TRANSMISSION SYSTEM AND RECEIVER

Abstract: A system in which the information of a television program table is sent out using the teletext of a coded transmission system, and the presetting of picture recording of a picture recording/reproducing device is performed utilizing this information of the television program table on a receiving side, wherein a data unit parameter of the information of the television program table transmitted by the teletext of the coded transmission system is provided newly, and the information is transmitted as data-unit data. On the receiving side, the transmission of the information is detected by a means (9) for recognizing a program. Further, by a means (10) for recognizing the update of a program, a means (11) for processing channel information, a means (12) for processing data information, a means (13) for processing time information, a means (14) for processing program code information, and a means (15) for processing title information, the respective informations are processed to display a television program table on a displaying device. By a cursor displaying means (17), a cursor moving means (18), and a selecting means (19), the television program to be recorded is selected, and the picture recording thereof is executed. The advantage that the picture recording can be preset simply is obtained.

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a transmission system and a receiver for, on the transmission side, transmitting television-program table information such as channel information, date information, time information, program code information, and title information using teletext of the coding transmission system and, meanwhile on the reception side, reserving a video recording on image recording/reproducing apparatus using the received television-program table information. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In recent years, a teletext of coding transmission system has come into practical use that allows character and graphic information such as news, weather forecasts, and stock market, which are provided by combinations of characters and graphics, to be presented on a screen of a household television receiver. Also, there have been developed television receivers with a built-in receiver for receiving teletext in a coding transmission system. Hereinbelow, the teletext and its teletext receiver equipment in a coding transmission system as described above are explained with reference to the drawings. EP-A-0 368 313 representing the closest prior art from which the invention proceeds discloses a video tape recorder having video recording reserving function and capable of receiving teletext broadcasting. The conventional video tape recorder selects a program list data out of the teletext data and stores the same in a picture data memory. The program list data includes character data related to the date, time and the like of programs to be broadcasted. A group classifying circuit determines types of characters constituting these character data one by one and collects continuous characters of the same type as one group, so as to classify the character data into various character groups. A decoding circuit decodes time or date information based on the character group indicative of numerals or the character group indicative of month. The information decoded in this manner is taken in a reservation data memory, and the reserved video recording is carried out based on the data. Fig. 1 shows a construction of a conventional teletext receiver. In the figure, represented by reference character a is a television video signal; so by numeral 1 is a character signal extracting section for extracting character signals superimposed on the vertical blanking intervals from the video signal a; 2 is a data block linking section for linking the character signals in the units of data blocks extracted by the character signal extracting section 1 and classifying them into data groups; 3 is a data type deciding section for deciding whether the data groups classified by the data block linking section 2 are program data, page data, or index data; 4 is a character-program data decoder section for decoding character-program data according to the types of data decided by the data type deciding section 3 to develop the data into characters and graphics for display; 5 is a buffer memory section for accumulating the signals decided as character-program data by the data type deciding section 3; 6 is a display control section for actually displaying display data developed into characters and graphics at the character-program data decoder section 4 on a screen or the like; 7 is a video memory section for storing display data to be actually displayed on the screen or the like by the display control section 6; and 8 is a sound generator section for performing actual sound generation according to added sound data decoded by the character-program data decoder section 4. Fig. 2 shows the hierarchy of a teletext signal of the coding transmission system. In the figure 2, hierarchy 1 is a physical layer, representing the item elements of a character signal as an electrophysical signal. This signal is also superimposed on 14H, 15H, 16H, and 21H of the vertical blanking interval of the television signal. At a link layer of a hierarchy 2, the character signal is treated as logical data of either 1 or 0. Data lines, each of which refers to a transmission unit of character signals transmitted during one horizontal scanning line interval of a television video signal, is composed of a synchronization part and a data packet. The data packet, which refers to a part of the data line in which the synchronization part is eliminated, is composed of a prefix, data blocks, and check codes. Primarily the function of prefix is exerted at hierarchy 3 of a network layer. The prefix refers to data for identification and control, added to the head of the data packet, while the data blocks refer to a part of the data packet in which the prefix and the check code are eliminated, for transmitting various types of information data. Hierarchy 4 is a transport layer, representing the functions of data groups. The data groups are composed of data groups, each being one group of information data transmitted by one data block or a plurality of data blocks. Hierarchy 5 is a session layer, representing the structure of program data and functions for identification control of the program, and the like. Hierarchy 6 is a presentation layer, representing the functions of coding the presentation, where the coding for displaying characters and graphics and for presenting added sounds is specified. Fig. 3 shows the structure of program management data and page data. Transmitted to the head of the program data is program management data pertaining to the whole of the program. The program management data or page data is composed of a data header and several units. Fig. 4 shows the structure of a data group header and the transmission procedure thereof. Referring to Fig. 4, the data group header is composed of a data group identification code for identifying and controlling data groups, a data group retransmission code, a data group link code, a data group serial number, data group size, and working data. In this structure, the data group identification code represents the type of a data group by binary value, where program management data or page data is assigned "0", while program index data is assigned "15." Fig. 5 shows the structure of a data header and the transmission procedure thereof. Referring to Fig. 5, the data header is composed of data-header identification, data-header data length, and data-header data. The data-header identification represents the function of identifying the type of a data header, and the coding representation thereof is composed of an information separation code and data-header parameters. Correspondence between data headers and parameters is such that program data header, page data header, program search data header, and continuation data header correspond to data-header parameters 02/0 - 3, respectively. Fig. 6 shows the structure of a data unit and the transmission procedure thereof. Referring to Fig. 6, the data unit is composed of data-unit identification, data-unit data length, and unit data. The data-unit identification represents the function of identifying the type of a data unit, and the coding representation thereof is composed of a data-unit separation code and data-unit parameters. Data-unit parameters of the current system are assigned 16 types of identification parameters such as text, header text, a color map, and a program index. A data-unit link flag represents whether or not the succeeding data unit is a continuation data unit and to be linked, while the data-unit data length represents the data length of a data-unit data. The data-unit data is a piece of data that represents the number of data represented by data-unit data length. Fig. 7 shows the assignment of the current data-unit parameters. In Fig. 7, the blank fields are unused. Fig. 8 gives an example of coding in the current teletext. In Fig. 8, there are two data units, and data-unit parameters are "24H" and "20H," these two data units representing "header text" and "text," respectively. The teletext receiver equipment constructed as in Fig. 1 is now described about its operation. From the input video signal a, the character signal extracting section 1 extracts character signals superimposed on the vertical blanking intervals 14H, 15H, 16H, and 21H. The data block linking section 2 picks up data blocks out of the character signals extracted at the character signal extracting section 1, and thereafter links the data and classifies them into data groups. The data type deciding section 3 decides whether the data groups classified by the data block linking section 2 are program data, page data, or index data, according to data group identification codes. Thereafter, the character-program data decoder section 4 accumulates character-program data derived from the data type deciding section 3 in the buffer memory section 5, while it extracts character-program data pertaining to a program number needing presentation from the character-program data accumulated in the buffer memory section 5. According to the type of the character-program data, character signals are decoded as shown in Fig. 8, and the resulting character graphic screen information is written into the video memory section 7 through the display control section 6. The display control section 6 sequentially reads the character/graphic screen information written into the video memory section 7, yielding an output of display signal b . Further, if the program data needing presentation has any added sound information, the character-program data decoder section 4 decodes the added sound information, and transmits sound-generation data to the sound generator section 8, where the sound generator section 8 produces a sound signal based on the sound-generation data. In the teletext, data transmission is carried out in the above-described transmission procedure. On the side of teletext receiving equipment, character and graphic information coded according to the transmission procedure are decoded, offering the services that still images such as news and weather forecasts are displayed on television. More recently, with a view to making the teletext further widespread, new services are under discussion in which television-program table information (program title, program broadcasting date, program broadcasting time, etc.) are encoded, transmitted as data unit data by expanding the transmission procedure while compatibility with the conventional teletext is maintained (i.e. by defining new parameters), so as to allow the teletext to be utilized for video recording reservation by image recording/reproducing apparatus such as VTRs. However, the conventional teletext receiving equipment cannot afford such expansion of the transmission procedure as it stands, prohibiting their users from enjoying the new services. Meanwhile, since the operation for recording reservation with the current VTRs is so complicated and difficult to understand that beginners and those unfamiliar to video/audio appliances cannot manage it. This accounts for the strong desire that this operation for recording reservation be made easier. The present invention, in view of the foregoing problems, has developed a transmission system in which television-program table information is defined on transmission, and further provides a receiving apparatus in which the television-program table information is recognized and processed on the receiver side so that the recording reservation in the image recording/reproducing apparatus can be simplified and that change in the time of recording reserved programs can be treated. DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, there is provided a transmission system in which, on the transmission side: television-program table information including program-content update information, channel information, date information, time information, program code information, and title information is, at predetermined times, transmitted using teletext data in a TV coding transmission system, while on the reception side: reservation of video recording on an image recording/reproducing apparatus is effected by using the received television-program table information and there is provided a storage means for storing a selected television-program table information, characterized in that in case of changes of the television-program table information, program-content update information, channel information, date information, time information, program code information, and title information are transmitted as data-unit data using teletext data in the TV coding transmission system, and on the reception side: there is provided a program update recognizing and processing means for recognizing the program-content update information from said data-unit data and for re-writing said storage means with updated television-program table information, if there is any change between the content of the relevant program table and the content of the television-program table information stored in said storage means. In a preferred embodiment, there is provided a receiver comprising: reception means for receiving teletext data from a TV coding transmission system in which television-program table information including program-content update information, channel information, date information, time information, program code information and title information are formatted as data-unit data having variable-length data; first program recognition means for recognizing the received television-program table information from a data-unit parameter where the data-unit parameter is used to identify the type of data contained in a data-unit; a first program update recognizing and processing means for recognizing and processing the program-content update information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means; first channel information processing means for processing the channel information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means; first date information processing means for processing the date information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means; first time information processing means for processing the time information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means; first program code information processing means for processing program code information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means; first title information processing means for processing the title information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means; display means for displaying onto a display unit each of data processed by said first program update recognizing and processing means, said first channel information processing means, said first date information processing means, said first time information processing means, said first program code information processing means and said first title information processing means; cursor display means for displaying a cursor representing a television program to be selected from said television program table displayed by said display means; selection means for selecting reservation of video recording of a television program designated by the cursor displayed by said cursor display means; cursor moving means for moving the position of the cursor outputted by said cursor display means, thereby allowing a desired television program to be selected by said selection means; storage means for storing television-program table information including channel information, date information, time information, program code information and title information of the television program selected by said selection means; timer means for performing time management; comparator means for comparing the date information and time information of the video-recording reserved program stored in said storage means with the date information and time information of said timer means; start instruction means for instructing an image recording/reproducing apparatus to start a video-recording operation when it is judged by said comparator means that start time information of the date information and the time information of the video-recording reserved program coincides with the date information and the time information of said timer means; and terminate instruction means for instructing the image recording/reproducing apparatus to terminate the video-recording operation when it is judged by said comparator means that terminate time information of the date information and the time information of the video recording reserved program coincides with the date information and the time information of said timer means; wherein said program update recognizing and processing means re-writes said storage means with updated television-program table information, is there is any change between the content of the relevant program and the content of the television-program table information stored in said storage means. According to the feature of the present invention having such an arrangement as described above, reservation of a video recording to be simply rendered on an image recording/reproducing apparatus is allowed only by automatically detecting a television-program table program out of teletext programs, taking out information necessary for video recording reservation in the image recording/reproducing apparatus and displaying them onto a display unit, and selecting information such as title name on a television-program table displayed on the display unit with a cursor. Further, even if the television program for which a video recording has been rendered on an image recording/reproducing apparatus should be canceled because of any change or extension of the program on the transmission side, or even if its broadcasting time should be changed, these changes and extensions could be automatically followed up if television-program table information which includes the contents of the change on teletext is transmitted, thus allowing the video recording of the reserved television program to be carried out by automatically following. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional teletext receiver; Fig. 2 is a view showing a hierarchy of a teletext signal in a coding transmission system; Fig. 3 is a view showing a structure of program management data and page data; Fig. 4 is a view showing the structure of the data group header and the transmission procedure thereof; Fig. 5 is a view showing the structure of the data header and the transmission procedure thereof; Fig. 6 is a view showing the structure of the data unit and the transmission procedure thereof; Fig. 7 is a view showing the assignment of the current data-unit parameters; Fig. 8 is a view showing an example of coding in the conventional teletext; Fig. 9 is a functional block diagram showing the construction of a transmission system and a receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention; and Fig. 10 is a view showing an exemplary structure of the television-program table program data unit. BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Now the transmission system and receiver according to the first embodiment of the present invention is described below with reference to the drawings. Fig. 9 shows the construction of a receiver according to the first embodiment of the invention. In Fig. 9, represented by reference character A is a reception means for receiving teletext in a coding transmission system. In the reception means A, designated by numeral 1 is a character signal extracting section for extracting character signals superimposed on the vertical blanking period from a video signal a; 4 is a decoder section for decoding the character signals extracted from the character signal extracting section 1 to develop into character graphics for display; 5 is a buffer memory section for accumulating only the character signals extracted at the character signal extracting section 1; 6 is a display control section for actually displaying display data developed into character graphics at the decoder section 4 on a screen or the like; 7 is a video memory section for storing display data to be actually displayed on the screen or the like by the display control section 6; and 8 is a sound generator section for performing actual sound generation according to added sound data decoded by the decoder section 4, all of which are designated by like numerals as in Fig. 1. Further, designated by numeral 9 is a first program recognition means for recognizing television-program table information from data-unit parameters; 10 is a first program update recognizing and processing means for recognizing and processing program-content update information from the data-unit data detected by the first program recognition means 9; 11 is a first channel information processing means for processing channel information from the data-unit data detected by the first program recognition means 9; 12 is a first date information processing means for processing date information from the data-unit data detected by the first program recognition means 9; 13 is a first time information processing means for processing time information from the data-unit data detected by the first program recognition means 9; 14 is a first program code information processing means for processing program code information from the data-unit data detected by the first program recognition means 9; 15 is a first title information processing means for processing title information from the data-unit data detected by the first program recognition means 9; 16 is a display means for displaying data processed by the first program update recognizing and processing means 10, the first channel information processing means 11, the first date information processing means 12, the first time information processing means 13, the first program code information processing means 14, and the first title information processing means 15, for example onto a CRT screen of the a television receiver; 17 is a cursor display means for displaying a cursor for each one program of the television programs displayed by the display means 16; 18 is a cursor moving means or moving the cursor displayed by the cursor display means 17 for each program; 19 is a selection means for selecting video-recording reservation of a television program designated by the cursor of the cursor display means 17; 20 is a storage means for storing television-program table information such as channel information, date information, time information, program code information, and title information of the television program selected by the selection means 19; 21 is a timer means for performing time management; 22 is a comparator means for comparing date information and time information of the video-recording reserved program stored in the storage means 20 with date information and time information of the timer means 21; 23 is a start instruction means for instructing an image recording/reproducing apparatus 25 to start a video-recording operation when date information and time information of the video-recording reserved program coincides with date information and time information of the timer means 21 by the comparator means 22; and 24 is a termination instruction means for instructing the image recording/reproducing apparatus 25 to terminate the video-recording operation when date information and time information of the video-recording reserved program coincides with date information and time information of the timer means 21 by the comparator means 22. In addition, numeral 25 denotes an image recording/reproducing apparatus such as a video tape recorder. The receiver constructed as described above is below described with regard to its operation, referring to Fig. 9. First, the character signal extracting section 1 extracts character signals superimposed on 14H, 15H, 16H, and 21H from the input video signal a. The decoder section 4 accumulates the character signals extracted at the character signal extracting section 1 in the buffer memory section 5 while it extracts program data pertaining to a program number needing presentation from the character signals accumulated in the buffer memory section 5, and it further performs the decoding of character signals such as shown in Fig. 8, writing character/graphic screen information into the video memory section 7 through the display control section 6. The display control section 6 sequentially reads the character/graphic screen information written into the video memory section 7, yielding an output of display signal b . The decoder section 4 further decodes added sound information, if there is any added sound information in the program data needing presentation, thereafter transmitting sound-generation data to the sound generator section 8. The sound generator section 8 yields an output based on the sound-generation data. The detection of television-program table programs is carried out by the first program recognition means 9. The recognition of television-program table programs is carried out by the data-unit parameters as shown in Fig. 7. The data-unit parameters representing television-program table programs are hexadecimal data, which may be any 1-byte data except 20, 24, 28, 2C, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 39, 3B, 3C, 3D, 3E, and 3F. An example of the structure of the television-program table program data unit is shown in Fig. 10. Out of the television-program table data unit recognized and extracted by the first program recognition means 9, the first channel information processing means 11 reads channel information from the bytes PB 6 to BP 11 of the television-program table data unit. The first program update recognizing and processing means 10 reads program version data from byte PB 5 of the television-program table data unit. The first date information processing means 12 reads month information from byte PB 12 and date information from byte PB 13 of the television-program table data unit. The first time information processing means 13 reads start hour information from byte PB 14 and start minute information from byte PB 15 of the television-program table data unit. By the MSB, b8 of byte PB 14, it is decided whether or not there exists any terminate time information. It also reads terminate hour information from byte PB 16 and terminate minute information from byte PB 17. When terminate time information is omitted, the data that follow are shifted by 2 bytes. The first program code information processing means 14 reads program code information from byte PB 18 of the television-program table data unit. The first program title information processing means 15 reads title information by the number of bytes representing title data-length data of byte 19 of the television-program table data unit. Similarly, it reads the second and following television-program table information data. The pieces of information read by the first program update recognizing and processing means 10, the first channel information processing means 11, the first date information processing means 12, the first time information processing means 13, and the first title information processing means 15 are each displayed onto the CRT screen through the display means 16. The cursor display means 17 displays a cursor representing a television program to be selected on the CRT screen, while the cursor moving means 18 moves the position of the cursor outputted by the cursor display means 17, thereby allowing a desired television program to be selected by the selection means 19. The selected television-program table information are stored in series in the first storage means 20. If any content of the television-program table information stored in the first storage means 20 are updated, a comparison is made between the content information of the relevant program and the contents of the television-program table information stored in the first storage means 20 through the first program update recognizing and processing means 10, where if there is any change in the contents, the contents of the television-program table information stored in the first storage means 20 is rewritten into new data. The contents of the television-program table information stored in the first storage means 20 are at all times compared with date and time data of the timer means 21 by the comparator means 22. Then, out of the television-program table information stored in the storage means 20, when the date and time data obtained by the first date information processing means 12 and the start time data obtained by the first time information processing means 13 coincide with each other, the start instruction means 23 instructs the image recording/reproducing apparatus 25 to start the video recording. Similarly, as for the instruction for termination of the video recording, the contents of the television-program table information stored in the first storage means 20 are at all times compared with date and time data of the timer means 21, followed by the processing. That is, among the television-program table information stored in the first storage means 20, when the date and time data obtained by the first date information processing means 12 and the terminate time data obtained by the first time information processing means 13 coincide with each other, the termination instruction means 24 instructs the image recording/reproducing apparatus 25 to terminate the video-recording operation. As described above, according to the present embodiment, there are newly provided data-unit parameters for television-program table information by teletext in the coding transmission system, and in this arrangement program -content update information, channel information, date information, time information, program code information, title information, and the like of the television-program table information is transmitted as data-unit data. As a result, on the reception side, television-program table information can be automatically detected and displayed on a display unit; and a television program displayed on the screen can be simply reserved for video recording on an image recording/reproducing apparatus only by selecting a cursor; and information of teletext can be effectively utilized in the receiver equipment. Also, it is possible to follow up any change in television-program table information.

Claims: A transmission system in which, on the transmission side: television-program table information including program-content update information, channel information, date information, time information, program code information, and title information is, at predetermined times, transmitted using teletext data in a TV coding transmission system, while on the reception side: reservation of video recording on an image recording/reproducing apparatus (25) is effected by using the received television-program table information and there is provided a storage means (20) for storing a selected television-program table information, characterized in that in case of changes of the television-program table information, program-content update information, channel information, date information, time information, program code information, and title information are transmitted as data-unit data using teletext data in the TV coding transmission system, and on the reception side: there is provided a program update recognizing and processing means (10) for recognizing the program-content update information from said data-unit data and for re-writing said storage means (20) with updated television-program table information, if there is any change between the content of the relevant program table and the content of the television-program table information stored in said storage means (20). A receiver for a transmission system according to claim 1, comprising: reception means (A) for receiving teletext data from a TV coding transmission system in which television-program table information including program-content update information, channel information, date information, time information, program code information and title information are formatted as data-unit data having variable-length data; first program recognition means (9) for recognizing the received television-program table information from a data-unit parameter where the data-unit parameter is used to identify the type of data contained in a data-unit; a first program update recognizing and processing means (10) for recognizing and processing the program-content update information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means (9); first channel information processing means (11) for processing the channel information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means (9); first date information processing means (12) for processing the date information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means (9); first time information processing means (13) for processing the time information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means (9); first program code information processing means (14) for processing program code information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means (9); first title information processing means (15) for processing the title information from the data-unit data detected by said first program recognition means (9); display means (16) for displaying onto a display unit each of data processed by said first program update recognizing and processing means (10), said first channel information processing means (11), said first date information processing means (12), said first time information processing means (13), said first program code information processing means (14) and said first title information processing means (15); cursor display means (17) for displaying a cursor representing a television program to be selected from said television program table displayed by said display means (16); selection means (19) for selecting reservation of video recording of a television program designated by the cursor displayed by said cursor display means (17); cursor moving means (18) for moving the position of the cursor outputted by said cursor display means (17), thereby allowing a desired television program to be selected by said selection means (19); storage means (20) for storing television-program table information including channel information, date information, time information, program code information and title information of the television program selected by said selection means (19); timer means (21) for performing time management; comparator means (22) for comparing the date information and time information of the video-recording reserved program stored in said storage means (20) with the date information and time information of said timer means (21); start instruction means (23) for instructing an image recording/reproducing apparatus (25) to start a video-recording operation when it is judged by said comparator means (22) that start time information of the date information and the time information of the video-recording reserved program coincides with the date information and the time information of said timer means (21); and terminate instruction means (24) for instructing the image recording/reproducing apparatus (25) to terminate the video-recording operation when it is judged by said comparator means (22) that terminate time information of the date information and the time information of the video recording reserved program coincides with the date information and the time information of said timer means (21); wherein said program update recognizing and processing means (10) re-writes said storage means (20) with updated television-program table information, if there is any change between the content of the relevant program and the content of the television-program table information stored in said storage means (20).

Inventors: HENMI HIDEMI, NAKAHIGASHI HIDETO, SAKAMOTO KEN, TAKANO SHIGERU, HENMI, HIDEMI, NAKAHIGASHI, HIDETO, SAKAMOTO, KEN, TAKANO, SHIGERU
Applicants: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC IND CO LTD, MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.
Application year: 1991
Main classification: H04N7
IPC codes: H04N5, H04N7