodes the content descriptor based on the grammatical format of the content descriptor in the EIT table, and when it is necessary to give the set sequence number of the TV program to be played, the content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 representing the same TV program classification are circulated twice (or three times) ), to indicate that the set ordinal information is stored in the content descriptor. However, the values of the fields content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 indicating the category of the TV program may serve as the first and second indicators indicating the episode number of the TV program existing in the user_nibble field, respectively. When the first indicator and the second indicator are the same in two (three) loops (that is, the values of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 are respectively the same in two (three) loops), it means that there is an episode number of the TV program in the user_nibble field.

When the user's television receiver (set-top box) receives the electronic program guide, it extracts the EIT table, and performs cyclic decoding on the content descriptor in the EIT table. When the primary and secondary classifications indicated in the content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields of two or three consecutive cyclic decodings are the same, it is considered that the user_nibble among them holds the set ordinal information. According to an embodiment of the present invention, user_nibble in the first cycle represents the total number of episodes of the TV series, user_nibble in the second cycle represents the set sequence number of the first episode to be broadcast at that time period, and user_nibble in the third cycle represents that The episode ordinal of the last episode to air for the time slot. If there is no third cycle, it is considered that only one episode airs in that time slot.

When a TV program belongs to multiple different categories, the episode ordinal information can be represented by two or three consecutive cycles under one of the categories, or the episode ordinal information can be represented by two or three consecutive cycles under each category. The details are given in Table 1 below.

Table 1

field value Remark Descriptor_tag 0x54 content descriptor Descriptor_length 0x08 The data part after this field has 8 bytes Content_nibble_level_1 0x1 The first level is classified as Movie/TV/Drama Content_nibble_level_2 0x7 The second level is classified as classical/historical User_nibble 0x00 Does not contain additional information Content_nibble_level_1 0x1 The first level is classified as Movie/TV/Drama Content_nibble_level_2 0x6 The second level is classified as romance user_nibble 0x28 The total number of episodes of the TV series is 40 content_nibble_level_1 0x1 The first level is classified as Movie/TV/Drama content_nibble_level_2 0x6 The second level is classified as romance user_nibble 0x0B The first episode to be broadcast in the specified time period is the 11th episode of the show content_nibble_level_1 0x1 The first level is classified as Movie/TV/Drama content_nibble_level_2 0x6 The second level is classified as romance user_nibble 0x0D The last episode to be aired during the specified period is the 13th episode of the show

Referring to Table 1, it can be seen that the value of content_nibble_level_1 obtained for the first time after cyclic decoding of the content descriptor is 0x1, and the value of content_nibble_level_2 is 0x7, indicating that the first level of the TV program is classified as a movie/TV series/drama. The secondary classification is classical/historical. The value of content_nibble_level_1 obtained for the second time is 0x1, and the value of content_nibble_level_2 is 0x6, indicating that the first level of the TV program is classified as movies/tv series/drama, and the second level is classified as romance. Since the first-level and second-level classification values of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 obtained for the second time are different from the first-level and second-level classification values obtained for the first time, it can be judged that there are no episodes of TV programs saved in user_nibble Ordinal. Next, the values of the first and second classifications of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 after the third round of decoding are 0x1 and 0x6 respectively, and the values of the first and second classifications of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 obtained in the second time same. Therefore, it can be judged that the episode number of the TV program is stored in user_nibble. When the first-level and second-level classification values of the category to which the same TV program belongs are obtained for two or three consecutive times in the cyclic decoding process, the total number of episodes of the TV program can be obtained. The episode number and/or the episode number of the last episode to air for the specified time period. For example, as shown in Table 1, the value of user_nibble (the 5th line in Table 1) after the first and second content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 of the same content_nibble_level_2 appear consecutively in the values of the first and second classification fields of TV programs in cyclic decoding 0x28 (hexadecimal) indicates that the TV program has a total of 40 episodes, and the value 0x0B of user_nibble (row 6 in Table 1) after the second content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 indicates the set of the first episode to be broadcast during the specified time period The ordinal number is the 11th episode, and the value 0x0D of user_nibble (row 7 in Table 1) after the third content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 indicates that the episode number of the last episode to be broadcast in the specified period is the 13th episode.

If the TV show only airs 1 episode (eg, episode 11) in a given time period, the content descriptor would only need two cycles of the same first and second level classification values.

According to the present invention, the sender and receiver of the digital video broadcast edit the service information according to the above method, and the electronic program guide makes a corresponding explanation, which can conveniently provide users with prompts about broadcasting of TV programs.

The structure of the TV program reminding system according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. 2 . As shown in Fig. 2, the TV program reminding system according to the present invention includes a digital video broadcasting service information/electronic program guide (DVB-SI/EPG) management device 10 located at the digital video broadcasting side, a video/audio stream input device 5, and a complex User 6, modulation and coding equipment 7 and transmitting equipment 8, and receiving equipment 9 on the receiving side. The DVB-SI/EPG management device 10 includes an electronic program guide (EPG) editor 1 , a digital video broadcasting service information encoder 2 , an EPG database server 3 , and a digital video broadcasting service information (DVB-SI/EPG) transmission device 4 .

The operation of the TV program reminder system according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. 2 . The TV program broadcast producer completes the editing, storage and encoding of the electronic program guide through the DVB-SI/EPG management device 10 . The coded stream of the digital video broadcasting service information is provided to the multiplexer 6 through the DVB-SI transmission device 4 . The multiplexer 6 multiplexes the code stream from the DVB-SI transmission device 4 and the video/audio code stream from the video/audio stream input device 5 and outputs the multiplexed signal to the modulation and coding device 7 . Then, it is modulated into a radio frequency signal by the modulating and encoding device 7 and sent by the transmitting device 8 .

The receiving device at the receiving side demodulates and decodes the received code stream and displays corresponding information through a receiving unit 9 such as a set-top box.

During the encoding process of the electronic program guide by the broadcaster, the DVB-SI encoder 2 reads the TV program information stored in the EPG database server 3 . If the corresponding TV program in the database 3 has such as the total set number, the set sequence number information played that day and so on, then when the TV program information is encoded according to the DVB-SI standard, the set information of the relevant TV program will be added In the content descriptor Content_descriptor() of the EIT table, these information are encoded into the fields in Content_descriptor() according to the aforementioned process, that is, content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 with the same first and second level classification values appear repeatedly, and the The episode number information of the TV program is written into the user_nibble field, and then the descriptor and other related information of the program, such as the program name, broadcast period, program description, etc., are encoded into the EIT table. The encoded EIT table and other tables stipulated in DVB-SI, such as SDT, NIT, TDT, etc. are packaged and multiplexed in the encoder into a code stream TS with a packet length of 188 bytes, and then transmitted through DVB-SI equipment 4. Send the encoded electronic program guide to the multiplexer 6. The multiplexer 6 multiplexes the coded EPG and video/audio streams, and then modulates them into radio frequency signals through the subsequent modulation and coding device 7 and sends them out by the sending device 8 .

At the receiving end, a receiving unit 9, such as a set top box, demodulates, demultiplexes and decodes the received information. When decoding the Content_descriptor() of the EIT table of the DVB-SI code stream, if a combination of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 representing the category of the TV program appears twice or three times, then it is judged that the associated uer_nibble contains information about the Information about the episode ordinal number of a TV show. At this point, the information in the uer_nibble field can be extracted according to the aforementioned coding rules. After the information is extracted, an electronic program guide including episode numbers of TV programs can be displayed in an obvious format to remind users to watch them in time. If there is no such repeated combination in the Descriptor, or the set-top box does not support the decoding of such information, the decoder only needs to ignore the information contained in user_nibble. With such a design, the broadcaster and the receiver can be changed very little while maintaining the compatibility of the codec device with respect to these changes.

One application of the present invention is to provide users with reminders of the broadcasting of the first episode of a TV program. After encoding according to the above-mentioned technical solution of the present invention, the total number of episodes of broadcast TV programs and the number of episodes to be broadcast can be easily extracted. The information can be reminded to the user by broadcasting a reminder interface as shown in FIG. 3 . As an example, a button named "reminder of the first episode of a TV program" can be added in the displayed electronic program guide. When the user presses this button, he can enter an chronology lists all TV shows that will have their first episode airing some time from now.

Referring to FIG. 4 , the process of encoding an electronic program guide providing serial numbers of TV program episodes according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below. The DVB-SI encoder encodes the information related to the TV program according to the DVB-SI standard, and encodes the episode number information of the TV program into the content descriptor of the event information table (EIT) of the electronic program guide as the user_nibble of the episode number storage unit field. According to the DVB-SI standard, the user_nibble field is a field in the content descriptor that can be defined by the broadcaster. First, in step S41, information related to television programs is read from the EPG database server. Then, in step S42, the number of occurrences of the combination of the content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields representing the category of the TV program before the user_nibble field is initially set to 1, and the values of the content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields representing the category of the TV program are respectively used as the first indicator and the second indicator. Next, in step S43, add the total number of episodes of the TV program to the user_nibble field after content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2. Thereafter, in step S44, add 1 to the number of repeated appearances of the combination of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2, and determine whether N≤3 (or 2, if only one level is to be played) is satisfied in step S45. If the judgment result in step S45 is affirmative, the processing procedure returns to step S43, and S43 of step S45 is repeatedly executed until the number of repeated occurrences is greater than 3. When the combination of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 appears for the second time, add the episode number of the first episode of the TV program broadcast at a specific time period in the user_nibble field. Thereafter, on the third repetition of the combination of content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2, the episode number of the last episode of the TV show aired at the specified time period, if any, is added to the user_nibble field. When it is judged in step S45 that the number of repeated occurrences is greater than 3, the encoding process of the episode number of the TV program ends.

Referring to FIG. 5 , the process of decoding the electronic program guide providing the sequence number of the TV program according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described below. In step S51, the receiving end receives the information broadcast by the broadcaster, demodulates and demultiplexes the received information, so as to separate video/audio data and EPG information. In step S52, the content descriptor in the event information table (EIT) of the EPG is read out. In step S53, the ontent_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields, and the user_nibble field in the content descriptor are extracted. Information indicated by the values of the ontent_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields is displayed, and the user_nibble field is stored in, for example, a memory (not shown in FIG. 2 ) of a set-top box. In step S54, the category field of the next combination is extracted. Thereafter, it is judged in step S55 whether the values of the ontent_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields extracted this time are the same as the values of the ontent_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields extracted last time. If the comparison result is the same, the process proceeds to step S56, reads the value of the previous user_nibble field stored in the memory, and reads the value of the user_nibble field after the ontent_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 fields extracted this time, and converts these values into TV Episode ordinal information for the show. Thereafter, the process continues to extract the value of the field representing the category of the next combination, and converts the value of the user_nibble field thereafter into the episode number of the last episode of the TV show played at a specific time period (if content_nibble_level_1 and content_nibble_level_2 are the same as the previous two If the readout results are the same). If it is judged in step S55 that the values of the category fields of the two extracted combinations are different, the flow returns to step S53. If the episode number of the TV program is not extracted after repeating the predetermined number of times, the process ends and other processing is performed.

The method for providing the episode number of a TV program according to the present invention can be realized by hardware, and can also be realized by a processor executing a program with corresponding functions. The program can be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium such as a floppy disk, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, and a DVD-ROM.

So far the invention has been described in detail with reference to the preferred embodiments. It should be understood that the present invention is not limited thereto, but only by the appended claims, and those skilled in the art can make various changes and improvements to the embodiments of the present invention without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

Claims (15)

1. A method for providing electronic program guide information, comprising the steps of: Adding data indicating the episode number of a television program broadcast at a specific time period in the electronic program guide information; Multiplexing the electronic program guide information added with the set sequence number data and the video/audio stream to be sent into a transport stream and sending it; receiving the transport stream and extracting the episode number data for the television program included in electronic program guide information; and Displaying set ordinal information corresponding to the extracted set ordinal data. 2. A method for providing electronic program guide information, comprising the steps of: Adding data indicating the episode number of the TV program played at a specific time period in the content descriptor of the event information table of the electronic program guide information; Multiplexing the electronic program guide information added with the set sequence number data and the video/audio stream to be sent into a transport stream and sending it; receiving the transport stream, and extracting the episode ordinal data of the television program included in the content descriptor; and The set ordinal data is converted into corresponding set ordinal information and displayed on the display. 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the set ordinal data is added to a broadcaster-definable field in the content descriptor. 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the set ordinal data is added to a user_nibble field in the content descriptor. 5. A coding method of an electronic program guide for digital video broadcasting, comprising steps: setting a first indicator and a second indicator for indicating whether the episode number data of the television program exists; cycling the first indicator field and the second indicator field in the same combination N times, where N is equal to 2 or 3; and In each cycle, data of episode numbers of TV programs played in a specific period of time are added to the TV program episode number field after the first indicator field and the second indicator field. 6. The encoding method according to claim 5, wherein after the first indicator field and the second indicator field are cycled for the first time, the sequence number field of the TV program collection is added to the sequence number field to be played at a specific time period The total number of episodes of the TV show. 7. The encoding method according to claim 5, wherein after the first indicator field and the second indicator field are cycled for the second time, the serial number field of the TV program collection is added to the TV program set sequence number field The episode ordinal of the first episode of the TV show. 8. The encoding method according to claim 5, wherein after the first indicator field and the second indicator field are cycled for the third time, the serial number field of the TV program collection is added to the TV program set sequence number field The episode ordinal of the last episode of the TV show. 9. The encoding method according to any one of claims 5 to 8, wherein the first indicator is a value of content_nibble_level_1 in a content descriptor of an event information table of the electronic program guide information. 10. The encoding method according to any one of claims 5 to 8, wherein the second indicator is a value of content_nibble_level_2 in the content descriptor of the event information table of the electronic program guide information. 11. The encoding method according to any one of claims 5 to 8, wherein the television program episode serial number field is the user_nibble field in the content descriptor of the event information table of the electronic program guide information. 12. The encoding method according to claim 5, wherein when the electronic program guide information does not include the information indicating the episode number of the television program, the same combination of the first indicator field and the second indicator field is in a loop Appears only once. 13. A decoding method of an electronic program guide for digital video broadcasting, comprising the steps of: Receiving electronic program guide information, cyclically reading the values of the first indicator and the second indicator indicating whether the episode number data of the TV program contained in the electronic program guide information exists; storing data indicating an episode number of a television program played at a specific time period in the television program episode number field following the first indicator and the second indicator; and The data indicating the episode number of the TV program played at a specific time period is converted into corresponding episode number information and displayed on the display. 14. The decoding method according to claim 13, wherein after reading the values of the first indicator and the second indicator in a first cycle, storing the data in the serial number field of the television program collection, And judging the value of the first indicator and the second indicator read in the second and the third cycle and the first and the second cycle read the first indicator and the second indicator When the values of the two indicators are the same, read the stored data and the first indicator and the TV program sequence number field after the second indicator and the second indicator read in the second and third cycles data in . 15. A system for providing electronic program guide information, comprising: An electronic program guide database server, used for storing electronic program guide information; an electronic program guide editor for editing electronic program guide information read from the electronic program guide database server; a digital video broadcasting service information encoder for encoding episode number data about television programs and the edited electronic program guide from said electronic program guide database server to form electronic program guide data comprising episode number data for television programs ; a multiplexer, configured to multiplex the electronic program guide data from the digital video broadcasting service information encoder with the video/audio stream to be transmitted to form a transport stream; a sending device for sending said transport stream; and The receiving device is used to receive the transport stream, decode the EPG data, convert the episode number data of the TV program into corresponding episode number information and display it on the display.

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