Television – Receiver circuitry – Remote control
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-16
2002-10-22
Kostak, Victor R. (Department: 2711)
Television
Receiver circuitry
Remote control
C348S522000, C340S003500, C340S870030
Reexamination Certificate
active
06469751
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a remote control device for remote-controlling a plurality of appliances such as TV sets, video sets and the like and a computer readable recording medium for recording the remote control program. More particularly, this invention relates to a remote control device that is easy to use and a computer readable recording medium for recording the remote control program.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Recently, with an increase in the performance, decrease in the size and price of a microprocessor, remote controllers have been provided with household electrical appliances (hereinafter referred to as control object appliance) such as TV sets, video sets, audio visual (AV) devices and the like for controlling the operation of these control object appliance remotely. The control object appliance can be controlled from a remote place without being touched by the user so that the operability thereof is improved. However, the number of remote controllers increase with an increase in the number of household electrical appliances and the remote controllers must be used selectively depending upon the control object appliance. Therefore, there occurs a problem that the operability drops. A means for solving this problem effectively has been demanded.
As described above, conventionally, one remote controller is provided with each of the control object appliances and the remote control is performed with the help of infrared rays or the like. As a result, when a number of control object appliances are to be controlled then the corresponding remote controllers are required to be operated successively. For example, when a user wants to operate both a TV set and video set, then the user presses the ‘power key’ of the remote controller corresponding to the TV set and successively presses the ‘power key’ of the remote controller corresponding to the video set. Consequently, after the power of the TV set is turned ON, the power of the video set is turned ON.
The user then presses a desired ‘channel’ key of the is remote controller corresponding to the TV set and further presses a ‘record’ key of the remote controller corresponding to the video set. Consequently, after the desired channel is displayed on the TV set the video set starts the recording of the program on that channel. Accordingly, a complicated operation involving a plurality of remote controllers is required to be performed when remote controlling a plurality of appliances.
In order to solve the above problem, there is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-241555 a multi-remote controller capable of remote-controlling a plurality of control object appliances with a single remote controller. This kind of the multi-remote controller is provided with an individual registration function and a learning function. The individual registration function is a function in which each of the functions of the plurality of the remote controllers are individually registered in correspondence to different keys. The learning function is a function in which a plurality of functions are registered in correspondence to a single key.
When functions of the plurality of the remote controllers are to be registered individually with the respective keys of the multi-remote controller then the remote controller and multi-remote controller are positioned in such a way that they face each other and the user presses the remote controller key. The multi-remote controller thus receives a command from the remote controller and registers a function of the remote controller in correspondence to a key selected beforehand. By repeating such a registration procedure the user registers each function of the plurality of the remote controllers in the multi-remote controller.
On the other hand, when a plurality of functions of the remote controller are to be registered with a key of the multi-remote controller then the user carries out a series of operations (for example, pressing the ‘power’ key—pressing the ‘channel’ key—pressing the ‘volume’ key etc.). After the multi-remote controller receives commands transmitted in succession corresponding to a series of operations as a command string, it makes the received command string correspond to a the selected key so as to register the plurality of functions with this key. When such a key is pressed then a signal corresponding to the command string is transmitted to the control object appliance and a series of operations is performed just by a one-touch operation.
Further, conventionally, a remote control device constituted of a computer having the above described multi-remote controller function has been proposed. In this remote control device a personal computer is combined with an infrared (IR) commander for transmitting a command signal to a control object appliance. A plurality of commands in a plurality of remote controllers are stored beforehand in a storage device and a sending order of the plural commands is programmed for a series of operations. Then, like the multi-remote controller, a command string signal is transmitted from the IR commander to the control object appliance.
As described above, with the emergence of the multi-remote controller or the remote control device constituted of a computer, the problem that a plurality of remote controllers are required to be operated separately in a troublesome way is solved.
However, because the conventional multi-remote controller or the remote control device constituted of a computer require a very complicated registration procedure this system is also not easy to use. Therefore, an ordinary user, particularly a user who is not accustomed to the electronic appliances will not possibly use such a multi-remote controller because the above registration procedure is complicated, or will preferably use the separate remote controllers even if they are unconvertible to use.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in light of the above problem. It is an object of this invention to provide a remote control device capable that is easy to use because it does not require a complicated registration procedure to be performed by the user, and to provide a computer readable recording medium for recording a remote control program.
According to the first aspect of the invention, if the user carries out a serial operation of remote control, a plurality of commands are issued continuously from the plurality of the command issuing unit so that a control object appliance corresponding to a command is remote-controlled. At this time, the above plural commands are monitored by the monitoring unit and registered in a database as a command string by the database registering unit. This operation is repeated, so that a plurality of commands relating to the serial operation of the user are registered in the database.
If at least a command is issued from a plurality of command issuing units by the user operation, the estimating unit retrieves a command string containing the issued command from the database and estimates a command having the highest probability of occurrence as a command which will be issued by a plurality of command issuing units according to this retrieval result, for example. Then, if the above estimated command is issued by the command issuing unit instead of the plurality of the command issuing units, the given control object appliance is remote-controlled.
According to the first aspect, as described above, a monitoring result of commands issued from the plurality of the command issuing units is held as a command string in the database and a command to be issued from the plurality of the command issuing units based on this database is automatically issued by the estimated command issuing unit. Thus, ease of use by the user can be improved without a necessity of troublesome registering operation on the user side.
According to the second aspect of the invention, a monitoring result on commands issued from the plurality of command issuing units is held in the database with time information (for ex
Isobe Yasuhiko
Otake Teruo
Fujitsu Limited
Kostak Victor R.
Staas & Halsey , LLP
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