JPH06209460A - Picture management equipment and communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Object] An object of the present invention is to provide an image management technique capable of efficiently delivering image information. [Structure] A plurality of storage devices 101 to 103 capable of individually reading and writing image information, and dividing image information into a plurality of blocks and distributing and storing the plurality of blocks in the plurality of storage means. Then, the image management apparatus is configured to include the management control unit 100 for managing the image information, and it is possible to cope with the competition of the image read requests, thereby improving the efficiency of the image information distribution.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image distribution technique and a technique for facilitating an image distribution service.
For example, the present invention relates to a technique effectively applied to a moving image communication system that transmits and receives a moving image between a host system (also called a server) and a communication terminal device (also called a client).

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, image communication systems include broadcast television, CATV (cable-television),
Videophone, ITV (industrial-tele)
vision), video conferencing, facsimile communication, etc. Among these systems, those except for broadcast television and facsimile communication are generally referred to as video communication.

A high captain system is an example of the image information providing system. This system consists of a server and ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network; Integrated Service).
es Digital Network) is composed of a plurality of clients coupled to the server via a line. For example, various information in the region / company is stored in a database, and from this database It is possible to provide multimedia information including natural images and audio.

As an example of the document describing the image information providing system, "Masakazu Arisawa: Image Information Providing System Utilizing ISDN-High Captain System-", The Institute of Image Electronics Engineers, 1990, Vol. 19, Vol. No. 2,
pp. 58-65 ”.

[0005]

According to the above-mentioned prior art, the server collects various image information to be transmitted in a single disk and stores them together. In this case, when one client makes a read request for an image, the server accesses the disk storing the image, positions the head of the disk at the beginning of the image, and sequentially moves the head to display the image. Read out and send it to the client, which is the communication phase. In the case of performing such a reading process, even if another client requests reading of another image, it cannot respond. This is because, if the operation for reading out the requested image is performed, the head seek of the storage device is involved and the image currently being read out is interrupted. Therefore, it is not possible to shift to the operation of reading the requested image from the subsequent client until the reading of all the images from the previous client is completed. In this way, when a plurality of clients compete with each other, the subsequent clients are made to wait until the reading of the image of the communication partner currently being read is completed, and as a result, the image information is efficiently distributed. Becomes difficult.

An object of the present invention is to provide an image management technique capable of efficiently distributing image information. Another object of the present invention is to provide a technique capable of responding to an image read request from another client while one client is reading an image.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will be apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

[0008]

The outline of the representative one of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.

That is, a plurality of storage means capable of individually reading / writing image information and the image information are divided into a plurality of blocks, and the plurality of blocks are distributed and accumulated in the plurality of storage means. And an image management device for managing the image information. At this time, the image information may include multiplexed incidental information. In addition, in a communication system including a host system and a plurality of communication terminal devices that can be mutually communicated with the host system by being coupled to the host system by a communication line, Including, it constitutes the above-mentioned host system.

[0010]

According to the above means, managing the image information by dispersively accumulating the plurality of blocks in the plurality of storage means enables parallel reading of images, thereby competing for image reading requests. This achieves an improvement in the distribution efficiency of image information.

[0011]

1 shows a moving image communication system which is an embodiment of the present invention.

The moving image communication system shown in FIG. 1 is not particularly limited, but a host system (server) 107 capable of distributing moving image information and an ISDN network 104 as an example of a communication line are used to connect this host. System 108
And a plurality of communication terminal devices (clients) 105, 106, 107 that can be mutually communicated with the host system 108 by being connected to the host system 108.

The host system 108 includes a plurality of storage devices 101, 102, 103 each having a sufficient storage capacity for storing moving image information, and the storage device 1.
By controlling the operation of 01, 102, 103, the moving image information is divided into a plurality of blocks, and the plurality of blocks are divided into the plurality of storage devices 101, 102, 1
03 and a management control unit 100 for managing the moving image information in a distributed manner. Storage device 101, 10
Although not particularly limited, the reference numerals 2 and 103 are readable / writable magnetic storage devices or magneto-optical storage devices, and under the control of the management control unit 100, the moving images can be stored in a digitally compressed state.

Further, the plurality of communication terminal devices 105, 1
Although not particularly limited, general-purpose personal computers can be applied to 06 and 107. The moving image can be read from the communication terminal device by calling the host system via the ISDN network 104 and establishing a mutual communication line. Although not particularly limited, the D channel, which is one of the basic interfaces of the ISDN network 104, can be applied to the communication of multimedia information including supplementary information such as characters and voices in a moving image.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the management control unit 100.

As shown in FIG. 2, the management controller 100
Is a line control circuit 200 and a CPU (central processing unit) 20.
1, memory 202, storage control circuits 203, 204, 20
5, which are coupled to each other via the bus 206, enable exchange of various data such as moving image information and control information.

The line control circuit 200 is used in the ISDN network 1
Interface control with 04. Further, an incoming call from the ISDN network 104 is detected by the line control circuit 200 and the CPU 201 is notified of it. CP above
The U 201 controls overall operation of each unit in the host system 100. In particular, when an incoming call notification is received from the line control circuit 200, the process moves to a moving image reading process or the like. The memory 202 is a storage device 1 as described later.
Information (correspondence table) for moving image search referred to when the moving images stored in 01, 102, and 103 are read out is stored. The storage control circuits 203, 204, 205 are
In response to a command from the PU 201, each storage device 101, 10
Input / output control with 2 and 103.

In FIG. 3, storage devices 101, 102, 10 are shown.
The state of accumulation of moving images in 3 is schematically shown.

In FIG. 3, 300, 301, 302
Represent blocks of a moving image that are each digitally compressed. Each moving image is divided into fixed-length blocks, and the blocks are randomly distributed and stored in the storage devices 101, 102, and 103. The number of divisions is not particularly limited, but here, for convenience of description, it is assumed that the division is n. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, one moving image 3
00 is n as shown in blocks 1 to n.
Storage device 101, 102, 1
It is accumulated in 03. Other moving image information 301, 302
Is similarly divided into a plurality of blocks and distributed and stored in the storage devices 101, 102 and 103. In order to facilitate reading of divided moving images during block storage, as shown in FIG. 4, the storage block numbers 402 are stored in the correspondence tables 400 and 401 formed in the memory 202.
Then, the storage control circuit identifier 403 corresponding to the storage device of the storage destination is registered. According to such a correspondence table, when a read request for a specific moving image is made, the moving image is
It is possible to immediately grasp how many blocks are divided and through which storage control circuit it can be read. For example, the CPU 201 specifies the divided block of the moving image related to the read request based on the above correspondence table and reads it, so that the corresponding storage control circuit 2
03-205 are operated in order. Here, while the divided moving image is being read from one storage device, for example, the storage device 101, the other storage devices 102, 10
Since 3 is basically a rest period, by effectively utilizing it, it is possible to respond to a moving image read request from another communication terminal device. That is, it is possible to simultaneously respond to moving image read requests from a plurality of communication terminal devices. This will be described below.

FIG. 5 shows the management control unit 1 at the time of reading a moving image.
00 and the communication terminal devices 105 and 106 on the information channel are shown.

When a command for reading a specific moving image is input to the communication terminal device 105, the communication terminal device 10
Reference numeral 5 establishes an information channel link with the management control unit 100 through an interface control procedure using the ISDN control channel (D channel).

After establishing an information channel link with the management control unit 100, a moving image read request signal 500 with a moving image identifier added is transmitted to the management control unit 100 via the ISDN network 104. Here, the moving image identifier means that the line control circuit 200 of the management control unit 100 is the ISD.
When an incoming call from the N network 104 is detected, the received signal is
It transmits to PU201. The CPU 201 analyzes this incoming signal, and if there is no error in the signal content, from the correspondence table 400 for the moving image designated by the moving image identifier (in this example, the moving image 300 in FIG. 3), The storage destination storage control circuit identifier 205 of the block 1 is obtained, and a request signal for reading the block 1 from the storage device 103 is transmitted to the storage control circuit 205. In the storage control circuit 205, the block 1 of the moving image 300 is read out and is read by the CPU 201.
Return to.

On the other hand, when a command for reading a specific moving image is input from the communication terminal device 106, a moving image read request signal with a moving image identifier added after the information channel link with the management control unit 100 is established. 501 is transmitted to the management control unit 100. When the line control circuit 200 of the management control unit 100 detects an incoming call from the ISDN network 104, it sends it to the CPU 201. The CPU 201
After analyzing the content of the incoming signal, the correspondence table 401 for the moving image 301 designated by the moving image identifier is read from the memory 202, and a request signal for reading the block 1 from the storage device 102 is transmitted to the storage control circuit 204. . The storage control circuit 204 confirms that the reading process from the storage device 102 is not currently performed, reads the head block of the moving image 301, and then returns it to the CPU 201.

The CPU 201 outputs the block 1 read via the line control circuit 200 to the block signals 502 and 5
03, and returns to the communication terminal devices 105 and 106. After that, the CPU 201 causes the moving image correspondence tables 400 and 401
In accordance with the information of 1., the blocks of the moving image are read in parallel, and the read blocks are respectively transferred to the communication terminal device 10.
Return to 5, 106. When the reading process of all blocks is completed, the CPU 201 transmits a link release request signal to the line control circuit 200. The line control circuit 200 controls the line disconnection by the ISDN network 104 based on the link release request signal.

As described above with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5, in the moving image communication system of this embodiment, the management control unit 1
00 receives a moving image read request from the communication terminal device 105, and while receiving the moving image read request from another communication terminal device 106 while reading the first block of the moving image, Since the moving image is divided into blocks and randomly distributed and stored in separate storage devices 101, 102, 103, the storage devices 101, 102, 10
There is little occurrence of contention for access to 3. Therefore, the moving image read request can be met without causing the communication terminal device 106 that has issued the request later to wait. That is, even when a moving image read request is received from another communication terminal device during transmission of the accumulated moving images, access to the storage devices 101, 102, 103 storing the moving images. If there are no conflicts, the requests from the communication terminal devices corresponding to the number of storage devices can be simultaneously processed. Further, even when the communication terminal devices compete for access to the storage device, the moving image information is divided into a plurality of blocks, so the waiting time in that case is reduced to the time for reading one block. To be done.

The invention made by the present inventor has been specifically described based on the embodiments, but the present invention is not limited thereto and needless to say, various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Yes.

For example, in the above embodiment, the ISDN network 104
Although the host system 108 and the plurality of communication terminal devices 105, 106, 107 are connected by the above description, a communication network other than the ISDN network can be applied. Further, the communication network may be formed not only by wire but also by radio waves. Furthermore, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the system for handling a moving image has been described.
It is of course possible to handle still images. Furthermore, not only moving images but also supplementary information such as voice and text data can be multiplexed on the images.

In the above description, the case where the invention made by the present inventor is mainly applied to a moving image communication system which is a field of application which is the background of the invention has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and for example, It can be widely applied to a moving image distribution system and further to an image data management system.

The invention can be applied on condition that at least image information is handled.

[0030]

The effects obtained by the typical ones of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.

That is, since the image information is managed by dividing the image information into a plurality of blocks and storing the image information in a plurality of storage means in a distributed manner, it is possible to deal with the conflict of the image reading requests. Therefore, it is possible to improve the distribution efficiency of image information. In particular, even when the host system receives a moving image read request from another communication terminal device while transmitting the accumulated moving image to the communication terminal device, the moving image is accumulated. As long as the access to the existing storage devices does not conflict with each other, requests from the communication terminal devices corresponding to the number of the storage devices can be simultaneously processed. Further, even when the communication terminal devices compete for access to the storage device, it is possible to reduce the waiting time of the communication terminal devices to the time for reading one block.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a moving image communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration block diagram of a management control unit in the moving image communication system.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of moving image accumulation in the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a correspondence table for controlling moving image accumulation in the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a signal sequence diagram between a host system and a communication terminal device in moving image reading.

[Explanation of symbols]

 100 control unit 101, 102, 103 storage device 104 ISDN network 105, 106, 107 communication terminal device 200 line control circuit 201 CPU 202 memory 203, 204, 205 storage control circuit 300, 301, 302 moving image 400, 401 moving image storage Previous correspondence table 402 Block number 403 Storage control circuit identifier

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification number Internal reference number for FI Technical location H04N 7/173 7251-5C (72) Inventor Hisanobu Aoki 5-22, Kamimizumotocho, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo No. 1 in Hitachi Microcomputer System Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Katsumi Maeda 5-22-1 Kamimizuhoncho, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo Inside Hitachi Microcomputer System Co., Ltd. (72) Hiroshi Morita, Josuimotocho, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo 5-22-1 Hitachi Microcomputer System Co., Ltd.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of storage means capable of individually reading and writing image information, dividing the image information into a plurality of blocks, and storing the plurality of blocks in a distributed manner in the plurality of storage means. And an image management device for managing the image information. 2. The image management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image information includes multiplexed incidental information. 3. The image management apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the additional information includes voice information or text data. 4. The image management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image information is moving image information. 5. A communication system including a host system and a plurality of communication terminal devices, which are communicable with each other by being connected to the host system by a communication line, in the communication system. A communication system comprising the image management apparatus according to claim 1.