KR101538975B1 - Centralized monitoring system and method for channel - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an integrated monitoring system for a channel and, more specifically, relates to an integrated monitoring system for a channel, capable of effectively monitoring a broadcasting channel for each service region and capable of quickly and effectively corresponding to a failure by using a failure notification function, channel image reading, failure handling history information, and the like for a relevant failure when a failure occurs. According to the present invention, the system enables an image signal of a channel provided for each area to be checked through a central integrated broadcasting monitoring device by receiving an image signal of a channel having a failure from a channel failure management device and is capable of supporting for a failure to be effectively controlled through the comparison between the image signal received from each of the channel failure management devices and image signals having failures, by controlling a plurality of channel failure management devices installed in different service areas, and greatly enhancing the efficiency of integrated management by efficiently detecting a channel failure management device in a different service area where the same type of failure occurs.

Description

Technical Field [0001] The present invention relates to a centralized monitoring system and method,

The present invention relates to a channel integrated monitoring system, and more particularly, to a system and method for effectively monitoring a broadcast channel in a service area by using a failure notification function, a channel image browsing function, And to a channel integrated monitoring system capable of coping with such problems.

Currently, various broadcasting systems using a communication network are provided along with development of various communication networks. For example, CATV using an optical fiber cable and IPTV using an IP communication network are provided.

Such a broadcasting system generally includes a head end for providing broadcast contents provided by various broadcasting companies and a set top box (STB) installed at the subscriber terminal. The head end transmits broadcast contents through a variety of channels through a wired / .

Such service failures occur due to external environmental factors or internal system errors in providing broadcasting contents of broadcasting systems, and the frequency of such service failures is increasing due to an increase in the number of broadcasting channels.

Therefore, it is very important to effectively monitor and resolve such service disruptions in order to provide high-quality services, and various monitoring systems are currently being developed to solve them.

The monitoring system for solving the existing channel failure is constituted by installing STBs as many as the number of channels in the broadcasting branch located in the service area, and monitoring broadcasting signals received through the STB in each broadcasting branch.

Such a system configuration has a problem in that it increases the cost of installing a large number of STBs and extremely low efficiency in installation in a broadcasting station having a large space constraint.

In addition, since the manager of each broadcasting branch directly checks the failure for each channel through the plurality of monitors outputting the broadcasting signal for each channel received through each STB, the burden of the manager is not only significant but also the reliability and accuracy There is a problem in that it is difficult to quickly cope with a service failure because the failover must be dependent on the manager's experience and the fail-over is limited in the case of various kinds of failures.

Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2009-0128035

The present invention monitors a plurality of different channels received through a plurality of set-top boxes for each region, detects a service failure accurately, and provides an alarm to promptly cope with the problem. In addition, It is an object of the present invention to be able to effectively deal with a service failure based on a variety of failure history and response contents.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an image of a channel in which a failure occurs in a specific service area to be centrally transmitted and confirmed, .

The channel integration monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of set-top boxes for receiving and outputting video signals for any one of a plurality of channels from a head end, Detects fault occurrence, generates fault information corresponding to the fault occurrence channel of each channel, collects fault occurrence channel information from the set-top box corresponding to the fault occurrence channel, and transmits the fault information together with the fault information A channel failure management apparatus for setting at least one of the plurality of set-top boxes as an auxiliary set-top box for allocating the failure occurrence channel and transmitting a failure channel image signal output from the auxiliary set-top box, Through the communication network, the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information reception And transmits the failover information corresponding to the failure information to the channel failure management apparatus through the communication network by searching for the failover information stored in advance for failover, and transmits the failover information corresponding to the failure channel To the channel failure management apparatus, and receives the failure channel video signal corresponding to the control signal and outputs the failure channel video signal.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the channel fault management apparatus sets at least one of the plurality of set-top boxes as a channel looping set-top box for channel looping, and sets a plurality of channels preset for each channel looping set- Top box, and when the failure occurs in the channel corresponding to the channel looping set-top box, the failure information and the failure channel information about the channel currently allocated to the channel looping set-top box are transmitted to the broadcast integrated control device .

In one embodiment of the present invention, the channel fault management apparatus suspends a channel change to the channel looping set-top box when a channel failure corresponding to the channel looping set-top box occurs.

As an example of the present invention, the channel failure management apparatus may include a channel controller for allocating different channels to each set-top box, a channel controller for monitoring a channel of each set-top box set through the channel controller, Collects the fault occurrence channel information from the set-top box corresponding to the fault occurrence channel, and transmits the fault occurrence channel information together with the fault information to the broadcasting integrated control apparatus. In response to user input, And outputting the failing channel video signal received through the channel according to the failure channel information according to the control of the channel control unit; The video signal output from the at least one auxiliary set-top box and the auxiliary set- It may include group-channel video transmitter for transmitting a broadcast integrated control device part.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the channel fault detector outputs an alarm when a fault occurs, and when the fault level according to the fault information exceeds a preset reference value, the fault information and the faulty channel information are transmitted to the broadcasting integrated controller To the mobile station.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the broadcast integrated control device outputs an alarm signal upon reception of the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information from the channel failure detection unit, and an alarm notification for receiving failover information corresponding to the failure information And an alarm notification unit for receiving the failure information, the failure occurrence channel information, and the failover information from the alarm notification unit, accumulating the failure information as history information, A failure history management unit for inquiring failover information corresponding to the information and transmitting the failover information to the channel failure detection unit; and a control unit for controlling the channel control unit to allocate a channel according to the failure occurrence channel information to the sub- A remote channel control unit for transmitting the control signal to the control unit, And a remote channel monitoring unit for receiving the failed channel image signal and outputting the failed channel image signal through an output unit.

As an example related to the present invention, if the failover information is not received for a preset time from the time of receiving the failure information, the alarm notification unit transmits failure information and failure occurrence channel information to the preset contact information including SMS or e-mail .

According to the present invention, it is possible to monitor a channel for an entire broadcast service channel through a broadcast integration control device that integrally manages a channel failure management device installed for each service area, and accumulate a failure history and a failover history when a failure occurs, It is possible to acquire the contents of the failover, and on the basis of this, effective channel failures can be promptly provided to the channel failure management device in the region where the failure occurs, so that efficient channel monitoring as well as correct failure can be achieved.

In addition, the present invention can receive a video signal for a failed channel from a channel failure management device, visually check the video signal of a channel served for each region through a centralized broadcast integration control device, It is possible to effectively prevent failures by comparing the video signal received from each channel failure management device and the video signal generated from the failure, The efficiency of the integrated management can be greatly improved by efficiently detecting the fault management apparatus.

1 is a configuration environment diagram of a channel integrated monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention;
2 is a detailed block diagram of a channel integrated monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention;
3 is a block diagram of an operation of a channel fault management apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a block diagram of an operation of a broadcast integrated control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is an operational block diagram of a channel aggregation monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, detailed embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a configuration view of a channel aggregation monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, broadcast contents provided from a broadcast service provider are stored and video signals corresponding to the broadcast contents are transmitted through a plurality of channels A plurality of set-top boxes 10 connected to the head end 1 through a communication network to receive and output the video signals through the communication network, A channel fault management apparatus 100 for detecting a fault by allocating different channels to the box 10, generating fault information and fault occurrence channel information for the faulty channel, and transmitting the fault information through a communication network, The channel fault management apparatus 100 collects fault information and fault occurrence channel information through a communication network, To query the action information may include broadcasting integrated control device 200 to send a channel fault management device (100).

According to the above-described configuration, the broadcast integrated control device 200 can centrally manage a plurality of channel fault management devices 100 installed in each region.

Hereinafter, various embodiments of the channel aggregate monitoring system according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described based on the above-described configuration.

2 is a detailed configuration diagram of a channel fault management apparatus 100 and a broadcast integrated control apparatus 200 constituting a channel integrated monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

First, the channel fault management apparatus 100 and the broadcast integrated control apparatus 200 may be configured to have a communication unit (not shown) for mutual communication through a communication network. Therefore, each component of the channel fault management apparatus 100 and the broadcast integrated control apparatus 200, which will be described below, can communicate through the communication unit, and the communication unit may be included in at least one of the components Of course. Also, various widely known communication methods can be applied to the communication network.

The channel failure management apparatus 100 may include a channel control unit 110, a channel failure detection unit 120, and a channel image transmission unit 130, which are connected to a plurality of set-top boxes.

3, the channel controller 110 allocates different channels to the respective set-top boxes 10, 11, and 12, and the set-top boxes 10, 11, (10) to the assigned channel. Also, the channel controller 110 may collect channel configuration information, current channel information, program information, and the like from each set top box 10 and transmit the collected information to the broadcast integrated controller 200.

In addition, the channel control unit 110 sets at least one of the plurality of set-top boxes 10 as a channel looping set-top box for channel looping, and sets a predetermined channel including a plurality of channels, It is possible to periodically change the channel of the channel looping set-top box according to the looping list information to provide a channel looping function.

This can reduce the number of set-top boxes that are installed as many as the number of channels in the existing service area, thereby reducing costs and reducing the size.

Meanwhile, the channel failure detection unit 120 can detect a failure by monitoring a channel allocated to each set-top box 10.

At this time, the channel failure detection unit 120 can distinguish and monitor the channel failure type. For example, the channel failure detection unit 120 monitors a channel to detect a failure type such as No Input (no input signal), Video Loss (no video signal), Audio Loss (no audio signal), Video Freeze Can be detected.

In addition, the channel fault detection unit 120 may generate fault information according to the type of fault when the fault is detected. The channel fault detection unit 120 may be configured to detect the fault through the first output unit 140 included in or connected to the channel fault management apparatus 100 It is possible to output an alarm signal to notify the occurrence of a fault.

In addition, the channel failure detection unit 120 collects channel information, current program information, and channel configuration information corresponding to the failure occurrence channel from the set top box 10 in which the failure has been detected to generate failure occurrence channel information, Together with the failure occurrence channel information, to the integrated broadcasting control apparatus 200. [

In this case, the channel failure detection unit 120 can determine the failure level based on the failure information, and when the failure level exceeds a preset reference value for failure notification, And failure occurrence channel information to the channel failure management apparatus 100, and may also transmit identification information previously set to the channel failure management apparatus 100. [

Accordingly, the broadcast integration control apparatus 200 can identify the channel fault management apparatus 100 in which the fault occurrence channel is detected based on the identification information, The failover information corresponding to the failure information is retrieved from the history DB 260 and the extracted failover information may be transmitted to the channel failure detection unit 120. [

In this case, the failure history DB 260 may store fail-over information for fail-over contents different for each channel as well as types of failures in advance, and the integrated broadcast controlling apparatus 200 may notify the fail- Failover information corresponding to the failure occurrence channel according to the failure information according to the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information may be extracted and transmitted to the channel failure detection unit 120. [

Accordingly, the channel failure detection unit 120 can output the failover information through the first output unit 140 included in or connected to the channel failure management apparatus 100, and the operator can promptly It can be provided to perform failover.

In the above-described configuration, when the channel failure detecting unit 120 detects a failure of the channel corresponding to the channel looping set-top box, the channel failure detecting unit 120 detects a current channel looping set-top box among the channels included in the channel looping list information from the channel looping set- It is possible to generate failure occurrence channel information for a channel output through the channel.

In addition, when the channel failure detecting unit 120 detects a failure in the channel corresponding to the channel looping set-top box, the channel failure detecting unit 120 controls the channel control unit 110 until the action of the operator is performed to change the channel for the channel looping set- It is possible to pause.

In addition, the channel fault management apparatus 100 may further include a user interface unit (not shown), and the channel fault detection unit 120 may be configured to detect a fault occurring due to a user input through the user interface unit, And transmits the fail-over information to the integrated broadcast control apparatus 200. [0033] FIG. At this time, the failover information may include information on the type of failure and the failure channel.

2, the detailed configuration of the broadcast integrated control device 200 will be described. The alarm notification unit 210, the failure history management unit 220, the remote channel control unit 230, And a monitoring unit 240.

4, the alarm notification unit 210 receives the identification information, the failure information, and the failure occurrence channel information from the channel failure management apparatus 100, and when receiving the failure information, The second output unit included in the control device 200 or individually connected thereto can display the type and content of the fault and the fault occurrence channel according to the fault information and the fault occurrence channel information or output an alarm signal such as an audible alarm sound reproduction have.

At this time, if the failure notification information is not received from the channel fault management apparatus 100 within a preset time from when the failure information is received, the alarm notification unit 210 transmits preset contact information including a telephone number, an e-mail address, Based on the fault information, the contents of the fault can be transmitted by SMS message or e-mail.

In addition, the alarm notification unit 210 can transmit the fail-over information according to the fail-over information to the SMS message or the e-mail according to the preset contact information even when the fail-over information is received.

The alarm notification unit 210 may receive the failover information generated according to the user input from the channel failure management apparatus 100 and provide the failover information to the failure history management unit 220. The failure history management unit 220 may identify History information on the basis of the information, the failure information, the failure occurrence channel information, and the fail-over information, and accumulates and stores the history information in the failure history DB 260.

Accordingly, the alarm notification unit 210 may provide the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information to the failure history management unit 220 at the time of receiving the failure information in cooperation with the failure history management unit 220. The failure history management unit 220 Can retrieve and extract the failover information necessary for failover corresponding to the failure information based on the history information accumulated in the failure history DB 260 and transmit it to the channel failure management apparatus 100. [

At this time, the failure history management unit 220 compares the failure occurrence channel according to the failure occurrence channel information with the failure history DB 260 in addition to the failure information, and inquires and extracts fail-over information corresponding to the failure occurred in the failure occurrence channel It is possible.

In other words, the failure history management unit 220 manages the failure information transmitted from the channel failure management apparatus 100 based on the failure history for each channel cumulatively stored in the failure history DB 260, It is possible to promptly transmit information necessary for the action of the failure according to the generated channel information to the channel failure management apparatus 100. [

The channel failure detection unit 120 of the channel fault management apparatus 100 outputs the failover information transmitted from the integrated broadcast control apparatus 200 through the first output unit 140, It is possible for the operator of the mobile terminal 100 to promptly solve the trouble with reference to the fail-over information according to the fail-over information to support normal broadcasting.

In addition, the channel failure detection unit 120 may be configured to resolve the failure based on the fail-over information transmitted from the failure history management unit 220, and to output the fail-over information input according to an operator (user) input of the channel failure management apparatus 100 To the alarm notification unit 210. The alarm notification unit 210 confirms whether or not a failure has occurred on the basis of the failover information transmitted from the channel failure detection unit 120, By providing the action information and cumulatively storing it as history information in the failure history DB 260, it is possible to secure vast amount of data for fail-over.

In addition, the broadcast integrated control apparatus 200 can be configured as a head end 1 and a central integrated system. It can centrally monitor the faults detected by the plurality of channel fault management apparatuses 100 installed in each region, To the respective channel failure management apparatus 100, an efficient integrated control can be performed.

Meanwhile, the failure history management unit 220 stores channel signal processing path information, channel configuration information, program scheduling information, and the like for all channels corresponding to the channel failure management apparatus 100 as a separate channel management DB (250), extracts the information corresponding to the failure occurrence channel information from the channel management DB (250) when the failure occurs, and transmits the information to the channel failure detection unit (120) of the channel failure management apparatus (100) (140), thereby quickly accessing all relevant information necessary for fail-over and enabling accurate measures for failures.

In this case, the channel signal processing path information means path information of signal processing systems in which a video signal corresponding to a specific channel passes through a channel service business of a broadcasting company. For example, IRD, ReMux, Transcoder, Scrambler, It is a signal processing system that goes through to transmit a video signal for one channel in broadcasting, and it is a system that should be checked in case of trouble.

Meanwhile, the integrated broadcasting control apparatus 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention may provide a function for receiving a video image being actually broadcasted on a channel to be monitored by a local channel from the channel fault management apparatus 100 and visually monitoring the channel.

2 and 5, the remote channel control unit 230 included in the integrated broadcast control apparatus 200 determines whether a failure occurs in a specific channel and a failure It is possible to provide the generated channel information and the identification information from the alarm notification unit 200 and to identify the channel fault management apparatus 100 having the fault among the channel fault management apparatus 100 installed for each fault occurrence channel and region.

Accordingly, the remote channel controller 230 may transmit a control signal to the channel controller 110 of the channel fault management apparatus 100 corresponding to the identification information to change the channel to the fault channel.

The channel controller 110 may set at least one of the plurality of set-top boxes 10 as auxiliary set-top boxes 11 and 12 for outputting a video signal corresponding to a failure occurrence channel according to the control signal. At this time, it is preferable that the channel controller 110 sets at least two of the plurality of set-top boxes 10 to the auxiliary set-top boxes 11 and 12 in preparation for the malfunction of the auxiliary set-top box.

Accordingly, the channel control unit 110 allocates the failure occurrence channel corresponding to the control signal to the auxiliary set-top boxes 11 and 12 based on the control signal received from the remote channel control unit 230, And the auxiliary set-top boxes 11 and 12 change the channel of the channel failure management device 100 to a failure occurrence channel, and the failure-channel image signals received from the head end 1 correspond to the failure occurrence channel, (130).

Then, the channel image transmission unit 130 can receive the failure channel image signal corresponding to the failure occurrence channel from the auxiliary set-top boxes 11 and 12 and transmit the failure channel image signal to the integrated broadcast control apparatus 200.

At this time, the channel image transmitter 130 may transmit the failed channel image signal to the broadcast integrated controller 200 by re-encoding the corresponding channel image signal and IP streaming according to the communication network selected by the broadcasting company .

Meanwhile, the remote channel monitoring unit 240 of the broadcast integration control apparatus 200 may receive the failure channel image signal transmitted from the channel image transmission unit 130 and output the received failure channel image signal through the second output unit 270 .

According to the above-described configuration, the broadcast integrated control device 200 receiving the failure occurrence controls the channel image management apparatus 100 to transmit the failure channel image signal of the failed channel corresponding to the failure occurrence channel, An administrator who manages the integrated broadcasting control apparatus 200 can provide an image to be actually broadcasted on a faulty channel so that the integrated broadcasting control apparatus 200 can visually confirm the actually broadcasted video. Can help to make more precise measures.

In addition, the broadcast integrated control device 200 collectively controls the plurality of channel fault management apparatuses 100 installed in all the service areas according to the input of the manager as a failure occurrence channel, and outputs a video signal corresponding to the failure occurrence channel The channel fault management apparatus 100 of the present invention is capable of mutually comparing the service states of the failure occurrence channels between different regions, thereby efficiently detecting the channel failure management apparatus of another service region in which the same failure occurs, And support the action to be taken.

The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. However, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various changes and modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the present invention. .

1: head end 10: set top box
11, 12: auxiliary set-top box 100: channel image management device
110: channel control unit 120: channel fault detection unit
130: Channel image transmission unit 140: First output unit
200: Broadcast integrated control unit 210: Alarm notification unit
220: failure history management unit 230: remote channel control unit
240: remote channel monitoring unit 250: channel management DB
260: Fault history DB 270: Second output section

Claims (7)

A plurality of set-top boxes receiving and outputting video signals for any one of a plurality of channels from a head end;
Each of the set-top boxes is assigned a different channel, and each channel is monitored to detect whether a failure has occurred, to generate failure information corresponding to a failure occurrence channel of the failure among the channels, Top box to allocate at least one of the plurality of set-top boxes to an auxiliary set-top box for allocating the fault occurrence channel, and transmits the failure channel image output from the auxiliary set- A channel failure management device for transmitting a signal; And
The channel fault management apparatus checks the fault information stored in advance for failover when receiving the fault information and the fault occurrence channel information through a communication network and transmits the fault information corresponding to the fault information to the channel fault management apparatus Transmits to the auxiliary set-top box a control signal for assigning a failure occurrence channel according to the failure occurrence channel information to the channel failure management apparatus, receives the failure channel video signal corresponding to the control signal, Which includes a broadcast integrated control device,
Wherein the channel fault management apparatus sets at least one of the plurality of set top boxes as a channel looping set top box for channel looping and periodically changes and allocates a plurality of channels preset for each channel looping set top box, And when the failure occurs in the channel corresponding to the roof top set box, transmits the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information for the channel currently allocated to the channel roofing set top box to the broadcast integrated control device.
delete The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the channel fault management apparatus suspends the change of the channel for the channel looping set-top box when a failure of the channel corresponding to the channel looping set-top box occurs.
The method according to claim 1,
The channel fault management apparatus
A channel controller for assigning different channels to each set-top box;
Monitoring the channel of each set-top box set through the channel control unit to generate fault information corresponding to the fault occurrence channel, collecting the fault occurrence channel information from the set-top box corresponding to the fault occurrence channel, A channel failure detection unit for generating failover information on a measure of a failure according to the failure information according to a user input and transmitting the generated failover information to the broadcast integrated control device;
One or more auxiliary set-top boxes for outputting the failed channel video signal received through a channel according to the fault occurrence channel information under the control of the channel control unit; And
And a channel image transmission unit for transmitting the video signal output from the auxiliary set-
Wherein the channel monitoring system comprises:
The method of claim 4,
Wherein the channel failure detection unit outputs an alarm upon occurrence of a failure and transmits the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information to the integrated broadcasting control apparatus when the failure level according to the failure information exceeds a preset reference value. Integrated monitoring system.
The method of claim 4,
The broadcast integration control device
An alarm notification unit for outputting an alarm signal upon receiving the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information from the channel failure detection unit and receiving failover information corresponding to the failure information;
Wherein the failure information receiving unit receives the failure information, the failure occurrence channel information, and the fail-over information from the alarm notification unit, accumulates the failure information as history information, and correlates the failure information with the failure information based on the history information A failure history management unit for inquiring failover information to be transmitted to the channel failure detection unit;
A remote channel controller for transmitting to the channel controller a control signal for controlling the channel controller to allocate a channel according to the failure channel information to the auxiliary set-top box; And
A remote channel monitoring unit for receiving the failure channel image signal corresponding to the control signal from the channel image transmission unit and outputting the failure channel image signal through an output unit;
Wherein the channel monitoring system comprises:
The method of claim 6,
Wherein the alarm notification unit transmits the failure information and the failure occurrence channel information to the preset contact information including the SMS or e-mail when failover information is not received for a predetermined time from the time of receiving the failure information. system.

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