Abstract:
A multimedia system and associated control method is provided. The multimedia system includes a remote control, a display device and a multimedia signal generator. A control method of the multimedia system includes steps of transmitting a remote control signal to the display device by the remote control, transmitting a local control signal associated with the remote control signal to the multimedia signal generator, generating an operation command by the multimedia signal generator in response to the local control signal, and executing the operation command by the multimedia signal generator.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATION 
       [0001]    This patent application is based on Taiwan, R.O.C. patent application No. 98111275 filed on Apr. 3, 2009. 
       FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    The present invention relates to a multimedia system and a control method thereof, and more particularly, to a multimedia system of a multimedia signal generator controlled by pressing a remote control and method thereof. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0003]    A new generation television (TV) such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) TV or a plasma display panel (PDP) TV can be connected with a personal computer (PC) via a transmission line, e.g., an analog signal transmission line such as a video graphic array (VGA) transmission line, or a digital signal transmission line such as a DVI transmission line. TV can be a display device for the PC. A user can play audio-visual data of the PC on the TV via a transmission media. For example, video files of music or films from the PC can be played on the TV. 
         [0004]    Refer to  FIG. 1  showing a block diagram of an LCD TV connected to a PC. When an LCD TV  12  is connected to a PC  14  via a transmission line  18  such as an analog transmission line, the LCD TV  12  can serve as a display device for the PC  14 . For example, the LCD TV  12  displays images of multimedia files and outputting corresponding audios of the PC  14 . When the user wishes to control the LCD TV  12 , a remote control  10  dedicated to the TV is needed to adjust the volume or image quality. However, when the user wishes to control the PC  14  to fast forward or to pause the film currently playing, an input device  16 , such as a wired or wireless mouse or a keyboard, for the PC  14  is needed. That is, when the user wishes to control the LCD TV  12  or the PC  14 , the remote control  10  and the input device  16  are respectively used for the adjustments, which is rather inconvenient for the user. 
         [0005]    Therefore, a main object of the present invention is to provide a proper device and method to solve the foregoing problem. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0006]    The main object of the present invention is to provide a multimedia system and control method thereof. A user can control a multimedia signal generator by pressing buttons of a remote control, thereby increasing usage convenience. 
         [0007]    A multimedia control method according to an embodiment of the present invention is disclosed. The method is applied to a display device and a multimedia signal generator. The method comprises steps of transmitting a remote control signal by a remote control to the display device, transmitting a local control signal associated with the remote control signal to the multimedia signal generator, generating an operation command by the multimedia signal generator in response to the local control signal transmitted by the display device, and executing the operation command by the multimedia signal generator. 
         [0008]    A multimedia system according to an embodiment of the present invention is further disclosed. The system comprises a multimedia signal generator capable of executing a multimedia program, a remote control for transmitting a remote control signal, and a display device coupled to the remote control and the multimedia signal generator. The display device receives the control signal transmitted by the remote control, and transmits a local control signal associated with the remote control signal to the multimedia signal generator via wired or wireless transmission. Accordingly, an operation command is generated to control the multimedia program by the multimedia signal generator in response to the local control signal. 
         [0009]    With the multimedia system and control method thereof according to the present invention, a remote control signal generated by pressing buttons of a remote control associates with an operation command of a multimedia signal generator, thereby facilitating the user controlling the multimedia signal generator. 
         [0010]    Following description and figures are disclosed to have a better understanding of the advantages of the present invention. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0011]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a conventional LCD TV connected to a PC. 
           [0012]      FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a multimedia system in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0013]      FIG. 3  ( a ) is a flow chart of a method for transmitting a control signal from a remote control to an LCD TV in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0014]      FIG. 3  ( b ) is a flow chart of a method of a PC system receiving a control signal transmitted by an LCD TV in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
       [0015]    Referring to  FIG. 2  showing a block diagram of a multimedia system in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. The multimedia system according to the present invention comprises a multimedia signal generator  220 , a remote control  200 , and a display device  210 . The remote control  200  comprises at least one button  201  and a signal transmission module  202 . The display device  210  comprises a signal receiving module  212  and a display controller  211  signally connected to the signal receiving module  212 . The display device  210  couples to the multimedia signal generator  220  via a signal transmission line  230 . The multimedia signal generator  220 , e.g., a computer system, comprises a non-volatile memory  221  stored with a driver  222  and an operation system  223 . For example, the non-volatile memory  221  can be a hard disk or a flash memory. In addition, the display device  210  can be an LCD TV, a PDP TV, or a cathode ray tube (CRT) TV, and the signal transmission line  230  is an analog signal transmission line, such as a VGA transmission line, or a digital signal transmission line, such as a DVI transmission line or a high definition multimedia interface (HDMI) transmission line. In the following description, for example, the display device  210  is an LCD TV and the multimedia signal generator  220  is a computer system. 
         [0016]    Generally speaking, an LCD TV supports various signal source input modes, including an HDMI mode, a separated video (S-video) mode, a component video mode, a composite video mode, a digital TV mode, an analog TV mode, and a PC mode. When the LCD TV is in the foregoing modes except the PC mode, a display controller  211  of the LCD TV correspondingly controls a general operation of the LCD TV according to a remote control signal generated from pressing buttons by a user. For example, when the user presses a channel switching button, the display controller  211  performs a control action of switching the channel. The display controller  211  correspondingly performs the control action of adjusting the volume when the user presses a volume adjusting button. 
         [0017]    When the LCD TV is in the PC mode, the LCD TV serves as a display device of a PC system. That is, when the LCD TV is in the PC mode, even if the user presses a certain button, such as a channel switching button or a channel up and down button, the conventional display controller does not perform corresponding predetermined actions. Therefore, the following methods are developed according to the present invention to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art. 
         [0018]    In this embodiment, for example, the display device  210  is an LCD TV, and the multimedia signal generator  220  is a PC system. The driver  222  executed on the PC system processes a signal transmitted from the LCD TV to the PC system via the signal transmission line  230 . The display controller  211  of the LCD TV determines whether the LCD TV is in the PC mode. Under the PC mode, when the user sends a corresponding remote control signal to the LCD TV by pressing a certain button  201  of the remote control  200 , the display controller  211  of the LCD TV, in addition to perform the action specified by the control signal, further transmits a local control signal associated with the remote control signal to the PC system via the signal transmission line  230 . The local control signal is processed by the driver  222  installed in the PC system and further converted to an operating command for controlling the PC system to operate accordingly. After that, the operating command is executed by the operation system  223  of the PC system. Other than the signal transmission line  230  used by the LCD TV to transmit the local control signal to the PC system via the signal transmission line  230 , an inter-integrated circuit (I 2 C) bus of an analog video signal transmission, a transport stream protocol of a universal serial bus (USB), or a wireless transmission media such as Bluetooth may also be applied for transmitting the local control signal. 
         [0019]    Accordingly, when the PC system displays images on the LCD TV under the PC mode, it is rather convenient to execute a multimedia program to play a multimedia file. For example, when the user presses a button number  1  of the remote control  200 , the LCD TV under the PC mode remains unresponsive to a remote control signal generated by pressing the button number  1 . Instead, the control signal, first transmitted to the PC system, is processed and converted by the driver  222  into a multimedia command, which controls a play function button of a multimedia player program (e.g., Mediaplayer program) of the PC system. In other words, by pressing the button number  1  of the remote control  200 , the user is allowed to control/play the multimedia program. Similarly, via the transmission of the LCD TV and the conversion of the driver  222  of the PC system, the channel switching button, for an example, can be programmed to correspondingly control a fast forward function button or a rewind function button of the multimedia player program. Alternatively, buttons with numbers  2 ,  4 ,  6 ,  8  of the remote control  200  are pressed by the user to correspondingly control a mouse cursor of the PC system to move up, left, right and down, and a button with number  5  is pressed to correspondingly control the mouse as clicking action. The remote control signal generated by pressing the foregoing buttons (e.g., the button numbers or the channel switching buttons) associates with the operation commands of, e.g., play, fast forward, rewind, and moving and clicking of the mouse of the PC system. The conversion between the control signal and the operation commands by the driver  222  can be defined via a user interface program executed on the PC system. According to the disclosure of the foregoing embodiments, the LCD TV under the PC mode provides much more convenience by the remote control  200 . For example, a basic multimedia program operation or browsing the Internet can be performed by the remote control  200 . Input devices including a conventional remote control, the mouse, and a keyboard need not be alternately used in multimedia operations. Preferably, the LCD TV may be sold as a peripheral device of the PC system, and a compact disk (CD) recorded with the driver  222  is provided to the user as a service pack along with the LCD TV. 
         [0020]      FIGS. 3(   a ) and  3 ( b ) show flow charts of a control method of operating a multimedia system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Refer to  FIG. 3(   a ) showing the method for transmitting a remote control signal from a remote control to an LCD TV. In Step  300 , a user presses a button  201 . In Step  302 , when the user presses the button  201 , the signal transmitting module  202  transmits a remote control signal corresponding to the button  201  to the LCD TV  210 . In Step S 304 , the signal receiving module  212  of the LCD TV receives the remote control signal and forwards it to the display controller  211 . In Step  305 , the display controller  211  determines whether the LCD TV is under a PC mode. When the LCD TV is not under the PC mode, Step  308  is performed. In Step  308 , the display controller  211  controls the LCD TV according to the remote control signal. Otherwise, Step  306  is performed. In Step  306 , the display controller  211  transmits a local control signal associated with the control signal to the PC system, for example, through an inter-integrated circuit (I 2 C) bus of an analog video signal transmission, a transport stream protocol of a universal serial bus (USB) or a wireless transmission media such as Bluetooth. 
         [0021]    Refer to  FIG. 3(   b ) showing a flow chart of a method of a PC system receiving a local control signal transmitted by an LCD TV. In Step  312 , the PC system receives the local control signal transmitted by the LCD TV via the signal transmission line  230 . After that, in Step  314 , the operation system  223  checks whether an associated application is operating. In Step  320 , when the answer of Step  314  is no, the computer system will not responded to the received local control signal. In Step  316 , when the answer of Step  314  is yes, the driver  222  converts the local control signal to an operating command executable on the operation system  223  of the PC system. In Step  318 , the driver  222  transmits the operating command to the application of the operation system, and the operating command is executed by the application. 
         [0022]    In conclusion, the multimedia system and control method according to the present invention facilitates a user controlling a PC system via a remote control signal by pressing buttons of a remote control. 
         [0023]    While the invention has been described in terms of what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention needs not to be limited to the above embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims which are to be accorded with the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures.