JP2001177781A - Information display device, information receiving device, and information display method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] The present invention relates to an information display device, and proposes to further reduce the trouble when selecting a program. A display element reminiscent of the contents of a predetermined program is displayed on a display screen 8A, and a category identification element of the program arranged on a time axis according to the broadcast time of the program is displayed on the display screen 8A. By associating the display elements on the display screen 8A with the category identification elements displayed on the time axis, the viewer can easily select a program without performing a scroll operation while grasping the broadcast time of the program. Thus, it is possible to further reduce the trouble in selecting a program.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information display device, an information receiving device, and an information display method, for example, receiving a broadcast wave transmitted from a broadcast station and displaying an image corresponding to the broadcast wave on a monitor. It is suitable to be applied to machines.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a broadcasting station which provides a broadcasting service by analog terrestrial broadcasting has been allocated an available frequency band in advance, and transmits program data of the station using the allocated frequency band. It has been made to be. The receiver installed at the viewer's house (hereinafter referred to as IRD (Integrated Receiver Decoder))
In response to a channel selection operation performed by a viewer, program data of a desired broadcast station is selected from among program data transmitted from each broadcast station, and the program data of the selected broadcast station is decoded to provide an external monitor. To be displayed.

[0003]

In an analog terrestrial broadcasting system, electronic program guide information (hereinafter referred to as EPG (Electronic Program) is provided for the purpose of informing a viewer of a program provided from each broadcasting station.
It has been proposed that data indicating the content of each program called "gram guide) is periodically distributed from a specific broadcasting station. The EPG data is composed of information such as a program title, a broadcast date and time, a broadcast channel, and a description of the program, and is used as a basis for determining a program to be viewed by a viewer.

[0004] In this case, the IRD receives the EPG data periodically transmitted from the broadcasting station transmitting the EPG data, stores the EPG data in a memory, and stores the EPG data in accordance with the display operation of the viewer. Read from memory and display on external monitor. This allows the viewer to visually determine the program to be viewed while viewing the EPG data displayed on the monitor.

[0005] By the way, EPG data contains information on a huge number of programs, but the display screen of a monitor for displaying the EPG data is limited, so that IRD data is used.
Can display only information of a part of a huge number of programs on a display screen of a monitor. Therefore, the viewer
It is necessary to perform a scroll operation for searching for a desired program from an enormous number of programs, and there is a problem that the operation is inevitably complicated.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to propose an information display device, an information receiving device, and an information display method that can reduce the trouble in searching for a program.

[0007]

According to the present invention, a display element for associating the contents of a predetermined program is displayed on a display screen, and time is displayed on the display screen in accordance with the broadcast time of the program. By displaying the category identification element of the program arranged on the axis and associating the display element with the category identification element displayed on the time axis on the display screen, the viewer can scroll while grasping the broadcast time of the program A program can be easily selected without performing an operation.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

(1) Configuration of Analog Terrestrial Broadcasting System In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes the configuration of an analog terrestrial broadcasting system as a whole, and transmission devices 2A to 2N installed in each broadcasting station transmit video signals And audio signals are transmitted via the transmitting antennas 3A to 3N, respectively. Relay device 4
Relays the broadcast waves transmitted from the transmission devices 2A to 2N, respectively, and distributes the broadcast waves to a receiver (hereinafter, referred to as an IRD (Integrated Receiver Decoder)) 5 installed in each viewer's house.

An IRD 5 serving as an information display device receives broadcast waves distributed from a plurality of broadcast stations, and
In response to a channel selection operation performed by the viewer (user) via the remote commander 7 as an input means, the viewer (user) selects the program data of the designated broadcast station from the received program data of the plurality of broadcast stations. Then, the program data of the selected broadcasting station is demodulated and output to the monitor 8 as a display means for display.

(2) Configuration of IRD As shown in FIG.
(FIG. 1) Command signal S transmitted by being superimposed on infrared rays
1 is received by the remote commander receiving unit 10, the command signal S1 is converted into an electric signal to generate a command signal S2, and then the command signal S2 is generated by a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 1.
Send to 1.

The CPU 11 has a ROM (Read Only Memory).
y) The control program stored in 12 is read as necessary, and the read control program is transferred to a RAM (Random Access Memory) 13 as a storage means and developed. The CPU 11 reads out and executes the control program developed in the RAM 13 to control each circuit of the IRD 5.

The CPU 11 includes a remote commander receiving unit 1
When the command signal S2 transmitted from 0 is analyzed, and as a result, it is determined that the viewer has performed a channel selection operation on the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1), a channel selection signal S3 corresponding to the channel selection operation is generated. Generate and send it to the tuner 15.

The tuner 15 has a receiving antenna 6 (FIG. 1).
Channel selection signal S from broadcast waves received by
3 to extract a broadcast wave of a channel (broadcasting station) corresponding to the channel 3 and demodulate the broadcast wave of the extracted channel to generate an audio signal S5 and a video signal S6. While transmitting, the video signal S6
To the video processing unit 17.

The audio processing unit 16 converts the audio signal S5 from analog to digital and then converts the audio signal S5 to MPEG (Moving Picture E).
The compression encoding is performed by an encoding method based on the (xperts Group) standard, and the resulting encoded audio data S7 is transmitted to the audio decoder 19 via the multiplexing / demultiplexing unit 18. After converting the video signal S6 from analog to digital, the video processing unit 17 compression-encodes the video signal S6 using an encoding method based on the MPEG standard, and transmits the resulting video encoded data S8 to the video decoder 20 via the multiplexing / demultiplexing unit 18. Send out.

The audio decoder 19 outputs the encoded audio data S
7 is decompressed and decoded, and the resulting audio data S9 is sent to a digital / analog (D / A) conversion circuit 21. D
The / A conversion circuit 21 restores the audio signal S10 before being input to the audio processing unit 16 by converting the audio data S9 from digital to analog, and outputs this to the monitor 8 (FIG. 1).

The video decoder 20 outputs the video encoded data S
8 is decompressed and decoded, and the resulting video data S11 is
It is sent to the GB encoder 22. RGB encoder 22
Converts video data S11 to NTSC (National Televisio
The video signal S12 is generated by converting the image signal into a luminance signal and a color difference signal of the n System Committee) system and by performing a digital-to-analog conversion, and sends it to the monitor 8 (FIG. 1).

Thus, the display screen 8A of the monitor 8 (FIG. 1)
, The video of the program selected by the viewer is displayed, and the sound of the program selected by the viewer is output from the speaker of the monitor 8.

In the analog terrestrial broadcasting system 1, electronic program guide information (hereinafter referred to as EPG (Electronic Program Guide) data) is provided for the purpose of informing a viewer of a program provided from each broadcasting station. ) Is periodically distributed from a specific broadcasting station.

The EPG data is generated for each program, and as shown in FIG.
(IDentification), source broadcast station number, source broadcast station name, program start time, program length (or end time), program title, program subtitle supplementing the program title, program description and program description It is composed of information such as genre, and is used as a judgment material when a viewer decides a program to be viewed. Incidentally, the program ID, the broadcast station number and the genre are represented by code data, the broadcast station name, the program title, the program subtitle and the program description are represented by text data, and the start time and length are represented by time data.

Transmission device 2 installed in a specific broadcasting station
For example, one week of EPG data is superimposed on a vertical blanking interval (VBI) of a video signal, and is transmitted periodically every day using a time zone such as midnight or early morning.

In this case, the tuner 15 of the IRD 5 extracts a broadcast wave of a channel on which EPG data is superimposed from broadcast waves received by the receiving antenna 6 (FIG. 1), and converts the extracted broadcast wave of the channel. The video signal S15 is generated by demodulation and sent to the VBI slicer 25.

The VBI slicer 25 extracts the EPG data S16 from the video signal S15, transfers this to the RAM 13 via the bus BUS, and stores it. In this way I
RD5 is the EPG data S stored in the RAM 13.
16 every day, and always update the latest EPG data S16 to R
The information is stored in the AM 13.

In this state, when the viewer performs an operation for displaying the EPG screen on the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1), the remote commander 7 sends a command signal S1 for displaying the EPG screen to the remote commander receiving section 10. Send to The remote commander receiving unit 10 converts the command signal S1 into a command signal S2 composed of an electric signal, and sends the command signal S2 to the CPU 11.

When the CPU 11 detects that the command signal S2 has been supplied, the CPU 11 performs graphic processing on the EPG data S16 on the RAM 13 based on dictionary data such as characters and symbols stored in the ROM 12 to perform EP processing.
The G screen data S17 is generated and sent to the graphic engine 26 via the bus BUS.

The graphic engine 26 converts the EPG screen data S17 into a luminance signal and a color difference signal of the NTSC system and performs digital-to-analog conversion to generate an EPG image signal S18, which is sent to the RGB encoder 22. The RGB encoder 22 mixes the video signal S12 and the EPG image signal S18 and
(FIG. 1), and an EPG screen corresponding to the EPG image signal S18 is displayed on the display screen 8A of the monitor 8.

By the way, if the viewer is the remote commander 7
When an operation for recording video and audio of a program is performed in FIG. 1, the remote commander 7 transmits a command signal S1 for performing a recording operation to the remote commander receiving unit 10. The remote commander receiving unit 10 outputs the command signal S
1 is converted into a command signal S2 composed of an electrical signal,
To send to.

When the CPU 11 detects that the command signal S2 is supplied, the CPU 11 controls the operation of each circuit via the bus BUS to thereby control the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1).
The video and the audio of the program specified in are recorded. At this time, the multiplexing / demultiplexing unit 18 includes the audio coded data S7 sequentially obtained through the tuner 15 and the audio processing unit 16, the tuner 15 and the video processing unit 17
Are multiplexed with the coded video data S8 obtained in order through the above to generate multiplexed data S20, which is transferred to the recording media unit 30 and recorded on a built-in recording medium (not shown).

At this time, when the CPU 11 determines that the recording of the program specified by the viewer has ended, the CPU 11
Based on the EPG data S16 stored in advance in the storage medium 3, record title list data S21, which is a list of program titles recorded in the recording media unit 30, is generated and stored in the flash memory 31. The CPU 11
By updating the recording title list data S21 every time a new program is recorded in the recording media unit 30, the latest recording title list data S21 is always stored in the flash memory 31.

In this state, when the viewer performs an operation for displaying the recording title list screen on the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1), the remote commander 7 sends a command signal S1 for displaying the recording title list screen to the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1). The command is transmitted to the commander receiving unit 10. The remote commander receiving unit 10 converts the command signal S1 into a command signal S2 composed of an electric signal, and sends the command signal S2 to the CPU 11.

When detecting that the command signal S2 has been supplied, the CPU 11 transfers the recording title list data S21 to the RAM 13, and stores the recording title list data S21 in the RAM 13 based on the dictionary data such as characters and symbols stored in the ROM 12. By performing graphic processing on the list data S21, recording title list screen data S22 is generated, and this is transferred to the graphic engine 2 via the bus BUS.
Send to 6.

The graphic engine 26 converts the recording title list screen data S22 into a luminance signal and a color difference signal of the NTSC system and performs digital-to-analog conversion to generate a recording title list image signal S23, which is sent to the RGB encoder 22. I do. The RGB encoder 22 mixes the video signal S12 and the recording title list image signal S23, outputs the mixed signal to the monitor 8 (FIG. 1), and displays the recording title list screen corresponding to the recording title list image signal S23 on the display screen of the monitor 8. 8A.

Here, the viewer operates the display screen 8 of the monitor 8.
When an operation for reproducing the video and audio of a desired program is performed on the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1) while watching the recording title list screen displayed on A, the remote commander 7 issues a command for performing a reproducing operation. The signal S1 is transmitted to the remote commander receiver 10. The remote commander receiver 10 converts the command signal S1 into a command signal S2 composed of an electric signal and sends the command signal S2 to the CPU 11.

When the CPU 11 detects that the command signal S2 has been supplied, the CPU 11 controls the operation of each circuit via the bus BUS to thereby control the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1).
Is designed to reproduce the video and audio of the program specified. That is, the recording media unit 30 reads out the multiplexed data S25 of the specified program from the multiplexed data of the plurality of programs recorded on the built-in recording medium (not shown), and reads the multiplexed data S25 of the specified program. To send to.

The multiplexing / demultiplexing unit 18 multiplexes data S25
Is separated into coded audio data S26 and coded video data S27, and among these, the coded audio data S26 is sequentially generated through the audio decoder 19 and the D / A conversion circuit 21 to generate an audio signal S28, and this is output to the monitor 8 (FIG. 1), and generates a video signal S29 from the video coded data S27 via the video decoder 20 and the RGB encoder 22 in order, and sends this to the monitor 8.

A CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read On)
ly Memory) 35 stores a program logo of a standard program and a face photo icon which is a photo of a representative performer of the standard program. The ROM decoder 36 reads the data of the program logo and the face photo icon from the CD-ROM 35 as program association data S35 for associating the program, and transfers the data to the flash memory 31 via the CPU 11 for storage.

(3) Specific contents of EPG data according to this embodiment By the way, in this embodiment, EPG data S16
Is, as shown in FIG. 4, recommended program data including a program ID group of a program selected as a recommended program on the broadcast station side;
The program comprises basic program data representing the basic contents of each program provided by the broadcasting station for each program, and program detailed data representing the detailed contents of each program for each program. The data and the program detail data exist as many as the number of programs provided from the broadcasting station.

The program basic data includes a program ID unique to the program,
The reference ID for searching for the program detailed data corresponding to the program basic data, the broadcast date of the program, the start time, the broadcast time, the name of the broadcast station, the program name, the program image and the category name of the program that are associated with the contents of the program. It consists of such data. On the other hand, the program detailed data includes a reference ID for associating with the program basic data, a synopsis of the program, a performer name, and a commercial (CM) name.

(4) EPG screen display processing procedure and program selection processing procedure By the way, when the viewer operates the EPG screen display key (not shown) on the remote commander 7 (FIG. 1), the IR
The CPU 11 of D5 executes the recommended program screen display processing procedure RT1 shown in FIG. 5 and the category classification screen display processing procedure RT2 shown in FIG. 6 in parallel.

That is, in FIG. 5, when the CPU 11 enters the recommended program screen display processing procedure RT1, it proceeds to step SP1.
Detects that the display operation of the EPG screen has been performed, and moves to the subsequent step SP2 to read the recommended program data from the RAM 13. Then, the CPU 11 operates as a search means, determines each program ID included in the recommended program data as a search key, and finds out each of the program IDs from a huge number of basic program data stored in the RAM 13. The corresponding program basic data is sequentially searched.

In the subsequent step SP3, the CPU 11 reads out the program images from the retrieved program basic data, and executes RA based on the read out program images.
The recommended program screen data is generated on M13. And C
The PU 11 operates as display element display means, and outputs the recommended program screen data to the graphic engine 26 and the RG.
By outputting the recommended program screen to the monitor 8 via the B encoder 22 sequentially, a recommended program screen 50 including a program image reminiscent of the content of the recommended program is displayed on the display screen 8A of the monitor 8 as shown in FIG. Then, the CPU 11 proceeds to step S
In P4, the processing procedure RT1 ends.

Similarly, in FIG. 6, when the CPU 11 enters the category classification screen display processing procedure RT2, it proceeds to step SP1.
0, it is detected that the display operation of the EPG screen has been performed, and the process proceeds to step SP11 where the program basic data of each program is read out from the RAM 13 based on the broadcast station name and the start time included in the program basic data. The program basic data of each of these programs is rearranged.

In the following step SP12, the CPU 11 sequentially reads out the category names from the program basic data of the rearranged programs, displays the color corresponding to the read out category name, the channel name on the vertical axis and the broadcast time on the horizontal axis. By applying it to a program table selected as an axis,
The category classification screen data is displayed above.

Then, the CPU 11 operates as a category identification element display means, and outputs the category classification screen data to the monitor 8 via the graphic engine 26 and the RGB encoder 22 in order, so that each program is displayed as shown in FIG. Is displayed on the display screen 8A of the monitor 8 by classifying the display area by color in the category. Then, the CPU 11 moves to step SP13 and ends the processing procedure.

As described above, when the display operation of the EPG screen is performed, the CPU 11 sorts the recommended program screen 50 including the program images of the recommended programs and the display area of each program in the program table by the category. The screen 51 is simultaneously displayed on the display screen 8A of the monitor 8.

In this state, when the viewer performs an operation for selecting a desired program from the programs displayed on the recommended program screen 50 or the category classification screen 51, C
The PU 11 executes the program selection processing procedure RT3 shown in FIG. That is, in FIG. 8, when entering the program selection processing procedure RT3, the CPU 11 proceeds to step SP20, detects that a program selection operation has been performed, and acquires the program ID of the selected program.

Then, the CPU 11 selects the acquired program ID from the program basic data stored in the RAM 13.
Search the program basic data of the program to which is assigned,
Subsequently, the reference I included in the searched program basic data
Based on D, program detail data corresponding to the searched program basic data is searched from the program detail data stored in the RAM 13. Next, the CPU 11 generates program content screen data for explaining the content of the selected program on the RAM 13 based on the retrieved program basic data and program detailed data.

Then, the CPU 11 proceeds to the next step SP2
9, the program content screen data is transferred to the graphic engine 26 and the RGB encoder 2 as shown in FIG.
2 to the monitor 8 sequentially, and as shown in FIG.
A program content screen 52 for explaining the content of the selected program is displayed on the display screen 8A of the monitor 8.

At the same time, the CPU 11 operates as a display control means, and changes the display frame of the selected program to, for example, a thick frame on the recommended program screen 50 and the category classification screen 51 as shown in FIG. Then, by highlighting the display frame, it is displayed that the program is selected. Then, the CPU 11 moves to step SP23 and ends the processing procedure.

(5) Operation and Effect of Embodiment In the above configuration, when the viewer performs the display operation of the EPG screen, the CPU 11 generates a huge number of data based on the recommended program data stored in the RAM 13. A recommended program selected by the broadcasting station is searched from among the programs, a program image of the searched recommended program is displayed on the display screen 8A as a recommended program screen 50, and the display of each program in the program table is performed. A category classification screen 51 in which the area is displayed in a color corresponding to the category of the program is generated and displayed on the display screen 8A.

In this state, when the viewer performs an operation for selecting a desired program from the programs displayed on the recommended program screen 50 or the category classification screen 51, C
The PU 11 searches the basic program data and the detailed program data stored in the RAM 13 for the basic program data and the detailed program data corresponding to the selected program.

Then, the CPU 11 generates a program content screen 52 for explaining the content of the selected program based on the retrieved program basic data and the detailed program data, displays the program content screen 52 on the monitor 8A, and recommends it. Program screen 50
And the display area of the selected program is highlighted and displayed on each of the category classification screens 51.

As described above, the viewer can easily select a program without performing a scroll operation of searching for a desired program from an enormous number of programs, and can select a program in the entire EPG data of the selected program. The position can be easily grasped. In this way, the viewer can simultaneously search for programs that are currently being broadcast other than the selected program, and make a viewing plan from programs that will be broadcast in the future, further improving operability compared to the past. I can do it.

According to the above configuration, when the EPG screen is displayed on the display screen 8A of the monitor 8, a recommended program is searched from the EPG data S16, and a program image of each searched program is displayed. The screen 50 is displayed on the display screen 8A as the screen 50, and the category classification screen 51 in which the display area of each program in the program guide is displayed in a color corresponding to the category of the program is displayed on the display screen 8A, and the viewer is recommended. When a desired program is selected from the programs displayed on the program screen 50 or the category classification screen 51, the display area of the selected program is highlighted on the recommended program screen 50 and the category classification screen 51, respectively. Thus, the viewer can easily select a program without performing a scroll operation, and can store the position of the selected program in the entire EPG data. It can be grasped, further can reduce the labor in selecting a program Te thus.

In the above-described embodiment, when the viewer performs a display operation on the EPG screen, a recommended program selected by the broadcasting station from a huge number of programs based on the recommended program data is selected. Although the case of searching has been described, the present invention is not limited to this. May be searched.

In the above-described embodiment, a case has been described where the program image of the searched program is displayed on the display screen 8A as the recommended program screen 50. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Various other display elements reminiscent of the contents of the program, such as a stylized program logo, may be displayed.

In the above-described embodiment, the category classification screen 51 in which the display area of each program in the program table is displayed in a color corresponding to the category of the program is displayed on the display screen 8.
However, the present invention is not limited to this, and various other category identification elements such as special symbols corresponding to the category of the program are displayed in the display area of each program in the program table. May be displayed.

Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the present invention has been described in connection with the case where information received by IRD 5 of analog terrestrial broadcasting system 1 is displayed. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and digital satellite broadcasting or cable broadcasting Alternatively, the present invention can be widely applied to a case of displaying information sent via the Internet.

[0059]

As described above, according to the present invention, display elements reminiscent of the contents of a predetermined program are displayed on the display screen and arranged on the time axis in accordance with the broadcast time of the program on the display screen. The viewer can perform a scroll operation while grasping the broadcast time of the program by displaying the category identification element of the program to be displayed and associating the display element with the category identification element displayed on the time axis on the display screen. Thus, the user can easily select a program, and thus the trouble in selecting a program can be further reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an analog terrestrial broadcasting system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the information display device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating the contents of EPG data.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing specific contents of EPG data according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a recommended program screen display processing procedure.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a category classification screen display processing procedure.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating a display example of an EPG screen.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a program selection processing procedure.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating a display example of an EPG screen.

[Explanation of symbols]

1. Analog terrestrial broadcasting system 2. Transmitting device
4 ... Relay device, 5 ... IRD, 7 ... Remote commander, 8 ... Monitor, 8A ... Display screen, 10 ... Remote commander receiving unit, 11 ... CPU, 12 ... ROM,
13 RAM, 15 Tuner, 16 Audio processing unit, 17 Video processing unit, 18 Multiplexing / demultiplexing unit, 19
...... Audio decoder, 20 ... Video decoder, 21 ... D
/ A conversion circuit, 22: RGB encoder, 25: V
BI slicer, 30 ... recording media unit, 31 ... flash memory.

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Aki Koyabu 6-7-35 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Sony Corporation (72) Inventor Tomoko Terakado 7-35, Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 6-35 Sony Incorporated F term (reference) 5B075 ND20 NR12 PQ02 PQ22 PQ46 5C025 BA14 BA25 BA28 CA04 CA09 CB10 DA05 5E501 AB06 AC12 AC18 AC33 BA03 CC02 EB05 FA08 FA23 FA47 FA48

Claims (15)

[Claims] 1. A display element display means for displaying, on a display screen, display elements reminiscent of the contents of a predetermined program; and a display element of the program arranged on a time axis in accordance with a broadcast time of the program on the display screen. An information display, comprising: category identification element display means for displaying a category identification element; and display control means for associating the display element with the category identification element displayed on the time axis on the display screen. apparatus. 2. The display control means, when a desired display element is selected from a plurality of display elements displayed on the display screen in response to a selection operation of a user, the selected display element The information display device according to claim 1, wherein an element and the category identification element corresponding to the display element are displayed in association with each other. 3. The display control means, when a desired category identification element is selected from a plurality of category identification elements displayed on the display screen in response to a user's selection operation, the selected category identification element is selected. The information display device according to claim 1, wherein the category identification element and the display element corresponding to the category identification element are displayed in association with each other. 4. The information display device according to claim 1, wherein the category display means displays the category identification element displayed on the time axis for each broadcast channel. 5. A display, comprising: storage means for storing search key information for searching for the program; and search means for searching for a desired program from a plurality of programs based on the search key information. The information display device according to claim 1, wherein the element display means displays the display element of the searched program on the display screen. 6. A display element display means for displaying, on a display screen, display elements reminiscent of the contents of a predetermined program, and a display element of the program arranged on a time axis according to a broadcast time of the program on the display screen. Information reception, comprising: category identification element display means for displaying a category identification element; and display control means for associating the display element with the category identification element displayed on the time axis on the display screen. apparatus. 7. The display control means, when a desired display element is selected from a plurality of display elements displayed on the display screen in response to a user's selection operation, the selected display element The information receiving apparatus according to claim 6, wherein an element and the category identification element corresponding to the display element are displayed in association with each other. 8. The display control means, when a desired category identification element is selected from a plurality of category identification elements displayed on the display screen in response to a user's selection operation, the selected category identification element is selected. The information receiving apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the category identification element and the display element corresponding to the category identification element are displayed in association with each other. 9. The information receiving apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the category display means displays the category identification element displayed on the time axis for each broadcast channel. 10. A display, comprising: storage means for storing search key information for searching for the program; and search means for searching for a desired program from a plurality of programs based on the search key information. The information receiving apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the element display means displays the display element of the searched program on the display screen. 11. A display element reminiscent of the contents of a predetermined program is displayed on a display screen, and a category identification element of the program arranged on a time axis according to a broadcast time of the program is displayed on the display screen. An information display method, wherein the display element is associated with the category identification element displayed on the time axis on the display screen. 12. When a desired display element is selected from a plurality of display elements displayed on the display screen in response to a user's selection operation, the selected display element and the display element are displayed. The information display method according to claim 11, wherein the corresponding category identification elements are displayed in association with each other. 13. When a desired category identification element is selected from a plurality of category identification elements displayed on the display screen in response to a user's selection operation, the selected category identification element and the selected category identification element are displayed. The information display method according to claim 11, wherein the display element corresponding to the category identification element is displayed in association with the display element. 14. The information display method according to claim 11, wherein the category identification element displayed on the time axis is displayed for each broadcast channel. 15. A storage means for storing search key information for searching for the program, searching for a desired program from a plurality of programs based on the search key information, The information display method according to claim 11, wherein the display element is displayed on the display screen.