JPH10327110A - Program selection device and program selection method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To provide a program selection device that automatically selects a program most suitable for a viewer from a large number of programs provided by a plurality of program providers. SOLUTION: Means 104, 106,... Storing program guides related to broadcasts provided by different broadcasters, respectively.
Said means 104 and 106 in response to an external operation 107
, And a second means 108, 109,... For extracting a designated program from the program table stored in... And outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a program selecting apparatus and a program selecting method for selecting a program from a plurality of broadcast services and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, ISO / IEC 13818 (MP
EG2) and other digital encoding systems for video, audio, and data are being developed, and high compression, high quality, and flexibility, which cannot be realized by analog encoding technology, have been achieved. Also, with the development of digital communication technology,
Techniques for communicating digital data using communication media such as satellites, cables, optical fibers, and telephone lines are being established.

[0003] Using digital encoding technology and digital communication technology for these data, a broadcasting station that broadcasts a program based on a predetermined schedule is connected to a receiving terminal arranged at home or office via a digital communication network. Accordingly, the operation of digital broadcasting services for distributing programs from broadcasting stations to receiving terminals has been started.

Further, a server for storing a large number of digitally encoded data is connected to a receiving terminal located at home or office via a digital communication network, and video, audio, data, etc. are transmitted from the server to the receiving terminal. A digital service system that performs services such as video-on-demand by distributing has been devised, and operation experiments are being planned and advanced gradually.

[0005] A schematic flow in the above digital broadcasting service is as follows.

(1) A user browses a program table to find a program he / she wants to view, and operates a remote controller or the like to select a channel.

(2) The receiving terminal takes in information of the selected channel via the network and outputs it to the output device.

[0008] A schematic flow in the above digital service system is as follows.

(A) The user operates the receiving terminal to select a channel or the like.

(B) The receiving terminal transmits a predetermined request to the server via the network.

(C) The server receives the request,
After the interpretation, the data desired by the receiving terminal is transmitted to the receiving terminal via the network.

(D) The receiving terminal receives the transmitted data, performs processing based on the data, and outputs the processed data to an output device.

In any of the above schematic flows, when a user intends to use a digital broadcasting service and a digital service system, he or she first searches for a desired program from a service list such as a program table. Then, the user starts to use the channel by performing an operation of selecting a channel on which the program is flowing. In order to make this channel selection, the broadcaster distributes the program guide as a printed program guide to viewers as a printed material such as a booklet, and an EPG (Electric Program Guide) via a network as an electronic program guide. Is distributed to the receiving terminal.

However, the program table in the digital broadcasting service and the digital service system may be a printed program table or an electronic program table. It is in a different format and is distributed separately to users. More specifically, when comparing both the program guide A distributed by the broadcaster A and the program guide B distributed by the broadcaster B, the format such as the layout of the program guide and the data format itself are also compared. Are different.

[0015] For this purpose, when a user who has subscribed to a plurality of broadcasters desires to view a certain program,
Since it is not clear which broadcaster is broadcasting the program that meets the request, it is necessary to browse and search the program guide of each broadcaster one by one. It is impossible. Such a situation is the same in an electronic program guide. That is, the user browses and searches the electronic program guide distributed by the broadcaster A using the receiving terminal for the broadcaster A. afterwards,
Using the receiving terminal for the broadcaster B, the electronic program guide distributed by the broadcaster B is browsed and searched.

Therefore, in a situation where the program guide is different for each broadcaster, in order to search for a desired program as a user, in the worst case, the program guide is browsed and searched by the number of broadcasters. Must be repeated.

[0017]

The main problem to be solved by the present invention is to enable a user to easily browse a desired program from a large number of programs provided by a plurality of different broadcasters. is there. Another problem to be solved by the present invention is to make it possible to easily select a program with high added value.

[0018]

According to the present invention, there is provided a program selecting apparatus for storing program guides relating to broadcasts provided by different broadcasters, and storing the program guide in response to an external operation. The above-mentioned problem is solved by a configuration including a means for extracting a designated program from a program table and outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program.

[0019]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A program selection device according to a first aspect of the present invention has means for storing a program table relating to broadcasts provided by different broadcasters, and storing the program table in response to an external operation. Means for extracting a designated program from the program table and outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, the means for outputting the channel information includes:
Further, each of the plurality of extracted programs is evaluated, and channel information corresponding to the program corresponding to the evaluation is output.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the second aspect, the means for outputting the channel information further evaluates an added value of each of the plurality of extracted programs, and selects a program having a high added value. Output channel information corresponding to.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program selecting apparatus, comprising: a plurality of program table acquiring units for respectively acquiring program tables from a plurality of receiving terminals respectively receiving programs provided by different broadcasters; A plurality of program table storage units each storing a program table acquired by each table acquisition unit; a program designation unit for designating and inputting a program; and a program corresponding to the designation of the program designation unit being extracted from each of the program table storage units And an evaluation index calculation unit that calculates an evaluation index for each program extracted by the specified program extraction unit, and selects a program corresponding to the evaluation index.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the program selection device according to the fourth aspect, the evaluation index is an added value of each of the plurality of extracted programs, and a program having a high added value is selected.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program selecting apparatus comprising a program list display selecting section for displaying the extracted program table together with the evaluation index on a display input means.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program selecting apparatus, comprising: an interface for acquiring and operating information of a program table provided by each of different broadcasters; and a program acquired by the means in response to an external operation. Means for extracting a designated program from the information in the table and outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program.

[0026] In the program selection device of the present invention, the means for outputting the channel information according to the present invention evaluates each of the plurality of extracted programs and supports the program corresponding to the evaluation. Output channel information.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program selecting apparatus, comprising: a plurality of program guide obtaining sections serving as interfaces for obtaining and operating information of program guides provided by different broadcasters; A plurality of program table storage units each storing the acquired program table; a program specification unit for specifying and inputting a program; and a designated program extraction unit for extracting a program corresponding to the specification of the program specification unit from each of the program table storage units When,
An evaluation index calculation unit that calculates an evaluation index for each program extracted by the designated program extraction unit, and selects a program corresponding to the evaluation index.

According to a tenth aspect of the present invention, in the ninth aspect, the evaluation index is a program having a high added value for each of the plurality of extracted programs, and the program is selected based on the evaluation index. I do.

[0029] A program selection device according to an eleventh aspect of the present invention includes a program list display selection part for displaying the extracted program table in the display input means together with the evaluation index in the ninth or tenth aspect.

According to a twelfth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for selecting a program, comprising: obtaining a program table relating to a broadcast provided by each of different broadcasters and storing the same in a storage unit; And extracting a designated program from the specified program table and outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program.

According to a thirteenth aspect of the present invention, in outputting the channel information according to the twelfth aspect, each of the plurality of extracted programs is evaluated and a program corresponding to the evaluation is output. Output channel information.

According to a fourteenth aspect of the present invention, when outputting the channel information in the thirteenth aspect, the added value of each of the plurality of extracted programs is further evaluated, and the program having the high added value is evaluated. Output channel information corresponding to.

A program selecting method according to a fifteenth aspect of the present invention provides a step of providing an interface for acquiring and operating information of a program table provided by each of different broadcasters, and a program acquired in said step in response to an external operation. Extracting a designated program from the information in the table and outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program.

According to a program selection method of the present invention, when outputting the channel information in claim 15, each of the plurality of extracted programs is evaluated and a program corresponding to the evaluation is output. Output channel information.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

(First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a program selection device according to a first embodiment of the present invention and a configuration around it. Referring to FIG.
0 is a program selection device, 101 is a first receiving terminal, which is a terminal for receiving a broadcast of a first broadcaster, and stores a program table of the broadcast in the inside (not shown). In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the program table stores a large number of program information defined as a set of four items of the start time and end time of the broadcast, the channel information, and the title for each program. . Reference numeral 102 denotes a second receiving terminal, which is a terminal for receiving a broadcast of a second broadcaster, and stores a program table of the broadcast in the inside (not shown).

Reference numeral 103 denotes a first program guide acquisition unit,
Of the program stored in the receiving terminal 101 is acquired.
At this time, the first program guide acquiring unit 103 converts the program guide data into a format compatible with the first program guide storage unit 104 and outputs the converted program guide data. Reference numeral 104 denotes a first program guide storage unit,
The first program table acquired by the program table acquiring unit 103 is stored. Reference numeral 105 denotes a second program guide acquisition unit which acquires a program guide stored in the second receiving terminal 102. At this time, the second program guide acquiring unit 105 converts the program guide data into a format compatible with the second program guide storage unit 106 and outputs the converted program guide data.

Reference numeral 106 denotes a second program table storage unit,
The second program table acquired by the program table acquiring unit 105 is stored. An input unit 107 includes, for example, a remote controller and a keyboard, and receives an input instruction from a user.

Reference numeral 108 denotes a program designating unit for inputting information for designating a program desired by the user. In the present embodiment, the title of the program is specified as the information for specifying the program desired by the user.

Reference numeral 109 denotes a designated program extracting unit, and the first program table storage unit 104 and the second program table storage unit 106
A program table stored in both is searched, and the program information of the program that matches the title specified by the program specifying unit 108 is extracted and output.

Reference numeral 110 denotes a clock unit for counting time. An evaluation index calculation unit 111 calculates an evaluation index based on an evaluation scale determined in advance for each program output from the designated program extraction unit 109. In the present embodiment, the difference between the current time and the start time of each program is used as an evaluation scale of added value, and the smaller the difference between the two times is, the higher the added value is.

Reference numeral 112 denotes a best program selection unit for obtaining the best program among the evaluation indexes calculated by the evaluation index calculation unit 111 and outputting information for selecting the program.
The best program in the present embodiment is a program in which the time difference between the current time and the start time of each program is the smallest, and the best program selecting unit 112 selects this best program, and selects the best program. Output channel information of 113 is a display input means.

Numeral 114 denotes a program list display selecting section which displays the program list extracted by the designated program extracting section 109 together with the evaluation index output from the evaluation index calculating section 111 on the display input means 113. Outputs the channel information of the program selected from the list.

Reference numeral 115 denotes a program selection means which receives as input the channel information of the program output from the best program selection unit 112 or the program list display selection unit 114 and selects the program indicated by the channel information. A command is issued to the first receiving terminal 101 or the second receiving terminal 102.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of the program selection device 100 shown in FIG. 1 and 2
Are not necessarily one-to-one, but the first program guide acquisition unit 103 and the second program guide acquisition unit 10
Reference numeral 5 denotes a receiving terminal interface 205, which includes a first program table storage unit 104 and a second program table storage unit 10.
6, a program designation unit 108 is constituted by an input device interface 207, a clock unit 110 is constituted by a timer 204, and a program list display selection unit 114 is constituted by an input device interface 207, an output device interface 209, The best program selecting unit 112 is formed by the receiving terminal interface 205 and the CPU 201, and the designated program extracting unit 109 and the evaluation index calculating unit 111 are formed by the CPU 201.

The operation of the program selecting apparatus having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

(A1) The first program guide obtaining unit 103
The first program table stored in the first receiving terminal 101 is taken out, data is converted into a format compatible with the first program table storage unit 103, and then the first program table storage unit 10 is converted.
4 is stored. In this embodiment, the program table includes, for each program, a broadcast start time, a broadcast end time, channel information, and a title, as shown in FIG.
It is assumed that many pieces of program information defined as a set of items are stored.

(A2) The second program table acquisition unit 105
Similarly to the first program guide acquisition unit 103, the second receiving terminal 1
02, and retrieves the second program table stored inside
The data is converted into a format compatible with the first program guide storage unit 106, and then stored in the second program guide storage unit 106.

(A3) The user wants to view a desired program, and inputs the title of the program to be viewed into the program specifying section 108 using the input means 107. For example, an instruction to view a program titled “weather forecast” in FIG. 4 is given.

(A4) The designated program extracting section 109 searches the program tables stored in the first program table storing section 104 and the second program table storing section 106, respectively, and designates them by the program specifying section 108. Title "Weather Forecast"
Is extracted, and the program information of the program is output.

FIG. 5 shows an example of program information output from the designated program extracting section 109 in this embodiment.

(A5) The evaluation index calculation unit 111 calculates an evaluation index based on a predetermined evaluation scale for each program output by the designated program extraction unit 109, and gives an evaluation to each program. That is, in the present embodiment, the clock 11
The difference between the current time obtained from 0 and the start time of each program is calculated, and the smaller the difference, the higher the evaluation.

(A6) The program list display selection section 114 shapes the program table list with the evaluation index output from the evaluation index calculation section 111 into a visible format and displays the list on the display input means 113. When the user wants to directly designate a program to be viewed while watching the display, the user designates the program using the display input means 113 and gives the program to the program list display selection unit 114. In this case, the program list display selection unit 114 outputs the channel information of the program selected by the user to the program selection unit 115.

(A7) The best program selection section 112 obtains the best program among the evaluation indexes calculated by the evaluation index calculation section 111 and outputs information for selecting the best program. The best program according to the present embodiment is “weather forecast 1”, which is a program in which the time difference between the current time and the start time of each program is the smallest, and the best program selecting unit 112 selects this. Then, the channel information of the program is output to the program selection means 115.

(A8) The program selecting means 115 selects the first receiving terminal 101 according to the channel information output from the best program selecting section 112 or the program list display selecting section 114.
Alternatively, it notifies the second receiving terminal 102 of information indicating that the channel is selected.

Although not shown in the drawing, if there is an input to terminate the processing by a user's operation or the like, the processing of this flowchart ends.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the first program table obtaining unit 103, the first program table storing unit 104, the second program table obtaining unit 105, and the second program table storing Unit 106, a designated program extracting unit 109 that collectively searches a plurality of program tables and extracts a program that meets a user's request
Is provided, a program table can be searched under the same search condition over a plurality of program tables, so that a desired program can be found with high search efficiency. In addition, by providing the first and second program guide storage units 104 and 106, the first
Even if the second receiving terminals 101 and 102 are inaccessible for some reason, the program selecting device 1
00 can select a program. Further, by providing an evaluation index calculating unit 111 for evaluating a program searched based on a predetermined evaluation scale and a best program selecting unit 112 for selecting a program having the highest score, the most useful program can be obtained without user operation. A desired program can be selected.

In the present embodiment, the program table stores a large number of program information defined as a four-item set of the broadcast start time and the broadcast end time, the channel information, and the title for each program. But the above 4
The present invention is not limited to the case where program information is defined as a set of items. That is, adding, replacing, or excluding items such as omitting the program end time, using the program show time instead of the program end time, and adding information such as viewing restriction information such as video quality information and rating and viewing fee. Etc. to define the program information.

In this embodiment, in the description of the operation, the first and second program guide obtaining sections 103 and 105 always obtain the program guide from each of the receiving terminals 101 and 102 at frequent intervals. To get every
Scheduling, such as acquisition when a condition that is dynamically determined is met, may be performed.

In this embodiment, the program designating section 10
In FIG. 8, the information input by the user is used as the program title, but other identification codes for identifying the program may be used.
A more complicated search may be performed using a search key such as a pair of genre and creation date.

In the present embodiment, the evaluation index calculation unit 111 uses the difference between the current time and the start time of each program as an evaluation scale, and the smaller the difference is, the higher the evaluation is given. Needless to say, another evaluation index such as giving a high evaluation to a program in the first program table or giving a high evaluation to a program with the lowest viewing fee by including a viewing fee in the program information may be used. .

(Second Embodiment) Hereinafter, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.
An embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a program selection apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention and its peripheral configuration. In FIG. 6, reference numeral 300 denotes a program selection device. In the present embodiment, the program table stores a lot of program information defined as a set of seven items of broadcast start time, show time, channel information, major classification, genre, title, and viewing fee for each program. Shall be.

Reference numeral 301 denotes a first receiving terminal, and 302 denotes a second receiving terminal.

Reference numeral 303 denotes a first program table operation unit,
Of the receiving terminal 301 (not shown), and an interface for acquiring program information.

Reference numeral 305 denotes a second program table operation unit, similar to the first program table operation unit 303, for searching a program table stored inside the second receiving terminal 302 (not shown), An interface for acquiring program information is provided.

Reference numeral 307 denotes an input unit, and 308 denotes a program designating unit. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that, as the information for designating the program desired by the user, a large category and / or a genre of the program is designated. Reference numeral 309 denotes a designated program extracting unit which stores a program corresponding to the program designation of the program designating unit 308 into the first program guide operating unit 303 and the second program guide operating unit 3
05, and extracts program information matching the program designation from the first receiving terminal 301 and the second receiving terminal 302. Reference numeral 311 denotes an evaluation index calculation unit. In the present embodiment, the viewing fee is used as an evaluation scale of added value, and a higher rating is given as the viewing fee is smaller. Reference numeral 312 denotes a best program selection unit. In the present embodiment, a program with the minimum viewing fee is selected, and channel information of the program is output. 313 is a display input unit, 314 is a program list display selection unit, and 315 is a program selection unit.

Next, the operation of the above-configured program selection device will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

(B1) The user wants to view a desired program, and inputs the major category and genre of the program to be viewed into the program specifying section 308 using the input means 107. For example, karaoke is given as a major category, and "enka" is given as a genre.

(B2) The first program guide operation unit 303
The first receiving terminal 301 is instructed to extract program information of a program whose major classification is “karaoke” and whose genre is “enka” from the first program table stored inside the first receiving terminal 301. Send out.

(B3) In response to the instruction, the first receiving terminal 301 searches for a program whose major category is “Karaoke” and whose genre is “Enka” from a program table that internally stores the search result. Is transmitted to the first program table operation unit 30.
Output to 3.

(B4) The first program guide operation unit 303
The program information of the search result is received from the first receiving terminal 301, and the program information is output to the designated program extracting unit 309.

(B5) The second program guide operation unit 305
Similarly to the first program guide operation unit 303, the second receiving terminal 1
An instruction is sent to the second receiving terminal 302 to extract program information of a program whose major category is “Karaoke” and whose genre is “Enka” from the second program table stored in the second receiving terminal 302.

(B6) In response to the instruction, the second receiving terminal 302 searches for a program whose major category is “Karaoke” and whose genre is “Enka” from a program table in which the program is stored. Is transmitted to the second program table operation unit 30.
5 is output.

(B7) The second program guide operation unit 305
Similarly to the first program guide operation unit 303, the second receiving terminal 3
The program information of the search result is received from No. 02, and the program information is output to the designated program extracting unit 309.

(B8) The designated program extracting unit 309 integrates the program information output from each of the first program table operating unit 303 and the second program table operating unit 305, and converts the program information into an evaluation index calculating unit. Output to 311.

FIG. 8 shows an example of the number information output from the designated program extracting section 309 in this embodiment.

(B9) The evaluation index calculation unit 311 calculates an evaluation index based on a predetermined evaluation scale for each program output by the designated program extraction unit 309, and gives an evaluation to each program. That is, in this embodiment, a higher rating is given as the viewing fee is smaller.

(B10) The program list display selection section 314
The program index list with the evaluation index, which is the output of the evaluation index calculation unit 311, is shaped into a visible format and displayed on the display input unit 313. When the user wants to directly designate a program to be viewed while watching the display, the user designates the program using the display input means 313 and gives the program to the program list display selection section 314. In this case, the program list display selection unit 314 outputs the channel information of the program selected by the user to the program selection unit 315.

(B11) The best program selecting section 312 finds the best program among the evaluation indexes calculated by the evaluation index calculating section 311 and outputs information for selecting the program. In the present embodiment, “Karaoke 2” which is the program with the minimum viewing fee in FIG. 8 is selected, and the channel information of the program is output to the program selection means 315.

(B12) The program selecting means 315 selects the first receiving terminal 30 according to the channel information output from the best program selecting section 312 or the program list display selecting section 314.
The first or second receiving terminal 302 is notified of information indicating that the channel is selected. Although not shown in the drawing, if there is an input indicating that display or the like is to be ended by a user's operation, the processing of this flowchart ends.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the first program table operation unit 303, the second program table operation unit 305, and the programs matching the user's request are searched from each program table. By providing the designated program extracting unit 309 for instructing to execute the search and integrating the search results, the program table can be searched under the same search condition over a plurality of program tables, so that a desired program can be found with high search efficiency. Also, by providing the first and second program guide operating units 303 and 305 and instructing the first and second receiving terminals 301 and 302 respectively to search, the first and second receiving terminals 30 and 302 are provided.
It is not necessary to keep a copy of the program table held inside each of the program selection devices 300 and 302 inside the program selection device 300, so that the used memory capacity can be saved, and each of the receiving terminals 301 and 302 and each program table operation unit It is possible to keep the amount of data transferred to 303 and 305 low. Further, by providing an evaluation index calculating unit 311 for evaluating a program searched based on a predetermined evaluation scale and a best program selecting unit 312 for selecting a program having the highest score, the best program can be obtained without user operation. A desired program can be selected.

In the present embodiment, the program table includes, for each program, a program defined as a set of seven items of broadcast start time, show time, channel information, major category, genre, title, and viewing fee. Although a large number of pieces of information have been stored, the present invention is not limited to the case where program information is defined as the above seven-item set. That is, program items are added, replaced, or excluded by omitting the show time, using the end time of the program instead of the show time, or adding information such as viewing restriction information such as video quality information or rating. Information may be defined.

In this embodiment, the program designating section 30
In FIG. 8, the information input by the user is defined as a major category and a genre of the program. Good.

In the present embodiment, the evaluation index calculation unit 311 is assumed to give a higher evaluation as a rating scale as the viewing fee is smaller. However, for example, the evaluation index calculator 311 gives a higher evaluation to a program in the first program table. Needless to say, another evaluation index, such as dividing the viewing fee by the screening time and giving a high evaluation to the program with the lowest viewing fee per unit time, may be used.

In the present invention, the program selecting device is described as a device connected to each receiving terminal, but it goes without saying that the program selecting device may be integrated with each receiving terminal.

In the present invention, the program table acquisition unit, the program table storage unit, and the program table operation unit are respectively configured to correspond to the two receiving terminals, but the number of receiving terminals is reduced to two. Without limiting, the present invention can easily cope with a case where three or more receiving terminals are connected without losing generality. Further, although two reception terminals are logically used, it is possible to easily cope with a case where the reception terminals are physically configured as one reception terminal.

[0088]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the first means for storing the program table relating to the broadcasts provided by the different broadcasters, and A second means for extracting a designated program from a program table stored in the first means and outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program. Can easily select a desired program. Further, according to the first aspect of the present invention, a program can be selected even if receiving terminals for different broadcasters are inaccessible for some reason. Further, according to the first aspect of the present invention, a program can be selected based on a predetermined evaluation scale, and a program with high added value can be selected.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the first means serving as an interface for acquiring and operating the information on the program guide provided by each of the different broadcasters, and the first means in response to an external operation are provided by the first means. A second means for extracting a designated program from the acquired information of the program guide and outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program is provided. You do n’t have to.
The used memory capacity can be saved, and the data transfer amount between the receiving terminal and the first means can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a program selection device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of a program selection device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the program selection device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a program table according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a program table according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a system configuration diagram of a program selection device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the program selection device according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of a program table according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

[Description of sign]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 100 program selection device 103 first program table acquisition unit 104 first program table storage unit 105 second program table acquisition unit 106 second program table storage unit 108 program designation unit 109 designated program extraction unit 110 clock unit 111 evaluation Index calculation unit 112 Best program selection unit 114 Program list display selection unit 300 Program selection device 303 First program table operation unit 305 Second program table operation unit 308 Program specification unit 309 Designated program extraction unit 311 Evaluation index calculation unit 312 Best Program selection section 314 Program list display selection section

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Tsuyoshi Ide 1006 Kadoma Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Inside

Claims (16)

[Claims] 1. A means for storing a program table related to a broadcast provided by each of different broadcasters, and a designated program is extracted from a program table stored in said means in response to an external operation, and specified. Means for outputting channel information corresponding to a program. 2. The means for outputting the channel information,
2. The program selection device according to claim 1, further comprising: evaluating each of the plurality of extracted programs; and outputting channel information corresponding to the program corresponding to the evaluation. 3. The means for outputting the channel information includes:
3. The program selection apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising: evaluating an added value of each of the plurality of extracted programs; and outputting channel information corresponding to the program having a high added value. 4. A plurality of program table acquiring units for respectively acquiring program tables from a plurality of receiving terminals respectively receiving programs provided by different broadcasters, and a program table acquired by each of the program table acquiring units. A plurality of program table storage sections each storing a program, a program specification section for specifying and inputting a program, a specified program extraction section for extracting a program corresponding to the specification of the program specification section from each of the program table storage sections, A program selection device, comprising: an evaluation index calculation unit that calculates an evaluation index for each program extracted by the extraction unit; and selecting a program corresponding to the evaluation index. 5. The program selection device according to claim 4, wherein the evaluation index is an added value of each of the plurality of extracted programs, and selects a program having a high added value. 6. The program selection device according to claim 4, further comprising a program list display selection unit that displays the extracted program table together with the evaluation index on a display input unit. 7. A means serving as an interface for acquiring and operating information on a program guide provided by each of different broadcasters, and extracting a designated program from information on the program guide obtained by said means in response to an external operation. Means for outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program. 8. The means for outputting the channel information,
8. The program selection device according to claim 7, further comprising evaluating each of the plurality of extracted programs and outputting channel information corresponding to the program corresponding to the evaluation. 9. A plurality of program guide acquisition units serving as interfaces for acquiring and operating information on program guides provided by different broadcasters, and a plurality of program guides respectively storing program guides acquired by the program guide acquisition units. A program table storage unit, a program designating unit that designates and inputs a program, a designated program extracting unit that extracts a program corresponding to the designation of the program designating unit from each of the program table storage units, and a program extracted by the designated program extracting unit. A program selecting device for calculating an evaluation index for each of the programs, and selecting a program corresponding to the evaluation index. 10. The program selection according to claim 9, wherein the evaluation index is a program having a high added value for each of the plurality of extracted programs, and a program is selected based on the evaluation index. apparatus. 11. The program selection device according to claim 9, further comprising a program list display selection unit that displays the extracted program table together with the evaluation index on a display input unit. 12. A step of acquiring a program table related to a broadcast provided by each of different broadcasters and storing the program table in a storage unit, and extracting a designated program from the program table stored in the storage unit in response to an external operation. And outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program. 13. The method according to claim 12, wherein when outputting the channel information, each of the plurality of extracted programs is evaluated, and the channel information corresponding to the program corresponding to the evaluation is output.
The program selection method described in. 14. Outputting the channel information, further evaluating the added value of each of the plurality of extracted programs, and outputting channel information corresponding to the program with a high added value. Item 14. The program selection method according to Item 13. 15. A step of providing an interface for acquiring and operating information of a program table provided by each of different broadcasters, and extracting a designated program from the information of the program table obtained in the step in response to an external operation And outputting channel information corresponding to the designated program. 16. The method according to claim 15, further comprising, when outputting the channel information, evaluating each of the plurality of extracted programs and outputting channel information corresponding to the program corresponding to the evaluation.
The program selection method described in.