JP2003259265A - Picture recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a picture recorder provided with a program table display function capable of correctly representing the recording state. <P>SOLUTION: Program information is acquired by a broadcast signal or through a network. Start times and end times of video data accumulatively recorded in time series in a program table are displayed one over another. The start time and the end time of video data explicitly recorded by a user and start times and end times of video data automatically recorded by other recorders are displayed one over the other discriminatingly from each other in time series in the program table. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording apparatus having a function of acquiring program information via a broadcast signal or a network and a function of creating and displaying a program guide.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, recording apparatuses have been able to use EPG (Electronic Pro) via broadcast signals or networks.
(Gram Guide: electronic program guide) information is acquired, a program guide is created and displayed based on this program information, and the configuration is increasing so that a user can easily make a recording reservation or a viewing reservation of a program. .

Further, in addition to the user's explicit recording operation and reserved recording operation, when the recording medium of the recording device has room, a program selected by the user but not particularly recorded, An increasing number of devices have a function of automatically recording without a user operation.

Generally, this program table is mainly used for confirming the contents of programs to be broadcast in the future, recording reservations, and viewing reservations.

However, this type of program guide is constructed irrespective of the video data recorded by the recording device, and the user cannot know what kind of recording is being done only with this program guide.

Therefore, in order to improve the operability of the user, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-184320, a program table is created based on past program information, and programs recorded and accumulated in the past and other programs are Display separately for each program,
Technology is proposed.

[0007]

However, in reality, the situation is ever changing as the user starts recording in the middle of the program, stops recording in the middle of the program, or switches to another channel. To do. That is, the recording state does not necessarily change on a program-by-program basis, and in such a case, in the conventional program guide, the recording information cannot be accurately displayed by being superimposed on the program guide.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a recording device having a program guide display function capable of correctly expressing a recording state.

[0009]

In the recording apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, a recording section for recording and accumulating video data, a recording information management section for managing recording information about the recording section, and program information about a selected program are acquired. And a program guide display unit that creates and displays a program guide based on the program information acquired by the program information acquisition unit and the recording information managed by the recording information management unit. It contains information indicating the channel of the station program and information on the start time and end time of recording for that channel.In the program table, one axis of the vertical axis or the horizontal axis indicates time and the other axis is In addition, the program guide itself has a recording display indicating the channel of the selected program indicated by the recording information and the start time and the end time of the recording for the channel. They are sleeping display composed.

In this configuration, the recording information managed by the recording information management section includes information indicating the channel of the selected program,
The program guide display unit reflects this, including information on the start time and end time of recording for the channel,
A recording display is created, and this recording display is displayed overlaid on the program guide.

As a result, the recording display can be expressed in a finer time unit than the program unit, and even if the recording state is frequently changed by the user's operation or the like, the recording state is tracked and the recording state is accurately set. Can be displayed.

In the recording apparatus according to the second invention, in addition to the first invention, the recording display is a band-like display from the start time to the end time of the recording of the channel of the selected program.

In the recording apparatus according to the third invention, in addition to the first invention, the recording display is a display of marks attached to the start time and the end time of the recording of the channel of the selected program.

With these configurations, it is possible to perform easy-to-understand recording display on the time axis of the program guide and improve the convenience for the user.

In addition to the first aspect of the invention, the recording device according to the fourth aspect of the invention has an input section for accepting a user's explicit recording operation and a user's recording reservation operation, and the recording section accepts the input section. Not only the recording by the operation of, but also the automatic recording is performed without these operations, and the recording information includes information for identifying whether the recording is performed by these operations or the recording by the automatic recording. Including, the recording display is a display of a different mode for recording by these operations and recording by automatic recording.

Thus, the user can distinguish and understand the explicit recording operation of the user, the recording by the recording reservation operation of the user, and the automatic recording, according to the mode of the recording display, and the convenience of the user. Can be further improved.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a recording device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, a tuner section 101 inputs a video signal via a broadcast signal or a network and selects a specific program.

The encoding unit 102 is a tuner unit 101.
It encodes the video signal output by and outputs video data.

The recording unit 103 is provided with a readable / writable recording medium, and records / stores / reproduces the video data encoded by the encoding unit 102.

The decoding unit 104 decodes the video data accumulated by the recording unit 103 and outputs a video signal to a monitor (not shown) or the like.

The recording / playback control unit 105 includes an encoding unit 1
02 encoding processing, recording and reproduction processing of the recording unit 103,
The decoding process of the decoding unit 104 is controlled. In particular, when the recording medium of the recording unit 103 has a free space, the recording / playback control unit 105 can select the channel currently selected by the recording unit 103 without the user's explicit recording operation or reserved recording operation. Automatically record video data.

The program information acquisition unit 106 acquires past, present, and future EPG information via a broadcast signal or a network.

The program information management unit 107 holds and manages the EPG information acquired by the program information acquisition unit 106, and
By processing this, the program guide screen data (only the program guide and no recording display) is created and output to the program guide display unit 110.

The remote control input section 108 corresponds to an input section for accepting the user's explicit recording operation, the user's reserved recording operation, etc., and processes the user's remote control operation.

Of course, instead of the remote controller, a button or the like provided in the main body of the recording apparatus may be used as the input section.

The recording information management unit 109 inputs and manages recording information, which will be described in detail later, from the recording / playback control unit 105. The recording information management unit 109 also outputs necessary recording information to the program guide display unit 110.

The program guide display unit 110 is a recording information management unit 1.
Image data for recording display is created based on the recording information input from 09. In addition, the program guide display unit 110
This image data is superimposed on a predetermined position of the program guide screen data input from the program information management unit 107, and the result is output to a monitor (not shown) or the like.

Incidentally, the program guide screen data on which the recording display is superimposed is typically used as a child screen of a monitor or the like.
Will be displayed.

Next, the recording information handled by the recording / playback control unit 105 and the recording information management unit 109 will be described with reference to FIG. In this example, the recording information is element 1,
Element 2 ,. ． ． , An element n is used for management. Of course, it can be managed by a well-known structure such as a list.

Each element has the following fields as shown in the upper part of FIG. First, "Channel ID"
Corresponds to the information indicating the channel of the selected program, and is a channel number in this example. For example, if channel 2 is selected, the value of channel ID is
It is "2".

Next, "start time" is the start time of the recording relating to this element, and in the example shown in the figure, its value is
It is "17:00:10 on February 10, 2002".
The minimum unit of time may be appropriately selected, but it is practically sufficient if it is expressed in seconds.

Next, "end time" is the end time of the recording relating to this element. In this example, the value is "200
February 10th, 2nd, 17:30:52 ".

Further, the "recording state" includes automatic recording and other recordings (recording by user's explicit recording operation,
This is information for identifying (recording by the user's reserved recording operation). If the automatic recording and the other recordings are regarded as the same, this field may be omitted.

In this example, as the value of "recording state",
It takes three values of "none" (undecided), "automatic" (automatic recording), and "user" (recording other than automatic recording). Other necessary fields may be appropriately added to each element.

Further, the "counter i" shown in the lower part of FIG. 2 indicates the element of interest at present (in the example of FIG. 2,
i = 1, and points to element 1. ) Is prepared for.

Based on the above, the handling of recording information by the recording information management unit 109 in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the recording information management unit 109 performs initialization processing in step 1. That is, all the elements of the array of FIG. 2 are cleared, and the recording state is provisionally set to “none”. Also, the recording information management unit 109 uses the current channel number currently selected by the tuner unit 101 as the current channel I.
Let be D. In addition, the recording information management unit 109 performs step 2
Then, the counter i is set to "1".

Next, the recording information management unit 109 confirms in step 3 that the processing is not completed, and then checks in step 4 whether or not recording is currently being performed. If it is not done, the recording information is unnecessary,
Wait until recording starts.

When recording is started, the recording information management unit 10
9 inputs the recording information from the recording / reproducing control unit 105, and in step 5, sets a value to the channel ID and the start time of the element i (initially i = 1). Also, the value of the recording state of the element i (here, "automatic" or "user") is set.

Next, in step 6 to step 8, the recording information management unit 109 satisfies the conditions that the recording is not completed, the channel remains as it is, and the recording state does not change. Wait as long as it is.

When this condition is not satisfied,
The recording information management unit 109 considers that the recording state indicated by the element i has ended, and sets the end time field of the element i to
Set the current time (step 9) and set the counter i to 1
(Step 10), the process moves to step 3.

Similarly, the processes of steps 3 to 9 are repeated until the end. As a result, values are sequentially set to the elements in the recording state.

At this time, the channel ID, the start time, the end time, and the recording state are known by the respective elements of the array of FIG. 2, so that a description will be given next with reference to FIGS. 4 to 7. It is possible to realize an easy-to-understand display by superimposing recording displays along the time axis of the program guide.

4 to 7 are examples showing the same recording state in different modes. Hereinafter, in order to avoid duplication of description, the recording state will be briefly summarized.

First, channel 1 was selected from 17:00 to 17:30 on a certain day, and during this period, automatic recording was performed for a part of the document program.

Also, between 17:30 and 18:15, a 6-channel anime program was recorded by the user's reserved recording operation.

Next, between 18:25 and 19:15, the user tuned in to channel 2, and the latter half of the music program, the weather forecast and the beginning of the news program were automatically recorded.

Further, between 19:25 and 20:00, the user selected channel 8 and performed an explicit recording operation to record the variety program.

As described above, the recording state changes from moment to moment. In addition, in this example, recording is continuously performed, but the present invention can be similarly applied even if there is a time zone in which recording is not performed, including automatic recording.

In FIG. 4, the above recording state is represented by a band-like display from the recording start time to the recording end time for the channel of the selected program.

Further, the automatic recording (diagonal line) and the other recordings (horizontal line) are displayed in different modes.

As the band-shaped display, in addition to the one shown in the figure, various background color of the program display can be changed or inverted, but if it can be visually grasped,
It is sufficient and can be changed appropriately.

If it is not necessary to distinguish between automatic recording and other recordings, it may be displayed as shown in FIG.

Further, instead of the above band-shaped display, as shown in FIG. 6, the recording start time and recording end time may be displayed with marks for the channel of the selected program.

In the example of FIG. 6, automatic recording (start time is a white downward triangle, end time is a white upward triangle),
The other recordings (the start time is a black-painted downward triangle and the end time is a black-painted upward triangle) are distinguished from each other, and these display modes are made different.

Of course, any of these marks may be used as long as they are easy to understand. Furthermore, if it is not necessary to distinguish between automatic recording and other recordings, they may be displayed as shown in FIG. 7, for example.

[0058]

According to the present invention, the recording display can be expressed in a finer time unit than the program unit, and even if the recording state is frequently changed by the user's operation, it is possible to follow the change. The recording status can be displayed accurately and easily.

Further, the user can distinguish between the user's explicit recording operation, the recording by the user's recording reservation operation, and the automatic recording according to the recording display mode, and the convenience for the user can be further improved. .

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a recording device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a data structure diagram of the recording information.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing how to handle the same recording information.

FIG. 4 is a display example diagram of the program guide.

FIG. 5 is a display example diagram of the program guide.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a display example of the program guide.

FIG. 7 is a display example diagram of the program guide.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 tuner section 102 Encoding section 103 recording section 104 decoding section 105 Recording / playback control unit 106 Program information acquisition unit 107 Program Information Management Department 108 Remote control input section 109 Recording information management section 110 Program guide display

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Hiroyuki Yoshida             1006 Kadoma, Kadoma-shi, Osaka Matsushita Electric             Sangyo Co., Ltd. F-term (reference) 5C025 CB05 CB06 CB08 CB09 DA01                       DA04                 5C052 AA01 DD08 DD10                 5D077 AA22 CA02 DC03 HA07 HC03                       HC05 HC14

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A recording unit for recording and accumulating video data, a recording information management unit for managing recording information about the recording unit, a program information acquisition unit for acquiring program information about a selected program, and the program information acquisition unit. A program guide display unit for creating and displaying a program guide based on the program information acquired by the program information and the recording information managed by the recording information management unit, wherein the recording information includes information indicating a channel of a selected program, Information about the start time and end time of recording for the channel is included. In the program table, one of the vertical axis or the horizontal axis indicates time, the other axis indicates the channel, and the program In the table, a recording display showing the channel of the selected program and the start time and the end time of the recording of the channel indicated by the recording information is overlaid on the program table itself. Made, the recording apparatus. 2. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording display is a band-like display from a recording start time to a recording end time for a channel of a selected program. 3. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording display is a display of marks attached to a recording start time and recording end time for a channel of a selected program. 4. An input unit for accepting a user's explicit recording operation and a user's recording reservation operation, wherein the recording unit not only records by these operations accepted by the input unit but also does not perform these operations. The recording information includes information for identifying whether the recording is performed by these operations or the recording by automatic recording, and the recording display indicates the operation. 4. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording according to [1] and the recording according to automatic recording are displayed in different modes.