KR20030030433A - Receiving method of electronic program guide in digital television broadcasting - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for receiving program information of digital television broadcasting is provided to update all program information of the whole digital broadcasting channels by a simple operation, thereby confirming the latest program information of the whole digital broadcasting channels stored at a PSIP database. CONSTITUTION: A CPU judges whether a user requests to update program information stored at a PSIP(Program and System Information Protocol for Terrestrial Broadcasting and Cable) database by operating keys(200-206). If so, the CPU controls a tuner part for tuning the whole digital broadcasting channels in order(208). Program information is extracted from receiving broadcasting signals of the tuned digital broadcasting channels and the program information is stored at the PSIP database to be updated(210).

Description

Receiving method of electronic program guide in digital television broadcasting}

According to the present invention, in the digital television receiver of the Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) method, the latest program information provided by all digital broadcasting channels provides program information stored in a Program and System Information Protocol for Terrestrial Broadcasting and Cable (PSIP) database. EPG: Electronic Program Guide) relates to a method for receiving program information of a digital television broadcast that can be easily updated and stored so that a user can check the latest program information.

In general, the digital television broadcasting system adopted in the Republic of Korea and the United States is ATSC (Advanced Television System Committee). In the ATSC scheme, it is prescribed to transmit predetermined additional information related to a program according to the PSIP standard.

The predetermined program-related additional information sent from the PSIP includes a master guide table (MTG), a terrestrial virtual channel table (TVCT), a rating region table (RTT), an event information table (EIT), an extended text table (ETT), and a system (TTT). Time Table).

The EIT includes information such as a title, a start time, and a broadcast time for each program, and informs the user of the program information using the information of the EIT.

1 is a diagram showing the syntax of the EIT.

In FIG. 1, title_text () represents a title of a program, start_time represents a start time of a program, and length_in_seconds represents a broadcast time.

According to the general PSIP specification, it is possible to send program information of different broadcasting channels together, but for various reasons, only information of programs belonging to one broadcasting channel is sent. For example, the MBC broadcasting channel only transmits information related to a program to be broadcast in the MBC broadcasting channel, and is related to a program broadcasting in another broadcasting channel such as a KBS broadcasting channel or an SBS broadcasting channel. The information is not sent by the MBC broadcasting channel.

Fig. 2 shows the possibility of checking the contents of the PSIP database and the version of the stored information for each digital broadcasting channel. For example, assuming that the broadcasting channel that the digital television receiver is currently receiving and watching is the KBS broadcasting channel, the digital television may have processed the EIT included in the digital broadcasting signal received in the KBS broadcasting channel. In the PSIP database in the receiver, the program information for the 'KBS broadcast channel' is stored as the latest one. In addition, other broadcasting channels, that is, 'MBC broadcasting channel', 'SBS broadcasting channel' and 'EBS broadcasting channel', etc., if previously received and watched, the program information at the time of viewing will be stored in the database. For example, program information will not be stored in the database if it has not been received and viewed before.

In the worst case, if the user operates the digital television receiver and keeps watching 'KBS Broadcasting Channel' only, and if they have not watched other broadcasting channels, the PSIP database will have only the program information of 'KBS Broadcasting Channel'. Program information of a broadcast channel will not be stored.

In general, program information is subject to change due to the broadcasting station, so in order to provide accurate program information to viewers, digital television receivers must continuously monitor the program information of the broadcasting channel and display it when the viewer requests it. Monitoring program information is called a version check and uses the 'version_number' field of FIG.

For example, if the 'version_number' of the EIT is changed from '1' to '2', the digital television receiver must modify the database by processing the EIT whose 'version_number' is '2'. Only possible for the broadcast channel currently being received.

Thus, when the user of the digital television receiver wants to check the program information of all digital broadcasting channels, the program information can be accurately checked for the currently received broadcast channel, but the program information for other broadcast channels not currently received. Could not be confirmed correctly.

In addition, although the user may select all the digital broadcasting channels one by one and confirm the program information of each broadcasting channel accurately, this has caused a lot of inconvenience for the user, since the user needs to switch the broadcasting channels that are individually received.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to update and store the program information stored in the PSIP database with the latest program information while automatically tuning all digital broadcasting channels sequentially when the user requests the update of the program information. The present invention provides a method for receiving program information of digital television broadcasting.

In the method for receiving program information of the digital television broadcasting of the present invention having the above object, the central processing unit determines whether the user requests the update of program information by operating a key, and when the request for updating the program information is determined, The program unit extracts program information from the received broadcast signal of the tuned digital broadcast channel and updates and stores it in the PSIP database by sequentially tuning the entire digital broadcast channel one by one by controlling the tuner unit. It is determined whether the update storing operation is completed, and when the update operation is not completed, the operation is repeatedly performed from the second process and terminated when the update operation is completed.

1 is a diagram showing the syntax of the EIT among the program-related additional information transmitted in digital television broadcasting,

2 is a view for explaining the possibility of checking the PSIP database and version for each digital broadcast channel,

3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a digital television receiver according to the method for receiving program information of a digital television broadcast of the present invention;

4 is a signal flow diagram illustrating a method for receiving program information of a digital television broadcast of the present invention.

* Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings *

100: antenna 110: tuner

120: demodulator 130: transport demultiplexer

140: program information decoder 150: PSIP database

160: central processing unit 170: video decoder

180: VDP 190: Audio Decoder

Hereinafter, a method of receiving program information of digital television broadcasting of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings of FIGS. 3 and 4.

3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a digital television receiver to which the method for receiving program information of digital television broadcasting of the present invention is applied. As shown, a tuner unit 110 for tuning a signal of a predetermined broadcast channel selected according to a tuning control signal among signals received through the antenna 100, and a demodulator for demodulating an output signal of the tuner unit 110. 120, a transport demultiplexer 130 for outputting program related additional information such as MGT, TVCT, RRT, EIT, ETT, STT, and video and audio streams from the output signal of the demodulator 120; And a program information decoder 140 for separating program information included in an EIT from an output signal of the transport demultiplexer 130 and outputting a packet identifier setting signal to the transport demultiplexer 130. ), A PSIP database 150 for storing program information separated by the program information decoder 140, and the tuner unit 110 in the case where the user requests the update of program information. A central processing unit 160 for sequentially tuning a broadcast channel, a video decoder 170 for decoding the video stream separated by the transport demultiplexer 130, and a video output by the video decoder 170 A video display processor (VDP) 180 for processing and outputting a signal to be displayed on a screen, and an audio decoder 190 for decoding an audio stream separated by the transport demultiplexer 130 and outputting an audio signal. It is provided.

The digital television receiver having such a configuration is a number of broadcast signals are input to the tuner unit 110 through the antenna 100, the tuner unit 110 according to the control signal of the central processing unit 160 among the input broadcast signals The demodulator 120 demodulates the output signal of the tuner unit 110 by tuning and outputting a digital broadcast signal of a predetermined channel, and the transport demultiplexer 130 demultiplexes the transport to output additional program related information. do.

The program information decoder 150 decodes the program related additional information output by the transport demultiplexer 130 to extract program information, and stores the extracted program information in the PSIP database 150. In addition, the program information decoder 150 decodes the program related additional information output by the transport demultiplexer 130 to output a packet identifier setting signal, and the packet identifier setting signal is sent to the transport demultiplexer 130. Is entered.

Then, the transport demultiplexer 130 separates the video stream and the audio stream based on the input packet identifier setting signal from the demodulation signal of the demodulator 120.

The video stream separated by the transport demultiplexer 130 is decoded by the video decoder 170 and digitally processed by the DSP 180 and output. The audio stream separated by the transport demultiplexer 130 is decoded and output by the audio decoder 190.

In this operation, when a user wants to update program information of all channels, a request signal for program information update is sent to the CPU 160 by operating a remote control transmitter or an operation command input unit (not shown). When is input, the central processing unit 160 controls the tuner 110 so that the tuner 110 sequentially tunes the entire digital broadcast channel one by one.

At this time, the program information decoder 140 decodes program related additional information of all digital broadcasting channels tuned by the tuner unit 110 sequentially, extracts program information, and extracts the extracted program information to the PSIP database 150. Save and update.

In this manner, when the tuner unit 110 completes an operation of updating program information while sequentially tuning all digital broadcasting channels one by one, the central processing unit 160 completes an operation of updating program information, and the PSIP database 150 is completed. ) Stores the latest program information of all digital broadcasting channels. When the user wants to check the program information, the latest program information of all digital broadcasting channels can be checked.

4 is a signal flow diagram illustrating a method of receiving program information of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, when the user turns on the digital television receiver in step 200, the central processing unit 160 performs an initialization operation in step 202, and in accordance with the user's key operation in step 204. Controls the operation of the digital television receiver. That is, a predetermined operation such as changing the digital broadcasting channel to be tuned or adjusting the output level of the audio signal is performed according to the user's key operation.

In such a state, when the user requests the display of the program information and the program information display request signal is input to the central processing unit 160 in step 206, the central processing unit 160 performs the tuner unit 110 in step 208. After controlling to tune the first digital broadcast channel, in step 210, program information is extracted from the tuned digital broadcast channel, and the program information stored in the PSIP database 150 is updated.

That is, the demodulator 120 demodulates the received signal of the first digital broadcast channel tuned by the tuner 110, and demultiplexes the transport demultiplexer 130 to extract additional program-related information. The program information decoder 140 decodes the additional information to extract program information, and stores the extracted program information in the PSIP database 150.

In the next step 212, it is determined whether the digital broadcast channel to be tuned is the last digital broadcast channel, and if it is not the last digital broadcast channel, the next digital broadcast channel is tuned in step 214 and then the step 210 is performed. The program is repeatedly performed to extract all program information while sequentially tuning all digital broadcasting channels, and the PSIP database 150 is updated with the extracted program information.

In this way, when the operation of updating the program information while tuning the entire digital broadcasting channel is completed, the CPU 160 determines that the digital broadcasting channel is the last digital broadcasting channel in step 212, and ends the operation of updating the program information. .

As described in detail above, when the user requests the display of program information, the present invention automatically tunes all digital broadcasting channels one by one to extract program information, and stores and updates the extracted program information in a PSIP database. It is possible to update all program information of all digital broadcasting channels by a simple operation, and the user can check the latest program information of all digital broadcasting channels stored in the PSIP database.

Claims (2)

A first step of determining, by the central processing unit, whether the user requests to update program information stored in the PSIP database by operating a key; A second step of, when the request for updating the program information is determined in the first step, the central processing unit controlling the tuner to sequentially tune all digital broadcasting channels one by one; And And extracting program information from a received broadcast signal of the digital broadcast channel tuned in the second process, storing the program information in a PSIP database, and updating the program information. The method of claim 1, wherein the second process comprises: And determining whether the operation of extracting and updating the program information is completed while tuning the entire digital broadcasting channel.