Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Remote data accessing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-02
2002-01-15
An, Meng-Al T. (Department: 2154)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Remote data accessing
C709S219000, C709S238000, C709S242000, C709S213000, C709S250000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C711S161000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06339786
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal device, and more specifically, it relates to a terminal device performing prescribed processing on multimedia data transmitted by a remotely set data broadcasting station.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, a terminal device receiving and displaying multimedia data has been developed. The terminal device gets the multimedia data in the following manner: Multimedia data is previously stored in a WWW (World Wide Web) server. The terminal device accesses this WWW server through the Internet on the basis of a user's instruction, for retrieving necessary multimedia data. Conventionally, a method of getting multimedia data has been mainly the so-called pull type, such a method that the user pulls out the data.
Against the pull type, recently a demand for a method of pushing out data toward the user (the so-called push type), i.e., multimedia data broadcasting is increasing. For example, DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) of EUREKA-147 project in Europe exactly corresponds to this push type. In this multimedia data distribution, the user indicates to the terminal device the channel transmitting necessary data. The terminal device automatically receives and displays the data through the channel. Thus, the user of the terminal device can readily get multimedia data with operation feeling similar to that for the conventional television or radio. This multimedia data distribution has such an advantage that processing of retrieving necessary data may not be performed.
In this multimedia data distribution, the broadcasting station cannot receive a request from the user's terminal device in real-time. Consequently, it is difficult to control the contents of broadcast multimedia data on the user side. For example, even if the user desires to get already distributed multimedia data, he cannot transmit the request therefor to the broadcasting station, and hence it is difficult to get the multimedia data. As a method of solving such a problem and providing the user with a degree of flexibility for reference to the multimedia data, it is conceivable to set in the terminal device a storage device (typically a hard disk drive) for storing and managing multimedia data. Thus, when continuously storing multimedia data distributed from the broadcasting station in the storage device, the terminal device can get, for example, already broadcasted multimedia data from this storage device. Thus, the degree of flexibility for the user in reference to the multimedia data is improved.
Multimedia data has a large size. In order to continuously store the multimedia data, the terminal device must comprise a storage device having a sufficiently large capacity. However, it is difficult for the terminal device to comprise a mass storage device due to restriction of its space and cost. Therefore, the terminal device must effectively utilize a storage device having a limited capacity. As one method of such effective utilization, there is such a method that the storage device stores and deletes received multimedia data in a time-series manner so that the terminal device can regularly get newest multimedia data, for example. In this method, however, there has been such a problem that multimedia data frequently referred to by the user is also deleted in a time-series manner.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a terminal device which can effectively utilize the capacity of a storage device without deleting multimedia data frequently referred to by the user.
The present invention has the following aspects to achieve the object above.
A first aspect of the present invention is directed to a terminal device performing prescribed processing on multimedia data distributed by a data broadcasting station distributing multimedia data identical with each other at time intervals in a broadcasting form, comprising:
a receiving part receiving the multimedia data distributed by the data broadcasting station, a management part creating and managing management information as to the multimedia data received by the receiving part,
a storage device storing the multimedia data for which the management information has been created by the management part, and
a reference part requesting multimedia data to the management part while letting the user refer to the requested multimedia data,
wherein the management part
creates as part of the management information a retention coefficient indicating whether or not to delete each multimedia data in the storage device,
decrements each created retention coefficient at a prescribed timing while incrementing the retention coefficient of the multimedia data requested by the reference part,
deletes, when the created retention coefficient is decremented to a prescribed value, the corresponding multimedia data from the storage device, and
deletes, when new multimedia data identical to old multimedia data in the storage device is inputted, the old multimedia data from the storage while letting the management information for the old multimedia data inherited as management information for the new multimedia data.
As described above, in the first aspect, the management part increments/decrements the retention coefficient on the basis of the frequency of reference by the user to the multimedia data. Namely, if the multimedia data is not at all referred to, its retention coefficient is immediately decremented to the prescribed value. If the multimedia data is frequently referred to, on the other hand, the retention coefficient is incremented. When the retention coefficient reaches the prescribed value, the management part deletes the corresponding multimedia data from the storage device. Therefore, multimedia data having a small frequency of reference is preferentially deleted from the storage device, while multimedia data having a large frequency of reference is contrarily retained in the storage device over a long period. According to the first aspect, as described above, the multimedia data in the storage device can be customized in a state preferable for the user. Further, multimedia data having a small frequency of reference is immediately deleted, whereby the capacity required by the storage device can be suppressed.
In the first aspect, further, multimedia data identical with each other is distributed to the terminal device. The management part lets the management information for the old multimedia data inherited as the management information for the new multimedia data. If this old multimedia data is frequently referred to by the user, its retention coefficient has a large value. Therefore, the new multimedia data, the retention coefficient of which is set from the beginning at a large value, is hard to delete from the storage device. Namely, multimedia data highly interesting to the user and being new are regularly stored in the storage device. Thus, it follows that the multimedia data in the storage device are customized for the user in a further preferable state.
According to a second aspect, in the first aspect, the management part further
creates, when the multimedia data requested by the reference part is not stored in the storage device, temporary-management-information as to the multimedia data in advance, and
lets, at a time point when the multimedia data requested by the reference part is inputted in the management part, the corresponding temporary-management-information inherited as management information for the inputted multimedia data.
The reference part may request multimedia data not yet stored in the storage device to the management part. Such multimedia data requested but not yet stored is in the future transmitted and stored in the storage device. As described above, in the second aspect, the management part creates, even if the requested multimedia data is not yet stored in the storage device, temporary-management-information for the multimedia data. The management part creates, at the time point when such multim
Hanaura Toshitaka
Kawano Shinji
Nakabe Futoshi
Ueda Eiji
An Meng-Al T.
El-Hady Nabil
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
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