JP2000307993A - A system that performs recording reservation or playback of recorded programs from a TV program guide presented in association with file object browsing - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] (with correction) [Problem] To search an electronic program guide from browsing file objects on the Internet. SOLUTION: A client computer 300 accesses a file object on a network 115 through a gateway computer 200. Feature extraction means 102
Monitors the data transfer of the proxy server 101, detects an access request from the client computer 300, and extracts features from the file object of the response using a word sandwiched between tags as a keyword. The program search means 104 sequentially executes an electronic program guide search, a recording-reserved program search, and a recorded program search by using the logical sum of the extracted words, creates a TV program guide, and creates a TV program guide.
Is displayed on the display device 305. By specifying with the mouse of the input device 304 in the displayed TV program guide,
Recording reservation and reproduction of a recorded program can be performed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for retrieving a TV program guide related to a homepage and creating a program guide in cooperation with a browsing of a homepage on the Internet, and instructing a user with a mouse pointer or the like to the created program guide. The present invention relates to a system that allows a user to make a recording reservation for a television program or play back a television program that has already been recorded.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art JP-A-10-177532 discloses that
Internet homepage in cooperation with TV programs,
There has been proposed a method of automatically displaying the information on a television screen. This method uses the URL (Unifor
m Resource Locator) The homepage is displayed based on the information. This is an architecture that seeks to obtain information from a network based on the information of a TV program. In Japan, Bit Ca
In services such as “st”, URL information linked to terrestrial TV broadcasting is provided.

[0003] In recent years, the number of television broadcast programs has been increasing due to the spread of digital multi-channel broadcasting, and home electric appliances having a function of searching for a desired program by a keyword or a genre using an electronic program guide (EPG) or the like. Etc. are sold. Since the electronic program guide is regularly broadcast along with terrestrial television broadcast by a method such as ADAMS-EPG of Asahi Data Broadcasting Co., Ltd., it is stored in a personal computer equipped with a television or a TV tuner and viewed as a program guide. And search.

However, conventionally, at the same time as browsing a file object on the Internet, the features of the page are extracted and a TV program close to the page content is presented to the user, or a TV program is reserved for recording on the spot. Alternatively, there has been no system that presents a pre-recorded program to the user as a search result and prompts the user to view the recorded program.

A system for retrieving a document based on the document is similar to the technique of the present invention, but Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-085103, which is a document belonging to this field, discloses a method for searching for a document using a keyword. There has been proposed a method of finding another related document from a document set by selecting a document instead of selecting a document. This method determines how many times a keyword contained in a document is assigned, and searches by displaying the keyword in the descending order. However, this method is a document search system, and a function like an electronic program guide is used. It does not create a document.

[0006]

As described above, as a pleasure combining Internet browsing and television viewing,
You can see the Internet homepage related to the TV program in conjunction with the TV program. On the other hand, while browsing the Internet homepage, you can know the TV program listing related to the homepage. Did not. When searching for a TV program using an EPG or the like, it is possible to narrow down programs to be viewed by selecting a keyword input operation or a genre search. Also, there is no method of presenting the searched programs as a television program guide in an order according to the user's preference.

[0007] The present invention provides a system capable of searching an electronic program guide and controlling recording and reproduction by browsing file objects on the Internet and collecting information obtained from television broadcasting in addition to information collected from browsing file objects on a network. It is intended to provide.

[0008] Further, the present invention provides a method for, when browsing a file object on a network, displaying a television program already recorded as television program information relating to the currently viewed file object or a television program to be broadcasted from now on. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of automatically presenting and a system capable of recording and reproducing a designated television program for recording.

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for presenting a television program guide in relation to browsing a file object and performing recording reservation or reproduction of a recorded program. A feature extracting means for extracting a feature from the program, a program searching means for searching a TV program table based on the features extracted by the feature extracting means, and a television program for reserving a desired program from the result searched by the program searching means. It comprises a timer recording means and a television program reproducing means for reproducing a television program recorded by the television program recording reservation means.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the feature extracted by the feature extracting means of the system according to the first aspect is a keyword included in the file object content.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the feature extracting means according to the first aspect extracts a feature from a similarity between a text of a file object and a description phrase of an electronic program.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the program search means in the system according to any one of the first to third aspects sequentially executes an electronic program guide search, a program reserved for recording, and a recorded program search. It is something that was taken.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the electronic program guide search in the system according to the fourth aspect searches for only programs broadcast after the current time.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a plurality of display priority calculation methods, wherein the calculation method is changed according to the user's preference. It is provided with search result shaping means for rearranging the order of the searched search results and creating a program table.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, a program table created by the search result shaping means in the system according to the sixth aspect is displayed on a client computer.

According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, recording designation and reproduction designation can be performed from a program table displayed on a client computer in the system according to the seventh aspect.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a feature extracting unit for extracting a feature from the contents of a file object on a network according to the first aspect, and a television program table is searched by using the feature extracted by the feature extracting unit. A file object comprising a program search means, a television program reservation and recording means for reserving a program from the result searched by the program search means, and a television program reproduction means for reproducing a television program recorded by the television program recording reservation means This is a recording medium that stores a program for presenting a television program guide in association with browsing and causing a computer to execute a system for performing recording reservation or playing back a recorded program.

[0018]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an entire system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The system according to the present invention includes a control center 103 for controlling the entire system, the Internet 115 representing a Web server in which a file object exists, a feature extraction unit 102 for WWW file object contents, and a Web server which is accessed by a client. A proxy server 101 which is a gateway for interrupting a document, a program search means 104 for searching for TV program information, and an EPG storing a TV program table
DB (database) 105, a recording reservation list DB 106 storing television recording reservation information, a recording list DB 107 storing television program information already recorded, and a presentation list 11 for presenting a program table
0, a search result shaping unit 111 for rearranging and organizing search results, a recording unit 108 for recording a specified channel from a start time to an end time, and an M for storing recorded data.
A gateway computer 200 comprising a PEG data DB 109, a reproducing means 112 for reproducing a television program recorded by the recording means 108 as a video signal, a television signal 113 for receiving, and a television device for displaying the recorded program 114 and a client computer 300 that operates the gateway computer 200.

As described above, when the gateway computer 200 and the client computer 300 are roughly divided into two, the main gateway computer 200 and the client computer 300 are divided.
Can be placed in a home and connected to a plurality of client machines via a network. In addition, it is also possible to make the gateway computer 200 and the client computer 300 into a single product. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of the gateway computer 200. The gateway computer 200 includes a CPU 201,
Hard disk 202, memory 203, MPEG2 encoder 204, A / D converter 205, TV tuner 206 (connected to antenna 207), MPEG2 decoder 208, D / A converter 209 (connected to TV 114) Communication control device 210 (the client computer 30 via the LAN)
0), and a communication modem device 211 (connected to the Internet 115). The hard disk 202 includes a recording unit 108, a reproducing unit 112, a feature extracting unit 102, and a search result shaping unit 11.
1. Accessed from each means of the program search means 104,
It is a medium for storing database information of a PG DB 105, a recording reservation list DB 106, a recorded list DB 107, a presentation list 110, and an MPEG data DB 109.

The recording means 108 comprises an MPEG2 encoder 204, an A / D converter 205, and a television tuner 206.
PEG2 decoder device 208 and D / A converter device 20
9. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of the client computer. The client computer 300 includes a memory 301, a CPU 302,
Non-volatile memory 303, input device 304, display device 30
5. It is assumed that the network I / O 306 is provided. This corresponds to a device generally called a personal computer. The WWW browser of the client computer 300 is a proxy server 1 located in the gateway computer 200.
Since we are accessing the Internet via 01,
The gateway computer 200 can extract the contents of the WWW file object. For more information,
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-021134 describes a method of relaying.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure of the system of the present invention. The operation procedure will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4 and the block diagrams of FIGS. First, the client computer 300
The built-in WWW browser accesses the file object on the network 115 (via the proxy server 101) (step S1).

Since the characteristic extracting means 102 constantly monitors the data transfer of the proxy server 101, it detects an access request from the client computer 300 and extracts a characteristic keyword from the response file object (step S2). ). File object is HT
WWW called ML (Hyper Text Markup Language)
Is a description language devised to transmit the information of a web page. By placing a specific character between symbols called tags, a layout can be freely displayed on a browser, and a hot spot (hot link) can be displayed. It also has a hyperlink function that allows you to jump to other files from.

FIG. 5 shows the HTML of the file object.
It is a figure showing an example of. In this embodiment, the title tag of the file object, “<TI
TLE> ”to“ </ TITLE> ”and a tag for performing a hyperlink“ <AHERF = ○ × △ ”
It is assumed that all of the phrases between ">" and "</A>" are features of the file object. The feature extraction unit 102 extracts the phrases sandwiched between these tags as keywords. To extract, words are morphologically analyzed and only nouns are extracted.
And so on.

FIG. 6 shows keywords extracted as features of the file object in the example shown in FIG. That is, from the file object, "golf", "Ozaki brothers", "driver"
Were extracted. The TV program table is searched by ORing these words. As a result, a television program that includes any of the above keywords in the program title (program description) is searched. In addition, other search methods such as a semantic vector method, such as a semantic vector method, are used, such as vectorizing the meaning of the entire document, calculating the inner product of the semantic vector of the program description in the electronic program guide, and presenting the result in descending numerical order. You can do it (Reference: “Sherlock Mystery of Natural Sentence Search”, Takaki Yamamoto: Mac Fan internet, Mainichi Communications, March 1999 issue).

The program search means 104 sequentially performs three searches of an electronic program guide search, a reserved program search, and a recorded program search to search for a desired program and create a presentation list 110. I have.

Next, based on the keywords extracted in step S2, the EPG DB 105 does not search for programs past the current time but searches for TV programs to be broadcasted in the future after the current time. An electronic program guide search is performed to extract a corresponding TV program and create a presentation list 110 (step S3). Since the current time is obtained from an OS timer built in the gateway computer, it is not particularly shown.

Here, the electronic program database EP
The G DB 105 is obtained by collecting EPG data broadcasted on a television such as the ADAMS-EPG system from the television signal 113 and converting it into a searchable database.
Data for about one week is stored in the storage medium of the hard disk 202 which is a nonvolatile storage area. The EPG data itself can be received by using the character data broadcast receiving function of the television tuner device 206 and can be collected via the Internet. Therefore, the collecting means is not specifically shown in the drawing. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in the EPG DB. The data structure of the TV program table is
20 describes a program ID, broadcast date, start time, end time, CH number, broadcast station, title, and contents in one program.
A text sentence of about 0 bytes is stored.

Then, a reserved program search is performed by searching the recorded reservation list DB 106 for a program that has already been reserved for recording in the presentation list 110 created in step S3. If there is, the information that the recording reservation has been made is given to the presentation list, and the presentation list 1 is given.
10 is corrected (step S4). FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in the recording reservation list DB. As shown in the figure, the recording reservation list DB stores a program ID, a broadcast date, a start time, an end time, and a CH number for one program. A reserved program search can be realized by retrieving whether or not the program ID exists in the program ID.

Next, a registered program search for searching for a recorded television program from the recorded list DB 107 is executed using the keyword extracted in step S2, and if there is a corresponding television program, it is recorded in the presentation list 110. Information is added and added (step S5). FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of the presentation list generated after the steps S3 to S5. In addition, "Not yet", "Reserved", "Done" in the information column of the list
Are information indicating “recording not yet scheduled”, “recording has been scheduled”, and “recorded”, respectively.

The search result shaping unit 111 sorts the presentation list 110 created through the above steps S3 to S5 in the order of closest to the current time by sorting the broadcast date and time of each program to the closest to the current time. Or a program including the keyword extracted by the feature extraction unit 102,
Means for sorting in the order of search fitness by sorting by the number of keywords, for example, from 18:00 to 2
A means for limiting the program to the designated time range excluding programs until 3:00, a means for limiting the date and time such as today's minute or one week's time, a recording reservation, recorded recording, and broadcasting from now on For example, there is a means for sorting any of the programs to be prioritized, for excluding any of the programs that have been reserved for recording, that have been recorded, and that will be broadcasted from now on. The user selects one or a plurality of these search result shaping units 111, and the client computer 300 presents a TV program table that matches the user's preference (step S).
6). FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of a presentation list of the search result shaping unit. Presentation list 1 of search result shaping means 111
As an example of presentation of ten, an example arranged in the order close to the current time,
Here is an example arranged from the search fitness.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a screen display example of the client computer. In the presentation list 110, the latest data is always displayed on the screen of the client computer at a timing of about once every second, and the presentation list 110 is displayed on the right side of the screen. With the software on these client computers,
This is because they are automatically updated on a regular basis.

Therefore, when the client browses the file object on the network, immediately after that, a television program guide and an electronic program guide listing the recording-reserved and recorded data are created on the basis of the corresponding page. Of users.

In step S6, it is determined whether there is a television program to be recorded in the presentation list output to the display device 305 of the client computer 300 (step S7). A TV program is specified by moving the cursor of the check box in the recording confirmation column at the left end of the list with the mouse of the input device 304 and clicking the mouse button. This event is transmitted to the recording reservation unit of the gateway computer 200 via the network together with the program ID, and the recording reservation is performed. The recording reservation unit incorporated in the control center 103 stores the television recording program specified in step S7 in the recording reservation list DB 106 (step S8).

When the recording start time of each television program in the reserved recording list DB 106 comes, a television broadcast of a predetermined CH number is received from the television signal 113 through the television tuner device 206 until the end time, and the MPEG data DB 10
The program ID is recorded as an index on a recording medium such as a hard disk of No. 9. The recording method is MPEG2 (Mo
In the format called “ving Picture Experts Group”, a moving image is converted into a digital signal by an A / D converter 205 so that it can be easily handled by a computer. . Note that video recording is not limited to MPEG2.

The television program whose recording has been completed is deleted from the recording reservation list DB 107, and then is stored in the recording list DB.
The recorded television program information is stored. As the contents of the recording reservation list DB 106, a program ID, a broadcast date, a start time, an end time, and a CH number are stored as in the example of the recording reservation list DB in FIG. FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of the recorded list DB. As shown in the figure, the contents of the recorded list DB store the program ID, broadcast date, start time, end time, CH number, broadcast station, title, and contents for one program. As an exceptional process, if the designated TV program and the recording time zone of a TV program already on the already-recorded reservation list overlap, that is, if you try to record multiple TV programs in the same time zone, the target Means for allowing the user to select whether or not to cancel the program. Next, the process proceeds to step S9. If there is no program to be reserved for recording and no television program is specified, the process directly proceeds to step S9.

Next, in step S6, it is determined whether there is a program to be reproduced in the presentation list output to the client computer 300 (step S9), and the program to be reproduced is a recorded television program. Yes, if it is specified, the process proceeds to step S10. If nothing is specified, the process returns to step S1.

The reproducing means 112 converts the recorded television program specified in step S9 from the MPEG2 format compressed data of the specified program ID into the MPEG2 decoder 2 from a storage medium such as a hard disk of the MPEG data DB 109.
08, the digital signal is converted to an analog signal by the D / A converter 209, and output to the television device 114 (step S10). Next, the process returns to step S1.

The system of the present invention described above can be realized by operating a computer according to a predetermined procedure. The program describing the predetermined procedure is stored in a computer-readable recording medium. In the present invention, as the recording medium, a memory (not shown)
For example, a medium such as a ROM itself may be a program medium, or a program medium readable by providing a program reading device as an external storage device and inserting a recording medium therein. In any case, the stored program may be configured to be accessed and executed by a microprocessor, or the program may be read and the read program may be downloaded to a program storage area (not shown) of the computer. Then, a method in which the program is executed may be used. It is assumed that this download program is stored in the main unit in advance.

Here, the program medium is a recording medium configured to be separable from the main body, such as a tape system such as a magnetic tape or a cassette tape, a magnetic disk such as a floppy disk or a hard disk, or a CD-ROM / MO / M.
Optical disk system such as D / DVD, card system such as IC card (including memory card) / optical card, or mask R
It may be a medium that fixedly holds a program including a semiconductor memory such as an OM, an EPROM, an EEPROM, and a flash ROM.

Further, in the present invention, since the system configuration can be connected to a communication network including the Internet, the medium may carry the program in a fluid manner so as to download the program from the communication network. When the program is downloaded from the communication network as described above, the download program may be stored in the apparatus main body in advance, or may be installed from another recording medium. The contents stored in the recording medium include:
It goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to a program but includes data.

[0041]

As described above, according to the system of the present invention, just by browsing a file object on a network, television program information, recorded information and recorded information are obtained based on a keyword extracted from the file object itself. It searches the recording schedule information and presents the programs in order according to the user's preference. At the same time, it is possible to make a reservation for recording a television program or reproduce a recorded television program.
As a result, a system in which browsing of a file object on a network, TV program search operation, and video device operation are linked can be realized.

Since the television program guide is automatically presented together with the browsing of the file objects on the network, the trouble of searching for the television program can be reduced, the operation of pre-recording the television program can be simplified, and conventionally, the separate operation is required. There is also an effect that the browsing of the operated file object, the TV program search operation, and the operation of the video device can be smoothly operated in cooperation. In particular, the following effects are brought about by the invention according to each claim. According to the first aspect of the present invention, while browsing the file object on the network, the content of the currently viewed file object is automatically analyzed,
By presenting the TV program information related to the file object, it is possible to confirm the program to be broadcasted, make a reservation for recording the program to be watched, and play back the program already recorded. Information can also be collected from TV broadcasts.

According to the second and third aspects of the present invention, the user of the client computer simply browses a file object without performing an operation of inputting a keyword or inputting a file, and plays a television program based on features extracted from the page. You can search for it and save the trouble of entering characters.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, in addition to searching for an EPG, program information for which a program that has already been reserved for recording and a program that has already been recorded can be simultaneously searched can be presented to the user. It is possible to simultaneously check the program to be recorded, the recording reservation status, and the already recorded program information.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, only the program information necessary for recording can be provided to the user by searching only the EPG information to be broadcasted.

According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, the presented program table is sorted in the order of the user's preference, whereby the program table according to the user's preference can be presented.

According to the seventh aspect of the present invention, the television program guide can be automatically presented by browsing the file object on the network, so that the file object can be browsed and the television program guide can be confirmed without the operation of searching the television program table. Can be done at the same time.

According to the eighth aspect of the present invention, the recording / reproducing operation can be further performed by a series of operations. Therefore, conventionally, browsing of a file object on a network, a television program searching operation, and a video recording / reproducing operation, which had been separately operated, were conventionally performed. The operation can be performed smoothly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an entire system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a gateway computer in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a client computer in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the system of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of HTML of a file object.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a keyword after feature extraction.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an outline of an EPG DB.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a recording reservation list DB.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a presentation list content.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a display example of a presentation list of a search result shaping unit.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of screen display on a client computer.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a recorded list DB.

[Explanation of symbols]

101: proxy server, 102: feature extraction means, 10
3. Control center, 104: Program search means, 105: EPG
DB, 106: Recording list DB, 107: Recorded list DB, 108: Recording means, 109: MPEG
Data DB, 110: presentation list, 111: search result shaping means, 112: reproduction means, 113: television signal, 11
4 TV apparatus, 115 Internet, 200 Gateway computer, 201 CPU, 202 Hard disk, 203 Memory, 204 MPEG2 encoder apparatus, 205 A / D converter apparatus, 206 TV tuner apparatus, 207 Antenna, 208 ... MPEG2
Decoder device, 209 D / A conversion device, 210 Communication control device, 211 Communication modem device, 300 Client computer, 301 Memory, 302 CPU, 3
03: Non-volatile memory, 304: Input device, 305: Display device, 306: Network I / O.

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Katsuyoshi Doi 22-22 Nagaikecho, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka F-term (reference) 5B075 KK07 ND03 ND20 NK02 NK06 NK32 NK37 NK39 PP12 PP25 PQ46 PQ75 QM08 UU34 5C018 FA04 HA08 HA10 5C025 BA25 BA27 BA28 BA30 CA09 CB08 CB09 DA05 DA08 DA10

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A feature extracting unit for extracting a feature from the contents of a file object on a network, a program searching unit for searching a television program guide by using the feature extracted by the feature extracting unit, and a program searching unit for searching for a program list. TV program reservation and recording means for reserving a program from the result of the recording and TV program reproduction means for reproducing the television program recorded by the television program recording reservation means. Present a table,
A system for recording reservations or playing recorded programs. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the feature extracting means extracts a keyword as a feature from the contents of the file object. 3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the feature extracting means extracts a feature from a similarity between the text of the file object and the description phrase of the electronic program. 4. The program searching means according to claim 1, wherein said program searching means comprises:
The system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a search for a reserved program and a search for a recorded program are sequentially performed. 5. The system according to claim 4, wherein the electronic program guide search is for searching only programs broadcasted after a current time. 6. A search result having a plurality of display priority order calculation methods, changing the calculation method according to user's preference, and rearranging the order of search results searched by the program search means to create a program table. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a shaping unit. 7. The system according to claim 6, wherein the program guide created by the search result shaping means is displayed on a client computer. 8. The system according to claim 7, wherein recording designation and reproduction designation can be performed from a program table displayed on the client computer. 9. A feature extracting means for extracting a feature from the contents of a file object on a network, a program searching means for searching a television program guide based on the feature extracted by the feature extracting means, Presenting a television program table in relation to file object browsing comprising a television program reservation recording means for reserving a program from the result and a television program reproducing means for reproducing a television program recorded by the television program recording reservation means, A computer-readable recording medium in which a program for causing a computer to execute a system for performing recording reservation or reproducing a recorded program is recorded.