Display system

A display comprising a matrix of display pixels each receptive of a drive signal for energizing same to emit light of one of a plurality of colors and circuitry receptive of serial data corresponding to a message and at least one color for the message for converting same into drive signals. The display is used alone or in a router tally display system or a sports scoreboard system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention relates to a display system, and in particular, to 
display systems for use in the broadcasting industry. 
Display systems for a broadcast control room are known and range from the 
use of masking tape adhered to a television monitor to indicate the 
program source therefor to a basic three color matrix display which is 
controlled by a programmed microcomputer, process control computer or data 
input device. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The main object of the present is to improve the operation of the known 
display systems and to provide more flexibility during use. 
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved matrix 
display which can be made in two parts to enable the visual output section 
thinner and thus more easily able to be mounted in a control room setting. 
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a parallel to 
serial interface between the production switcher, or any contact closure 
or voltage, which is controlling the program sources to the monitors in 
the broadcast control room and the display system. 
A further object of the present invention is to provide a time code 
function for the display system which can lock a clock internal to the 
display system to an external time code reference. 
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a router 
tally display system which allows the user to show real time router and 
tally status information directly underneath monitors in a studio. 
A further object of the present invention is to provide a sports scoreboard 
display system. 
A still further object of the present invention is to provide local and 
remote messaging capabilities, while simultaneously providing source 
identification and source status. This is accomplished by the individual 
display's ability to store and display 32 separate messages, and receive 
data from process control devices. 
These messages can be of any size and not limited by the number of pixels 
since the display incorporates the ability for the information to appear 
as multiple frames that are presented in user selected fashion. 
A still further object of the RTDS system is to provide a means to 
incorporate additional tally channels other than those that are available 
from the production switcher and to be able to transmit this tally 
information throughout the system. 
A still further object of the RTDS system is to provide a means for 
personnel in remote locations of following, or tracking the activity in 
production area's. 
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a system for 
incorporating enough (256) separate addresses to monitor all the sources 
in a large facility. Multiple addresses can be used by disabling the "talk 
back" circuitry. 
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a means of 
supplying information, message annunciation, machine identification and 
machine status to all personnel within a facility by utilizing existing 
wiring within the facility or via modem. 
These and other objects and advantages of the system according to the 
present invention are achieved in accordance with the present invention by 
a display comprising a matrix of display pixels each receptive of a drive 
signal for energizing same to emit-light of one of a plurality of colors, 
means receptive of serial data corresponding to a message and at least one 
color for the message for converting same into drive signals and input 
means receptive of an external color control signal for overriding the at 
least one color for the message from the serial data for changing the 
color of the message to one predetermined color. The means for converting 
also comprises an asynchronous receiver-transmitter for receiving and 
transmitting serial data and means for selecting baud rates for the 
transmission and receiving of serial data. The asynchronous 
receiver-transmitter receives and transmits serial data with handshaking 
signals and has means for disabling talk back communications upon receipt 
of data. In a preferred embodiment, the means for converting comprises a 
microprocessor and a clock therefor and means for synchronizing the clock 
to an external time reference. The means for converting also preferably 
comprises means for displaying the messages in a proportionally spaced 
font. 
In another embodiment, the means for converting comprises a microprocessor 
and a random access memory capable of storing a plurality of messages with 
color data corresponding thereto and input means receptive of an external 
message control signal for overriding the current message from the serial 
data and for changing the message to a different one stored in the random 
access memory. 
In a further embodiment, a first housing having the matrix of display 
pixels each receptive of a drive signal for energizing same to emit light 
of one of a plurality of colors and first means receptive of parallel data 
signals corresponding to a message and at least one color for the message 
for converting same into drive signals, a second housing have second means 
receptive of serial data corresponding to a message and at least one color 
for the message for converting same into said parallel data signals and a 
cable connecting the parallel data signals from the second means to the 
first means. 
In accordance with the invention, at least one display each having a matrix 
of display pixels with each receptive of a drive signal for energizing 
same to emit light of one of a plurality of colors, means for determining 
an address for the display and means receptive of serial data 
corresponding to an address and a message and at least one color for the 
message for converting same into drive signals, a parallel to serial 
interface receptive of parallel color data from a switcher for converting 
same to serial data including an address and color data and means for 
applying the serial data to the at least one display. In the display 
system, the means for applying serial data to the at least one display 
preferably comprises means receptive of data from a router for converting 
said data into serial data corresponding to messages to be displayed. 
Also in accordance with the invention, a sports scoreboard display system 
comprises a plurality of displays each having a matrix of display pixels 
each receptive of a drive signal for energizing same to emit light of one 
of a plurality of colors, means for determining an address for the display 
and means receptive of serial data corresponding to an address and a 
message and at least one color for the message for converting same into 
drive signals and means for controlling the displays to indicate team 
names, scores and game status in preselected colors.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
FIG. 1 shows a display 10 according to the invention having a housing 11 
and a matrix display 12 of three color LED lamps 13 as shown in FIG. 4. 
The matrix is 7 elements high and 100-200 elements in length for 
displaying messages using alphanumerics such as shown in FIG. 4 or 
graphics. The font used to display the messages is a proportional spacing 
font where thinner letters are formed by lights only three across rather 
than the typical five for other letters. 
In an alternative embodiment according to the present invention as shown in 
FIG. 2, the housing of the display is in two parts including a front 
housing 11A and a rear housing 11B. Housing 11A includes the display 
matrix 12' and all of the electronics related to the display are disposed 
in housing 11B so that housing 11A can be made relatively thin compared to 
the housing 11 shown in FIG. 1. In a preferred embodiment, the housing 11A 
is only 3/4" in depth. 
FIG. 3 shows the connectors at the rear of housing 11 and housing 11B and 
includes connectors 111, 112 for data in, data out, external switch inputs 
ES1-ES5 and power. That backplate also includes two switch arrays SWA and 
SWB which are used to control the display to set it into different modes. 
SWA is a DIP switch with 8 sections and is used for addressing, as will be 
explained hereinafter. SWB is a DIP switch with 8 sections used for 
various functions such as setting of baud rate, auto flash, talk back and 
color/message mode as will be explained hereinafter. 
FIG. 5 shows the circuitry for the display of FIG. 1 within block 20. 
The circuit 20 includes a micro asynchronous receiver-transmitter (.mu.ART) 
21 which receives serial data in and which outputs serial data on the data 
in and data out connectors 111, 112 via buffer 14. The .mu.ART 21 
communicates with an I/O circuit 22 to supply parallel data to 
microprocessor 23. Microprocessor 23 has an associated random access 
memory (RAM) 24, an associated read only memory (ROM) 25 and a clock 28. 
The microprocessor 23 also has two interrupt inputs for receiving external 
signals including the mode signal which will be described hereinafter and 
the MSGE signal from the switch buffer/decoder 30 which will also be 
described hereinafter. 
Each display is addressed by a unique address set on dip switches 16 which 
are the 8 sections of switch SWA and which are set to a unique address (0 
to 255) for the display. The settings of the switches, which preferably 
eight in number, are fed to address decoder 15 which provides the digital 
word corresponding to the address. The .mu.ART 21 is able to determine 
which data is directed to the display by matching the output of the 
address decoder 15 with the address data fed at the serial input. 
The microprocessor receives the data which is converted from serial to 
parallel, and based on that data, sends parallel data to a decoder 26 for 
presenting the proper message on the display 12. Decoder 26 converts the 
data words from the microprocessor to controls for each LED in the display 
12 and sends the signals to a display driver 27 which actually activates 
each pixel of the display to obtain the lighting thereof and the proper 
color thereof either red, green or yellow. 
When the decoder 26 indicates to the display driver 27 that the display is 
to be in red, a signal RED is generated which is applied to a relay 32 and 
to a timer 31. Relay 32 receives the RED signal and closes the relay so 
that the two pins SC are connected together in a closed circuit. Moreover, 
the timer 31 receives the RED signal and produces a square wave to the 
display driver 27 which effects the flashing of the message on the display 
12. 
The switch buffer/decoder 30 has five inputs, ES1, ES2, ES3, ES4 and ES5, 
which are the inputs from external switches SW1, SW2, SW3, SW4 and SW5. 
The result of a change in these switches will effect the operation of the 
display, depending upon the setting of the mode input to the 
microprocessor. When the mode input is set for the display to operate in 
the color mode by one section of switch SWB, the closing of either one of 
switches SW1, SW2 or SW3 enables the switch buffer to produce the color 
signal which is applied to the decoder 26 and which overrides any color 
indication from the microprocessor and displays whatever message is being 
displayed on the display 12 in the color red. 
When the mode input is in the message mode, the closing of any one of 
switches SW1, SW2 or SW3 sends the MSGE signal to the microprocessor. RAM 
24 has a capability of loading 32 separate messages therein and thus has a 
minimum of 32K of memory. When the display is in the color mode, the 
microprocessor always loads message number one into the display. When the 
display is in the message mode, the settings of switches SW1, SW2, SW3, 
SW4 and SW5 enable the switch buffer 30 to send data to the microprocessor 
via signal MSGE to indicate to the microprocessor to select a different 
one of the 32 messages that are stored in RAM. As a result, the desired 
message is displayed on display 12. There are 5 "switches" for a binary 
input (1, 2, 4, 8, 16). All 5 are active in message mode, 3 are active in 
color mode. 
The .mu.ART 21 permits the user to select different baud rates on switch 
SWB for the input and output serial data to the display preferably in 
accordance with RS-485 or RS-232. The .mu.ART is also capable of disabling 
talk back communication when desired by the user by setting switch SWB. 
The clock 28 not only sends clock signals to the microprocessor but 
receives a signal from the microprocessor which enables the clock to be 
synchronized to an external reference, such as the SMPTE time code. The 
battery backup 29 powers all of the memory devices so that the loss of 
power will not result in a loss of data. 
The microprocessor can also control the brightness of the display 12 by 
varying the duty cycle of the clock signal delivered to the driver 27 by 
the microprocessor through the decoder 26. Switch SWB can be set to make 
the display flash the message at all times. 
FIG. 10 shows more details of the circuitry of FIG. 5, as well as the 
indications of the specific off the shelf devices that can be used to 
implement the circuit. 
As shown therein, the RJ11 connectors 111, 112 are pass through connectors 
and thus either one can act as an input or an output. The connectors are 
connected to transmit buffers 141 and 142 which make up the buffer 14 and 
apply and receive data from .mu.ART 21. The .mu.ART 21 determines if the 
data is applicable to the display based on the address I.D. register 15 
which receives the address identification from the dip switches 16. 
The .mu.ART 21 is connected to both the data bus and the address bus as are 
CPU 23, RAM 24 and EPROM 25. The decoder 26 includes decoder element 260 
which is connected to these circuit elements. 
The address is also connected to decoder portion 261 which is also fed by 
the switch buffer/decoder 30 which receives the mode input from the mode 
input switch and the data from the data bus. Decoder 261 then feeds row 
selector 262 which in turn feeds decoders 263 and 264 which apply signals 
to row drivers 271 and 272 and which feed the LED display 12. The data in 
signal from the receive buffer 142 is connected to the decoder portion 265 
which feeds a display driver 273 which acts as an enable for the LED 
display 12. 
FIG. 6 shows the configuration of the circuitry of FIG. 5 for the display 
of FIG. 2. As shown therein, housing 11A includes circuitry 20A including 
the pixels for the display 12', the display driver 27 and a multiplexor 
decoder 26' which receives the external switch signals ES1-ES3 and which 
has the SC signals and relay 32 as well as the switch buffer 30. All of 
the other circuitry 20B is in housing 11B. 
The multiplexor decoder 26' allows for 8 lines to be input from the 
microprocessor and converted to 16 bits of data, instead of the circuit 
shown in FIG. 5 where the 16 bits of data are sent directly from the 
microprocessor to the decoder 26. 
The display according to the present invention is shown in use in a router 
tally display system in FIG. 7. 
In that system, the displays 51-54 are associated with monitors 46A-46D 
which receive their video signals from a production switcher 40 which in 
turn receives video signals from a router or process control computer 41 
connected to various video sources. Router 41, production switcher 40 and 
monitors 46A-46D are conventional commercial broadcast devices. Thus no 
further disclosure is made thereof. 
The switcher 40 produces parallel outputs of 32 on or off lines which are 
fed to a parallel to serial interface 55 and the serial data is fed to the 
serial input of a computer 56 which is preferably a personal computer such 
as an IBM 386 or IBM 486 computer or optionally is connected directly to 
the serial data input of display 51. The displays 51-54 are daisy chained 
so that the data out connector of display 51 is connected to the data in 
connector of display 52 and so on. The computer 56 sends data to the 
displays 51-54 by addressing each by the same serial data. The address is 
determined at the .mu.ART of each display by setting the switch bank SWA 
to the desired address for each device. 
The production switcher 40, or any device providing a contact closure or 
voltage, can alternately be connected to the external switch input 1 of 
each display so that the production switcher can change the message on 
each display 51-54 to red if so desired. 
The output of the router 41 that is fed to the computer 56 can be decoded 
to determine the desired message and address for each of the displays 
51-54. Optionally the output of the router or any process control device 
can be fed directly to the displays. Computer 56 sends the message along 
with the address to each display whereas the serial data from the switcher 
40 determines the color of the displayed message. 
The displays 51-54 can also have external devices connected thereto. For 
example, tapedeck 42, receiver 43, video camera 44 and a general device 45 
which can be any tally requiring device, can be connected to receive the 
SC outputs from displays 51-54. In this way, when the relay closes in any 
one of the four displays, this can be interpreted by the devices 42-45 and 
a desired operation can follow. For example, the tapedeck may start to 
run. 
The tapedeck 42 may also have an output into the external switch 2 of 
display 54 so that a particular operation of the tapedeck 42 may override 
the display in display 54 so that it appears in red upon that occurrence. 
FIGS. 8 and 9 show a sports scoreboard system using displays according to 
the present invention wherein a matrix of displays 61-72 are 
interconnected via their data in and data out connectors so that they all 
receive serial data from computer 60. 
As shown in FIG. 9, the displays have the messages including the name of 
the teams 82, 84, the current status of the game 81, which can be the 
inning or the fact that the game is a final score, rain delay or 
postponed, and the current score of the game at locations 83 and 85. 
The computer 60 controls the colors of the displays so that, for example, 
for baseball the teams will be in red when it is at bat and green when it 
is in the field, and the inning is in yellow. A special situation can be 
indicated such as that in display 67 where the game is not started all of 
the message characters are in yellow, or in a situation where the game is 
displayed or over such as in display 70, all of the message is in green. 
As a result of the use of the display in this manner, a visual indication 
of important changes or important situations can be immediately identified 
for the user. 
The messages and the colors of the messages on the displays can be 
controlled via computer software on the computer wherein a grid appears on 
the screen with all of the information and which can be changed via 
entries on the keyboard of the computer. 
It is understood that the embodiments described hereinabove are merely 
illustrative and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. It 
is realized that various changes, alterations, rearrangements and 
modifications can be made by those skilled in the art without 
substantially departing from the spirit and scope of the present 
invention.