Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing – Local trick play processing – With randomly accessible medium
Reexamination Certificate
1996-10-18
2001-05-29
Nguyen, Huy (Department: 2615)
Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing
Local trick play processing
With randomly accessible medium
C386S349000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06240240
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a picture recorder having a reservation means for reserving and recording according a reservation any program of channels transmitted by way of the space or cable.
2. Description of Related Art
The television broadcasting program is transmitted by way of the space or the cable, namely cable television (CATV) to users.
A user selects a preferred program on the channel and watches the program on a TV set or records the program on a picture recorder. Then, a program is selected referring to a printed program table.
However, when many channels are available, for example 150 channels or like that, it is not easy to search a preferred program on a program table on which programs of, for example, 150 channels are listed.
For easy searching of a desired program, the method described herein under has been used, that is, data of the program table of each channel is inserted in the vertical blanking interval of the video signal of a specific channel so that the insertion does not disturb the television signal of the program, and such data is transmitted to users, a user views the transmitted program table data on a television display, and searches the channel to select the desired program of the channel.
This program table data is referred to as electronic program guide, the electronic program guide can be displayed on a screen for individual categories of program such as sports, news, and movies, and on the display of the electronic program guide on a screen, a user can select a program for receiving and can reserve for recording of a program.
One example of a program guide picture of such an electronic program guide displayed on a television set is shown in FIG.
8
. In the figure, the first row shows the title of the program guide picture, “Program Guide” is displayed, the second row shows month, day, and time, the month and day “SEP. 7” and two grids of “8:00 p.m.” and “9:00 p.m.” are shown. In the third and lower rows, channel names are shown in the left hand side and the names of program which will be broadcasted in the time indicated in the grids and the month and the day shown in the second row are shown in the right side hand correspondingly to the channel names. For example, it is shown that in the channel CSP2, NEWS1 will be broadcasted from 8:00 p.m. for one hour, and NEWS2 will be broadcasted from 9:00 p.m. Similarly, in the channel
26
, Famous American will be broadcasted from 8:00 p.m. for 2 hours.
Picture recording is reserved using a program guide picture as described herein above, the detail of the method is described referring to
FIG. 9. A
program guide picture as shown in
FIG. 9A
is displayed and the picture is scrolled until a program to be recorded is displayed on the screen. When the program to be recorded is displayed on the screen, a cursor is moved to the row of the program to be recorded by operating the cursor moving key. Then, the display where the cursor is moved to the row changes as shown in FIG.
9
A. This change involves the change in display mode such as background color or reverse display.
In the example shown in the figure, a cursor is moved to the row of program City Slickers to be broadcasted in the channel SHOW from 8:00 p.m. on SEP. 7 for 2 hours, and the display mode of the program row changes. Then, by pushing the program reservation button (Rec key) in this condition, the recording of this program is reserved.
Upon pushing the button, the display on the screen changes to the picture for displaying the reserved program as shown in
FIG. 9B
, the program reservation picture of the program to be broadcasted on the channel SHOW from 8:00 p.m. on SEP. 7 for 2 hours is displayed for confirmation.
When a program is reserved using an electronic program guide on the above-mentioned electronic appliance, if the program desired to be reserved overlaps even over several minutes with a program which had been reserved already, the electronic appliance determines that the program desired to be reserved overlaps with a reserved program, and the electronic appliance rejects the new program reservation which overlaps.
However, when a user wants to confirm a reserved program which is overlap reserved, if the program desired to be reserved is displayed over a plurality of pages of the program guide picture, it is difficult to find the overlapped program.
Otherwise for example, when a program which overlaps with an already reserved program is desired to be reserved, the user once cancels the program reservation of the already reserved program and then operates the new program reservation. Such operations are troublesome for a user. Further, the program reservation using the program guide involves the reservation by program unit, therefore the time of picture recording can not be changed, for example, when the time of picture recording of a program overlaps partially, the desire that the partial program for picture recording which does not overlap, for example only the first half (second half), is recorded can not be accepted. This is a problem of the conventional program reservation system.
An electronic appliance for picture recording is provided usually with a reservation means for reserving a program by setting the picture recording month and day, picture recording time, and picture recording channel. One example is described referring to
FIG. 10
,
FIG. 10
shows a picture display of such a reservation means, in this example picture display, July 6 WED is inputted and displayed as the picture recording month and day, 7:00 a.m. is inputted and displayed as the picture recording starting time, 8:00 a.m. is inputted and displayed as the picture recording ending time, 6 channel is inputted and displayed as the picture recording channel. A user reserves a program when confirming this displayed picture.
As described herein above, some electronic appliances are provided with two reservation means, namely, the first reservation means for reserving a program using the electronic program guide displayed on the television screen and the second reservation means for reserving a program by a method in which a user sets the picture recording month and day, picture recording time, and picture recording channel.
However, the first reservation means and the second reservation means operate reservation independently, therefore, when reservations by two reservation means overlap, the execution of reservation is involved in confusion, the confusion is a problem.
The problem is described in detail referring to FIG.
11
and
FIG. 12
herein under. The first and second reservation means are executed by microcomputers respectively, and the job is performed with one period of a vertical synchronizing signal of a video signal as one cycle. The one cycle is about 16.7 ms for NTSC system as shown in
FIG. 11A
, time shared one period is assigned for execution time of various jobs. For example in
FIG. 11B
, an example of a job executed by a microcomputer (&mgr;con A) for controlling the second reservation means is described, the job executed in the second shared time is a job for communication with the microcomputer (&mgr;con B) for controlling the first reservation means, the job executed in the fourth shared time is a job for controlling the execution of the second reservation means.
In other words, when the condition that time passes the starting time of the program reserved by the first reservation means is informed by the job executed in the second shared time, picture recording starts. When the time passes the starting time of the program reserved by the second reservation means, picture recording starts by the job executed in the fourth shared time.
If picture recording is reserved by the first reservation means and the second reservation means for the same month and day and the same time, the electronic appliance performs as described herein under.
When the picture recording starting time comes to the time point shown in the upper portion in
FIG. 12A
, &mgr;con A communicates with &mgr;con B b
Hamamoto Kenji
Hanai Tomoyuki
Motoyoshi Noboru
Nagano Kae
Frommer William S.
Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP.
Nguyen Huy
Savit Glenn F.
Sony Corporation
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