JP4065698B2 - Recording device - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus having a function of acquiring program information via a broadcast signal or via a network and a function of creating and displaying a program guide.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In recent years, a recording device acquires EPG (Electronic Program Guide) information via a broadcast signal or a network, creates and displays a program guide based on the program information, and allows a user to make a program recording reservation or More and more are configured to make viewing reservations easier.
[0003]
Further, in addition to the user's explicit recording operation or reserved recording operation, when there is room in the recording medium of the recording device, the user's operation for a program that is selected by the user but not particularly recorded An increasing number of devices have the ability to automatically record without.
[0004]
Here, generally, this program guide is mainly used for confirmation of program contents to be broadcast in the future, recording reservation, and viewing reservation.
[0005]
However, this type of program guide is configured regardless of the video data recorded by the recording device, and the user cannot know what kind of recording is being performed only with this program guide.
[0006]
Therefore, in order to improve the operability for the user, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-184320, a program table is created based on past program information, and a program recorded and accumulated in the past and other programs are divided into programs. A technique has been proposed that displays them separately.
[0007]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in reality, the situation changes completely, such as when a user starts recording in the middle of a program, stops recording in the middle of a program, or switches to another channel. That is, the recording state does not necessarily change in units of programs. In such a case, in the program guide according to the conventional example, the recording information cannot be displayed accurately on the program guide.
[0008]
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a recording apparatus having a program guide display function capable of correctly expressing a recording state.
[0009]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In the recording apparatus according to the first invention, a recording unit for recording and accumulating video data, a recording information management unit for managing recording information relating to the recording unit, a program information acquiring unit for acquiring program information relating to a selected program, and program information Based on the program information acquired by the acquisition unit and the recording information managed by the recording information management unit, a program guide display unit that creates and displays a program guide, the recording information includes information indicating the channel of the selected program; Information about the start time and end time of recording is included for the channel, and in the program guide, one of the vertical and horizontal axes indicates time, the other axis indicates the channel, and the program guide In the program table itself, a recording display indicating the channel of the selected program indicated by the recording information and the recording start time and end time for the channel is displayed in an overlapping manner.
[0010]
In this configuration, the recording information managed by the recording information management unit includes information indicating the channel of the selected program and information regarding the recording start time and end time for the channel, and the program guide display unit reflects this information. Then, a recording display is created, and this recording display is superimposed on the program guide.
[0011]
As a result, the recording display can be expressed in a time unit that is finer than the program unit, and even if the recording state frequently changes due to a user operation or the like, the recording state can be accurately followed and displayed.
[0012]
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 recording start time to the end time for the channel of the selected program.
[0013]
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 recording start time and end time for the channel of the selected program.
[0014]
With these configurations, it is possible to display an easy-to-understand recording on the time axis of the program guide and improve user convenience.
[0015]
In addition to the first invention, the recording apparatus according to the fourth invention includes an input unit that receives an explicit recording operation of the user and a recording reservation operation of the user, and the recording unit receives these operations by the input unit. In addition to recording, automatic recording is performed without these operations, and the recording information includes information for identifying whether recording is performed by these operations or recording by automatic recording. The recording display is a display of a different mode for recording by these operations and recording by automatic recording.
[0016]
As a result, the user can distinguish and understand the recording by the user's explicit recording operation, the recording reservation operation by the user, and the automatic recording according to the recording display mode, thereby further improving the convenience for the user. it can.
[0017]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
[0018]
In FIG. 1, a tuner unit 101 inputs a video signal via a broadcast signal or a network and selects a specific program.
[0019]
The encoding unit 102 encodes the video signal output from the tuner unit 101 and outputs video data.
[0020]
The recording unit 103 includes a readable / writable recording medium, and records and stores / reproduces the video data encoded by the encoding unit 102.
[0021]
The decoding unit 104 decodes the video data stored in the recording unit 103 and outputs a video signal to a monitor or the like (not shown).
[0022]
The recording / playback control unit 105 controls the encoding process of the encoding unit 102, the recording / playback process of the recording unit 103, and the decoding process of the decoding unit 104. In particular, the recording / playback control unit 105, when there is room in the recording medium of the recording unit 103, allows the recording unit 103 to select the channel that is currently selected even if there is no explicit recording operation or scheduled recording operation by the user. Automatically record video data.
[0023]
The program information acquisition unit 106 acquires past, current, and future EPG information via a broadcast signal or a network.
[0024]
The program information management unit 107 retains and manages the EPG information acquired by the program information acquisition unit 106, and processes the EPG information to create program guide screen data (one with only the program guide and no recording display). Output to the table display unit 110.
[0025]
The remote control input unit 108 corresponds to an input unit that receives a user's explicit recording operation, a user's reserved recording operation, and the like, and processes the user's remote control operation.
[0026]
Of course, instead of the remote controller, a button or the like provided on the recording apparatus main body may be used as the input unit.
[0027]
The recording information management unit 109 receives and manages recording information described in detail later from the recording / playback control unit 105. Further, the recording information management unit 109 outputs necessary recording information to the program guide display unit 110.
[0028]
The program guide display unit 110 creates image data for recording display based on the recording information input from the recording information management unit 109. The program guide display unit 110 superimposes the image data on a predetermined position of the program guide screen data input from the program information management unit 107, and outputs the result to a monitor (not shown).
[0029]
Incidentally, the program guide screen data on which the recording display is superimposed is typically displayed as a sub-screen such as a monitor.
[0030]
Next, 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 includes element 1, element 2,. . . , And managed by an array of elements n. Of course, it can also be managed by a list or other known structure.
[0031]
Each element has the following fields as shown in the upper part of FIG. First, the “channel ID” corresponds to 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 the channel ID is “2”.
[0032]
Next, “start time” is the start time of recording according to this element, and in the illustrated example, the value is “February 10, 2002, 17:00:10”. The minimum unit of time may be selected as appropriate, but it is practically sufficient if expressed in seconds.
[0033]
Next, the “end time” is a recording end time related to this element. In this example, the value is “February 10, 2002, 17:30:52”.
[0034]
Furthermore, the “recording state” is information for identifying automatic recording and other recordings (recording by the user's explicit recording operation, recording by the user's reserved recording operation). Note that this field may be omitted when automatic recording and other recordings are identified.
[0035]
In this example, the value of “recording state” can take three values: “none” (undecided), “automatic” (automatic recording), and “user” (recording other than automatic recording). ing. In addition, necessary fields may be appropriately added to each element.
[0036]
Furthermore, “Counter i” shown at the bottom of FIG. 2 is prepared to indicate an element that is currently focused on (in the example of FIG. 2, i = 1 indicates element 1). .
[0037]
Based on the above, handling of recording information by the recording information management unit 109 in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
[0038]
First, the recording information management unit 109 performs an initialization process in step 1. That is, all elements of the array in FIG. 2 are cleared, and the recording state is temporarily set to “none”. In addition, the recording information management unit 109 sets the current channel number currently selected by the tuner unit 101 as the current channel ID. In step 2, the recording information management unit 109 sets the counter i to “1”.
[0039]
Next, the recording information management unit 109 confirms in step 3 that the process has not ended, and then checks in step 4 whether or not recording is currently being performed. If it is not performed, the recording information is not necessary, so it waits until the recording is started.
[0040]
When the recording is started, the recording information management unit 109 inputs the recording information from the recording / playback control unit 105, and sets the channel ID of the element i (initially i = 1) and the start time in step 5. To do. Also, the recording state value of this element i (here, “automatic” or “user”) is set.
[0041]
Next, in step 6 to step 8, the recording information management unit 109 satisfies the condition that the recording is not finished, the channel remains as it is, and the recording state does not change. As long as it remains, wait.
[0042]
When this condition is not satisfied, the recording information management unit 109 considers that the recording state indicated by the element i has ended, sets the current time in the end time field of the element i (step 9), The counter i is incremented by 1 (step 10), and the process proceeds to step 3.
[0043]
Similarly, the processing from step 3 to step 9 is repeated until the end. As a result, values are sequentially set in the recording state elements.
[0044]
At this time, the channel ID, the start time, the end time, and the recording state are known by each element of the array of FIG. 2, so that the program table will be described next with reference to FIGS. It is possible to realize an easy-to-understand display that overlays the recording display along the time axis.
[0045]
4 to 7 are examples showing the same recording state in different modes. Hereinafter, in order to avoid duplication of explanation, the recording state will be briefly described.
[0046]
First, two channels were selected from 17: 00 to 17:30 on one day, and during this time, a part of the document program was automatically recorded.
[0047]
In addition, between 17:30 and 18:15, a 6-channel animation program was recorded by a user's reserved recording operation.
[0048]
Next, between 18:25 and 19:15, the user selected two channels, and the latter half of the music program, the weather forecast, and the head of the news program were automatically recorded.
[0049]
Furthermore, between 19:25 and 20:00, the user selected 8 channels and performed an explicit recording operation to record a variety program.
[0050]
Thus, the recording state changes from moment to moment. In this example, the recording is continuously performed. However, the present invention can be similarly applied even when a time zone in which the recording is not performed including the automatic recording occurs.
[0051]
In FIG. 4, the above-described recording state is expressed by a band-like display from the recording start time to the end time for the channel of the selected program.
[0052]
Also, automatic recording (diagonal lines) and other recordings (horizontal lines) are displayed in different modes.
[0053]
There are various types of strip-shaped displays, such as the one shown in the figure, such as changing or reversing the background color of the program display. It does not matter.
[0054]
If there is no need to distinguish between automatic recording and other recordings, it is preferable to display as shown in FIG.
[0055]
Furthermore, instead of the band-shaped display, as shown in FIG. 6, the recording start time and end time may be displayed with marks for the channel of the selected program.
[0056]
In the example of FIG. 6, automatic recording (the start time is a white down triangle, the end time is a white up triangle), and other recordings (the start time is a black down triangle, the end time is a black up triangle) (Triangle) is distinguished from each other, and these display modes are made different.
[0057]
Of course, 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, for example, display may be performed as shown in FIG.
[0058]
【The invention's effect】
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 frequently changes due to the user's operation or the like, this is followed accurately, and The recording status can be displayed easily.
[0059]
Further, the user can distinguish and understand the recording by 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 user's convenience can be further improved.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a data configuration diagram of the recording information. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing how to handle the recording information. [Fig. 5] Display example diagram of the program guide. [Fig. 6] Display example diagram of the program guide. [Fig. 7] Display example diagram of the program guide.
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Tuner part 102 Encoding part 103 Recording part 104 Decoding part 105 Recording / reproduction control part 106 Program information acquisition part 107 Program information management part 108 Remote control input part 109 Recording information management part 110 Program guide display part

Claims (1)

A recording unit for recording and storing video data;
A recording information management unit for managing recording information related to the recording unit;
A program information acquisition unit for acquiring program information related to a selected program;
A program guide display section for creating and displaying a program guide based on the program information acquired by the program information acquisition section and the recording information managed by the recording information management section ;
An input unit for accepting a user's explicit recording operation and a user's recording reservation operation ;
The recording information includes information indicating the channel of the selected program, and information regarding the recording start time and end time for the channel,
In the program guide, one of the vertical axis and the horizontal axis indicates time, the other axis indicates a channel, and the program guide is the program guide itself that indicates the channel selection program indicated by the recording information. a channel, showing the start and end times of recording for that channel, Ri Na is displayed recording displayed superimposed,
The recording unit is not only recording by the user's explicit recording operation and the user's recording reservation operation, which is accepted by the input unit, but performs automatic recording without these operations,
The recording information includes information for identifying whether the recording is based on these operations or whether the recording is based on automatic recording.
The recording display is a recording apparatus in which the recording by these operations and the recording by automatic recording are displayed in different modes .

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