Elastic buffer for data storage with speech data

Details Elastic buffer for data storage with speech data Elastic buffer for data storage with speech data

1997-09-16

2001-04-10

Weaver, Scott L. (Department: 2748)

Telephonic communications

Audio message storage, retrieval, or synthesis

Message management

C379S088130

Reexamination Certificate

active

06215860

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for associating and storing non-speech data with speech data. More particularly, it relates to a method for associating non-speech message data with speech message data as stored within common non-volatile memory, and is particularly useful in digital answering machines or electronic voice mail systems.
2. Background of Related Art
Voice messaging in telephony has been greatly advanced in recent years by the inclusion of digital information associated with a voice message. For instance, the development of caller ID and its ability to transmit digital caller information to a called party has created a demand for the storage of this non-speech data together with the associated speech message. In general, caller ID information allows the phone number and/or name of the calling party to be displayed or otherwise announced at the called party's answering machine or electronic voice mail. Conventional caller ID devices maintain a single separate memory area containing a chronological history of the caller ID information for a predetermined number of recent calls.
Answering or voice messaging machine designs have further benefited from the decreasing costs of non-volatile memory to the point at which digital answering machines and electronic voice mail systems are affordable and common. In these type voice messaging systems, speech data is stored digitally, i.e., in non-volatile memory rather than on a magnetic tape as in older messaging machines.
More recently, conventional digital answering machines have included caller ID capability by combining conventional digital speech storage functions with a conventional caller ID block which displays and maintains a chronological history of recent calls. However, these conventional digital answering machines are basically a physical combination of known caller ID systems with known digital answering machines, with little or no integration of the memory needs of a digital answering machine (or electronic voice mail system) with those of a caller ID system.
FIG. 4
shows a conventional digital answering machine
400
combining the functionality of digital voice recording with caller ID memory and display. A telephone line
110
is input to an analog front end or telephone line interface
402
of the digital answering machine
400
. The digital side of the telephone line interface
402
is connected to both a speech recording functional block
420
and a caller ID functional block
428
.
The speech recording functional block
420
includes a processor
404
and non-volatile speech memory
406
. The processor
404
may be a microprocessor, microcontroller, digital signal processor (DSP) or any other suitable processor or equivalent circuit. The non-volatile speech memory
406
may be any non-volatile digital storage device, e.g., RAM, EEPROM, flash memory, or even digital audio tape (DAT). The non-volatile speech memory
406
may additionally be internal or external to the processor
404
.
FIG. 5
shows sectorization of the speech memory
406
into a plurality of sectors. As shown,
128
memory sectors
502
-
516
,
550
-
564
are contained within the speech memory
406
of one type of conventional answering machine
400
. Each sector contains 4 Kbytes of flash memory. Using today's coding techniques, each sector can store about five to ten seconds of speech data, although various rate coders exist.
FIG. 6
shows that there are 128 memory pages
602
-
610
within each memory sector
502
-
516
,
550
-
564
, and that there are 32 bytes of data in each of the 128 memory pages
602
-
610
. Accordingly, up to 32 bytes of speech data can be stored in each page of speech memory
406
in a typical digital answering machine
400
.
The speech memory
406
of the conventional digital answering machine
400
contains only speech data (other than the header information for the stored speech data). Non-speech data is contained in a separate call history memory
412
(
FIG. 4
) associated with the caller ID functional block
428
.
FIG. 7
shows a message table
800
contained in one sector of conventional speech memory
406
. The message table
800
contains various header information relating to an underlying speech message stored in the same or linked page of speech memory
406
. Conventional header type information includes a time/date stamp
802
indicating the time and date when an underlying speech message was stored. TAG information
804
in the header contains user defined data. Typically, to maximize efficiency in the digital answering machine
400
, the speech data is encoded. Thus, the header includes coder information
806
which relates to the type of encoding used to encode the underlying speech message data, e.g., the particular coder data rate. The new/old information
808
entry in the header of the message table
800
relates to whether or not the underlying speech message has been reviewed at least once by the user of the digital answering machine
400
. The deleted
on-deleted information
810
in the header conventionally indicates whether or not the underlying speech message has been deleted by the user. The number of bytes in the last sector information
812
relates to the length of the speech message in the last sector in which the speech message is stored, avoiding replay of the unused portion of the last sector when replaying stored messages. The link list information
814
in the header indicates the addresses of all sectors used to store the speech message. Of course, additional header information
816
may be included in the message table
800
as desired.
Prior art systems store speech data in memory separate from the memory for storing non-speech data thereby requiring three management tables to associate the non-speech data with its underlying speech data, i.e., 1) speech data table, 2) non-speech data table, and 3) links between tables (1) and (2). Conversely, the present invention as will be described in more detail below provides integration of non-speech data with associated speech data into a common memory structure to require only one message table for each speech plus non-speech message.
FIG. 8
shows a sector in the speech memory
406
containing the underlying speech message
902
-
908
. The sector shown in
FIG. 8
is the first listed in the link list
814
of the message table
800
for the underlying speech message. Zero, one or more pages of speech data
902
-
908
may be listed in the link list
814
of a message table
800
for a single speech message.
Referring back to the digital answering machine shown in
FIG. 4
, the caller ID functional block
428
contains a caller ID decoder
414
which demodulates and interprets the caller ID information input over telephone line
110
associated with a call. Once decoded, the caller ID decoder
414
stores the caller ID data in the call history memory
412
. The caller ID information decoded by the caller ID decoder
414
may be displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI) display
408
to indicate, e.g., the phone number, name or other information relating to the calling party. Conventionally, the GUI display
408
displays the caller ID information regarding any one of the most recent calls to the digital answering machine
400
. Typically the number of calls for which the call history
412
retains caller ID information is limited only by the length of the call history memory. Moreover, non-speech information may easily be retained in the call history memory even after the associated voice message has been deleted. However, this separation of the non-speech data, e.g., the caller ID information, from the speech data may cause confusion to the user.
FIG. 9
shows a conventional call history memory
412
. Typically, call history memory
412
has a fixed length, and thus is capable of storing only a fixed amount of caller ID information from only a fixed number of recent callers. Call history information must then occasionally be deleted from the call history memory
4

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