Playback device having text display and communication with remote database of titles

A low-cost library management solution for consumer music selection systems. A multiple CD changer includes non-volatile storage for textual title and track information about the CDs in the changer. Also included is a communication device that communicates with a remote database to obtain the textual information. Instead of using a modem or an ISDN terminal adapter, the communication device uses a DTMF generator/detector to communicate with a front-end processor of the remote database using DTMF signals, or uses a conventional serial or parallel interface to communicate with an external device connected to the Internet that transmits queries formulated by the changer to the remote database and provides the response to the changer.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
 1. Field of the Invention
 The present invention is directed to an apparatus for reproducing at least
 audio signals and, more particularly, for an apparatus that displays the
 title of the recording being reproduced and obtains the titles by
 communicating with a remote database.
 2. Description of the Related Art
 Compact discs (CD) have been available to consumers for over ten years and
 individual collections of hundreds of CDs are not uncommon. As prices have
 declined, sales have increased for CD changers capable of storing and
 selectively playing one hundred or more CDs. However, a significant
 drawback has held back the success of this type of CD changer; with so
 many recordings out of sight in a single device, selecting a desired
 recording is not easily accomplished. Typical CD changers do not provide
 any convenient method for cataloging the CD collection or tracking
 internal rearrangement of the current collection.
 The problem is not limited to music CDs. The CD format is used for other
 types of sound recordings, as well as graphics (CD-G), video (CD Video)
 and computer accessible data and programs (CD-ROM, CD-R, etc.). Other
 formats, such as MiniDiscs.TM. and digital video (or versatile) discs
 (DVDs) have received varied acceptance by consumers and playback devices
 for these formats would have similar problems.
 Some of the tools to solve the problem are available. Some CD players are
 capable of storing textual information about the discs, but the interface
 used is so cumbersome that relatively few users enter all of the
 information that is available from other sources. Specifically, computer
 databases of CD title and track information have been available for over
 five years. For example, CDDB is a consumer supported database accessed
 via the Internet by over 150 programs to display CD title and track
 information of CDs played using the CD drive of a personal computer. These
 programs automatically contact CDDB to obtain title and track information
 about a CD when it is first played and store the information for
 subsequent times that the CD is played. Different vendors have sold
 systems, such as TuneBase.TM. and TuneBasic.TM. from Escient, for several
 years that provide a local database for conventional music or audio/video
 systems by interfacing with CD changers that store one hundred or more
 CDs. However, all of these solutions require the power (and cost) of a
 computer, preferably with a connection to the Internet to obtain
 up-to-date CD title and track information.
 U.S. Pat. No. 5,751,672 to Yankowski discloses two embodiments of a system
 that includes a CD changer and a modem for communication with a remote
 database of CD title and track information. The first embodiment of the
 '672 patent utilizes a separate computer, like the systems described in
 the preceding paragraph. The second embodiment of the '672 patent
 incorporates at least an internal modem and communication software in a CD
 changer to obtain CD title and track information for a recording that is
 being played. A variation of the second embodiment of the '672 patent
 incorporates "mass storage" in the CD changer to maintain a local database
 of the CDs in the changer, like the databases stored in computers and
 other systems that access CDDB. However, even the simplest embodiment
 disclosed in the '672 patent still requires all the hardware and software
 to communicate with a remote database by a modem. An ISDN terminal adapter
 is the only alternative to a modem taught by the '672 patent.
 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
 It is an object of the present invention to provide a CD changer with
 enhanced capabilities at a reasonable cost.
 It is another object of the present invention to provide a recording
 reproduction apparatus capable of displaying textual information about
 recordings, obtained from a remote database without requiring a modem.
 The above objects can be attained by an apparatus for playback of
 recordings and communication with a remote database to obtain information
 about the recordings, including a recorded signal output device to
 reproduce a recorded signal from a recording; a display to display at
 least textual data; a memory to store a textual recording name of the
 recording for output to the display in response to output of the recorded
 signal by the recorded signal output device; a communication device to
 obtain the textual recording name by communication with the remote
 database without using a modem or a terminal adapter; and a controller,
 coupled to the recorded signal output device, the display, the memory and
 the communication device, to control the apparatus to establish
 communication with the remote database, query the remote database based on
 information in the recorded signal reproduced from the recording and
 supply the textual recording name of the recording from the remote
 database to the memory.
 Preferably, the recorded signal output device, display, memory,
 communication device and controller are within a single enclosure. Also,
 the memory preferably stores information about several recordings that
 previously have been inserted into the apparatus. One of the methods for
 communication without using a modem is to generate and detect dual-tone
 multifrequency signals in the communication device to communicate with the
 remote database. Another method is to use an interface, coupled to the
 communication device, mounted in the enclosure, and using a standard set
 by one of the Electronic Industry Association and the Institute of
 Electrical and Electronics Engineers, such as RS-232 or IEEE 1394, for
 external communication with another device capable of communicating with
 the remote database.
 When the remote database is connected to a public computer network, the
 apparatus may be connected to a local network coupled to the public
 computer network. In this case, the apparatus may include a network
 interface, coupled to the communication device and mounted in said
 enclosure, for external communication with the local network and at least
 one of the controller and the communication device may provide a TCP/IP
 stack for communication with the remote database via the network interface
 and the local and public computer networks.
 These together with other objects and advantages which will be subsequently
 apparent, reside in the details of construction and operation as more
 fully hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the
 accompanying drawings forming a part hereof, wherein like numerals refer
 to like parts throughout.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
 Illustrated in FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an apparatus according to the
 present invention. An enclosure 10 surrounds recording transport 12 and
 controller 14 of the apparatus. Controller 14 is coupled to recording
 transport 12 and both volatile memory 16 and non-volatile memory 18.
 Mounted at the surface of the enclosure 10 are display 20 and
 communication device 22, both of which are also coupled to controller 14.
 One or more user interface devices are also connected to controller 14,
 such as infrared remote sensor 24 or keyboard 26 which may be external to
 the apparatus as illustrated in FIG. 1, or a smaller keypad mounted at the
 surface of the apparatus.
 Recording transport 12 may be any conventional recorded signal output
 device with the ability to at least mount and eject the recordings and
 supply the recorded signals stored on the recordings to controller 14. In
 most cases, enclosure 10 will be used to store multiple recordings and
 recording transport 12 will move the recordings between their storage
 locations and a playback area. The present invention may be used for
 compact discs, DVDs, MiniDiscs.TM., or even non-disc recording media, such
 as tapes or solid state memory. The present invention is not limited to
 music recordings, but may used with video and data recordings where
 additional information about the recordings is stored in a remote database
 13. The recorded signals include anything stored on the recordings,
 including control information, such as table of contents (TOC) data. In
 the following description, the term compact disc or its abbreviation CD
 will be used interchangeably with "recording" since CDs are commonly used
 recordings today. Thus, recording transport 12 may be a CD changer
 mechanism.
 Controller 14 may be any suitable control device, such as Microchip
 PIC16C67 or Motorola 6805 or the controller used in conventional changers.
 An advantage to using a programmable controller like the PIC16C67 is that
 it is possible to download a new program for controller 14 to change the
 operation of the apparatus, as described below. Furthermore, more than one
 device may be used to perform the functions of controller 14. For example,
 conventional CD changer operations may be performed by one device and the
 processing of disc IDs and database queries described below may be
 performed by a second device which is more likely to be programmable.
 Volatile memory 16 may be used for storing information obtained from the
 recorded signal output by recording transport 12, such as information
 obtained from the table of contents or TOC on the recording. An example of
 what is stored in volatile memory 16 is illustrated in FIG. 2. The TOC of
 CDs, for example, as described in chapter 5 of Compact Disc Technology, by
 Heitaro Nakajima and Hiroshi Ogawa published in 1992 by Ohmsha, Ltd., 3-1
 Kanda Nishiki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101, Japan, has entries for each
 track in the format illustrated in FIG. 3 repeated as many times as
 possible in the lead-in area at the beginning of the CD. Volatile memory
 16 may be provided by any conventional semiconductor random access memory.
 A database of textual information about CDs that have been played or stored
 in enclosure 10 is maintained in non-volatile memory 18, as illustrated in
 FIG. 4, with a typical record layout in FIG. 5. In addition, non-volatile
 memory 18 may store the program for controller 12 and other information.
 Non-volatile memory 18 may be provided by electrically erasable
 programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) or semiconductor random access
 memory with a battery backup, or magnetic storage, such as a small hard
 drive, or any other conventional non-volatile memory.
 Display 20 may be any conventional display capable of displaying a
 sufficient amount of textual information to enable a user to read the
 title of the recording and, preferably, the tracks or segments of the
 recording also. For example, a liquid crystal display (LCD) having
 sufficient segments to display twenty to eighty letters on one or more
 lines mounted at the surface of enclosure 10 would be adequate. However,
 display 20 may be able to display many more characters and possibly
 graphics also, or a smaller number of characters could be used in a
 scrolling display.
 According to the present invention, communication device 22 may be provided
 by many different types of devices. To minimize cost, communication device
 22 is preferably not a conventional analog modulator/demodulator (modem)
 or an ISDN terminal adapter. The device that can be most widely used is a
 dual-tone multifrequency (DTMF) generator and detector, such as a Xecom
 DTMF transceiver, or a similar product from Mitel, coupled to a
 conventional RJ11 jack. This embodiment permits the apparatus to be
 connected to any phone line, e.g., the public switched telephone network
 (PSTN) 28. The remote database 13 will need a front-end processor that can
 communicate using DTMF signaling, but that can be provided by a general
 purpose computer connected to a plurality of DTMF transceivers for
 handling multiple calls.
 A second embodiment of communication device 22 uses an industry standard
 interface, such as one of the standards set by the Electronic Industry
 Association and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
 e.g., EIA's RS-232 or IEEE 1394. Other alternatives include other kinds of
 jacks, such as coaxial and optical, and other interface specifications,
 such as Ethernet and proprietary interfaces. Even though modems are
 relatively inexpensive today compared to five to ten years ago some of,
 the types of interfaces suggested for use in the second embodiment can be
 implemented at a small fraction of the cost of a modem.
 In the second embodiment, communication with the remote database 13 may use
 any conventional protocol, such as TCP/IP on the Internet. The industry
 standard (or proprietary) interface of the second embodiment is used to
 connect the apparatus to a device that has a connection to the Internet
 and accepts data from another device, but is not required to perform any
 functions regarding matching the information read from the recording with
 a database of textual information, since those functions are performed by
 the apparatus and at the remote database 13. For example, existing devices
 used to provide Internet connections via cable or satellite could be used
 with little or no modification, since all that is necessary is to transfer
 the data to and from the apparatus. Similarly, a general purpose computer
 could be programmed to treat the apparatus as a terminal that is to
 communicate with the Internet via any conventional connection to the
 Internet that the computer may have (dial up, local area network,
 dedicated line, etc.). The external device used in the second embodiment
 and its connections to remote database 13 takes the place of the PSTN 28
 in FIG. 1.
 In a third embodiment, communication device 22 may be directly connected to
 a local area network (LAN) that has a conventional connection to the
 Internet, or some other connection to the remote database 13. For example,
 the remote database 13 may be stored on a computer directly connected to
 the local area network, or via a wide area or other private network, as
 opposed to the public computer network commonly referred to as the
 Internet. In this case, either communication device 22, or controller 14
 includes programming to implement a conventional protocol, such as a
 TCP/IP stack, for communication over a public computer network, e.g., the
 Internet, or the local/wide area network. As in the case of the second
 embodiment, PSTN 28 in FIG. 1 would be replaced with the public or private
 network.
 The operation of the present invention will now be described with reference
 to FIGS. 2-5. When recording transport 12 first accesses a recording, the
 TOC is read in a conventional manner. An example of the contents of the
 TOC is illustrated in FIG. 5. As described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,751,672,
 incorporated herein by reference, the TOC information is sufficient to
 identify most CDs. However, contrary to the statements in the '672 patent,
 practical experience has found that rather than attempting to determine a
 "unique fingerprint" that works for all CDs, it is best to use fuzzy
 matching techniques, such as those disclosed in U.S. patent application
 Ser. Nos. 08/838,082 and 09/060,876, incorporated herein by reference.
 Controller 14 receives the information from the TOC and executes an
 algorithm to generate a disc ID for comparison with the disc IDs in the
 database stored in non-volatile memory 18.
 At the present time, a large database of CD and track titles is available
 via the Internet from CDDB. Using this database as an example, controller
 14 generates the disc ID by calculating the offset from the beginning of
 the CD to the beginning of second through the last track in frames (each
 CD has 75 frames per second). A typical disc ID is composed of four bytes,
 to calculate the first byte of the disc ID, the offsets are converted to
 seconds and the offset to the beginning of the first track is incremented
 by two seconds, representing a lead-in time. The digits of the offsets
 (plus lead-in time for the first track) in seconds are summed for the
 first byte. The second and third bytes of the disc ID are the entire
 running time in seconds which is the sum of the offset to the last track
 plus the playing time of the last track. The last byte of the disc ID is
 the number of tracks on the CD.
 For example, a CD with six tracks having the following track times in
 minutes and seconds: 20:38, 3:34, 3:20, 3:52, 3:35, and 3:59; or in
 seconds: 1238, 214, 200, 232, 215, and 239 has a total track time as
 follows:
 1238+214+200+232+215+239=2338 (or 0922 hex),
 1238 1452 1652 1884 2099 2338 (running sum)
 To calculate the first byte, the lead-in time of 2 seconds is added to the
 running time of the first track and the sum of the digits is calculated as
 follows:
 1240.fwdarw.1+2+4=7 (running sum: 9)
 1454.fwdarw.1+4+5+4=14 (running sum: 23)
 1654.fwdarw.1+6+5+4=16 (running sum: 39)
 1886.fwdarw.1+8+8+6=23 (running sum: 62)
 2101.fwdarw.2+1+0+1=4 (running sum: 66, or 42 hex)
 Thus, the disc ID is 42092206.
 If there is a match for the disc ID in the local database stored in
 nonvolatile memory 18, the textual information about the CD is displayed
 on display 20. If the disc ID is not found in the local database, a query
 is formulated for the remote database 13. Because CDDB accepts information
 from users of the system, a verification of the disc ID calculation may be
 used when querying the CDDB database. The preferred CDDB query format is:
 CDDB QUERY &lt;discid&gt;&lt;num tracks&gt;&lt;offset_1&gt;. . .
 &lt;offset_n&gt;&lt;total secs&gt;with the offsets in frames and the total
 number of seconds (total secs) including the lead-in time. Thus, the
 preferred CDDB query for the above example is:
 CDDB QUERY 42092206 6 183 93015 109098 124058 141515 157608 2340.
 The query is sent to the remote database 13 by communication device 22. In
 the first embodiment communication device 22 is connected to the public
 switched telephone network (PSTN) 28 and its telephony components
 described above take the phone line off-hook and dial one or more stored
 numbers for a computer on which the remote database 13 is maintained. The
 query is then transmitted to a front end processor (not shown separately)
 for remote database 13.
 Conventional DTMF signals provide 16 unique tones representing, 0-9, *, #
 and A-D (which are defined, even though they are not available on most
 phones) that can be transmitted at the rate of 20 tones per second. Thus,
 the front-end processor for the remote database 13 can formulate the query
 from hexadecimal codes transmitted from communication device 22. In the
 second and third embodiments, a conventional query may be sent to the
 external device connected to the Internet which takes the place of PSTN
 28, as described above.
 Once communication with the remote database 13 is established, the query 30
 described above is sent and one of three responses is received from the
 remote database 13: (1) there is a single match; (2) there are multiple
 matches; or (3) no match is found. In case (1), the user is prompted to
 confirm that the correct CD was found and if so, the textual information
 received from the remote database 13 is stored in non-volatile memory 18
 and sent to display 20. In case (2), the user is prompted to select one of
 the CD titles or indicate that none is correct. If one is selected, the
 textual information for the selected CD is stored in non-volatile memory
 18 and sent to display 20. In case (3), or if the correct title is not
 provided in case (1) or (2), the user may given the option of playing
 without textual information, or inputting the title using one of the
 conventional techniques.
 Preferably, the local database in non-volatile storage 18 maintains a
 record of all CDs that have ever been stored in the CD changer, until
 memory capacity has been reached. Therefore, the last field in the record
 layout illustrated in FIG. 4 may have a value indicating that the CD is
 not presently stored in the CD changer. Thus, when a CD is removed from
 the CD changer and then replaced, controller 14 will find a match for the
 disc ID of the CD in the local database in non-volatile memory 18 and will
 update the system location in the matching record with the new location of
 the CD.
 The many features and advantages of the invention are apparent from the
 detailed specification and, thus, it is intended by the appended claims to
 cover all such features and advantages of the invention which fall within
 the true spirit and scope of the invention. Further, since numerous
 modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art,
 it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and
 operation illustrated and described, and accordingly all suitable
 modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope
 of the invention.
 REFERENCE NUMBER LIST
 10 enclosure
 12 recording transport
 13 remote database
 14 controller
 16 volatile memory
 18 non-volatile memory
 20 display
 22 communication device (DTMF generator & detector)
 24 infrared remote sensor
 26 keyboard
 28 public switched telephone network (PSTN)