Abstract:
A question means is provided for requiring a reply of a user to a question, receiving means is provided for receiving an instruction of the user. A speech recognizer is provided for recognizing the instruction of the user. A program is selected based on the recognized instruction. The instructed and selected program is stored for learning. The instructed program is displayed on a display.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to a system for selecting a program of a broadcast, for example a television broadcast. 
     Heretofore, a program reservation system as a program selection system disclosed in a Japanese Patent Application Laid Open 9-322085 is known. The program reservation system is mounted in a television receiver and provided to reserve a program instructed by a user based on the speech recognition of the voice emitted by the user. 
     The television signal includes program guide information data such as by the multiprocessing. The program reservation system stores names of programs, categories of the programs, broadcasting stations, broadcast time, and others in a memory. 
     These data are divided into upper rank categories and lower rank categories which are included in the upper categories. The user instructs a desired category by speech. In response to the instruction, the program reservation system reads the category from the memory and displays the data on a display. The user selects a desired data from the display by speech, so that a desired program is reserved in accordance with selected contents. 
     More specifically, the upper categories such as news, amusement, sports, hobby and culture are displayed. If the hobby and culture is selected, lower categories of the hobby and culture such as fine art, game of go and shogi, cooking, health, and others are displayed. When the fine art is selected, programs relative to the fine art are searched from the memory, and a desired program, the channel of the broadcasting station and broadcast time are reserved. At the broadcast time, the selected program of the fine art is tuned and displayed. 
     The program data are filed and managed in a simple tree diagram as shown in FIG.  12 . Namely, there is employed the file structure wherein data for reserving a program are divided into predetermined fixed upper categories and fixed lower categories and stored, and display contents are sequentially opened from the upper categories to the lower categories, thereby reaching a desired program. 
     Therefore, even if the user wants to directly select a program included in a lower category, a content of upper conception must be selected from an upper category. Thereafter, the lower category to which the desired program belongs, which causes troublesome operation in particular in the case there is many steps before the end. 
     Furthermore, in the conventional program reservation system, categories are set in accordance with items determined by the above described program guide information, and programs are sorted based on the categories. As a result, the programs are not displayed so as to meet the requirement of the user, so that the user must operate the system in the fixed pattern. Namely the system is not always good in operability. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     An object of the present invention is to provide a program reservation system which enables the user to easily reserve a desired program. 
     According to the present invention, there is provided a system for selecting a program in a broadcast, comprising, question means for requiring a reply of a user to a question, receiving means for receiving an instruction of the user, recognizing means for recognizing the instruction of the user, selecting means for selecting a program based on the recognized instruction, learning means for storing the instructed and selected program, providing means for providing the instructed program to the user. 
     The program is a television program, and the providing means is a display of a television receiver. 
     The system is provided with a remote controller and a remote control signal transmitting and receiving circuit. 
     The remote controller is provided with an alphabet key for inputting a desired program and a ten key for inputting a channel number. 
     The present invention further provides a system for selecting a program in a television broadcast, comprising, a display for displaying a question to a user and a television program, receiving means for receiving instruction and reply of the user, recognizing means for recognizing the instruction and reply of the user, displaying means for displaying the instructed program on the display when the instruction is a name of a program, learning means for storing the instructed program. 
     The display means displays a program on the display when the instruction is stored in the learning means. 
     The present invention further provides a method for selecting a program in a television broadcast, comprising the steps of, requiring a reply of a user to a question about a program through a display of a television receiver, receiving an instruction of the user in response to the question, recognizing the instruction of the user, selecting a program based on the recognized instruction, storing the instructed and selected program for learning, displaying the instructed program on the display. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a program selection system  1  of the present invention; 
     FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a hierarchy of item data 
     FIGS. 3-5 are flowcharts; 
     FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention; 
     FIG. 7 shows the data table; 
     FIG. 8 is the data table of FIG. 7; 
     FIG. 9 is a plan view of a remote controller; 
     FIG. 10 shows four input/output modes; 
     FIG. 11 is a plan view showing another remote controller; 
     FIG. 12 is a simple tree diagram. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a program selection system  1  of the present invention. The program selection system  1  is provided for extracting program guide data included in a television broadcast signal by the multiprocess and for selecting a broadcast program based on the program guide data as described hereinafter in detail. 
     The program selection system  1  comprises a frequency selecting circuit  3  in which a television broadcast signal received by an antenna  2  is inputted in a form of an RF signal, a demodulator and error correction circuit  4 , a demultiplexer circuit  5 , and a visual/audio complexing circuit  6 . 
     The frequency selecting circuit  3  selects a channel instructed by a channel selection signal S CH  supplied from a program selecting circuit  10  and produces a base band signal S BB  by mixing and frequency-changing the RF signal. 
     The demodulator and error correction circuit  4  demodulates the base band signal S BB  and corrects an error of the signal, thereby producing a transport stream signal S TP  based upon MPEG2 (Moving Picture expert Group 2). 
     The demultiplexer circuit  5  selects a packetized elementary stream signal S PES  of a program in a plurality of programs included in the transport stream signal S TP  in accordance with the instruction by the program selection signal S DB  applied from the program selecting circuit  10 . The demultiplexer circuit  5  applies a program guide data D PES  included in the packetized elementary stream signal S PES  of the selected program to the program selecting circuit  10 , and supplies visual and audio packetized elementary stream signals D V1  and D AU  included in the packetized elementary stream signal S PES  to the visual/audio complexing circuit  6  which is called MPEG decoder. 
     The visual/audio complexing circuit  6  is provided with a visual decoder  6   a , audio decoder  6   b , visual encoder  6   c , and audio encoder  6   d . The visual decoder  6   a  and audio decoder  6   b  produce a visual signal and an audio signal by the complexing of the packetized element stream signals D V1  and D AU . The visual encoder  6   c  produces a visual signal S V1  and displayable visual signals from components of R, G, B and Y based on the visual signal. The audio encoder  6   d  produces an audio signal S AU  from the audio signal. The signals S V1  and S AU  are applied to a display  7  having speaker to reproduce the visual signal and audio signal. Further, the visual/audio complexing circuit  6  adds a display signal S DSP  of character information and others supplied from the program selecting circuit  10  to the visual signal S V1 , thereby displaying the character information and others on the display  7 . 
     The system  1  is further provided with a speech recognition and synthesizer  8 , learning function circuit  9 , and item data and retrieval antecedent storing circuit  11 . 
     The speech of the user is supplied to the speech recognition and synthesizer  8  from a microphone  13  as an audio signal S IN . The speech recognition and synthesizer  8  recognizes the audio signal S IN  based on a predetermined algorithm and applies a speech recognition data D IN  to the learning function circuit  9  as a recognition result. Furthermore, the speech recognition and synthesizer  8  synthesizes an audio signal S OUT  corresponding to an audio data D OUT  from the learning function circuit  9 . The audio signal S OUT  is applied to a speaker  12 , thereby emitting as a sound. 
     In the item data and retrieval antecedent storing circuit  11 , item data representing items for programs are hierarchically arranged as shown in FIG. 2, and stored therein. 
     There is provided a plurality of items α 1  to αi belonging to an upper category. 
     Each of items β 1  to βj belonging to a lower category is subordinately connected to each of Items α 1  to αi. In addition, a plurality of subordinate items γ 1 -γk, δ 1 -δm are hierarchically connected to the items β 1 -βj. 
     The uppermost items α 1 -αi are used for upper concepts such as “sports”, “hobby”, “news” and others. As the item β 1  subordinate of the sports, an intermediate concept such as “baseball” is assigned. For the item γ 1  and the item δ 1  for example “National League” and a name of baseball team are assigned. 
     The learning function circuit  9  is provided with a retrieving function and a learning function. When the user produces a speech of a desired program, the retrieving function operates to retrieve an item data D P  relative to the desired program in accordance with the speech recognition data D IN . In order to carry out the retrieval, the learning function circuit  9  extracts a keyword KW included in the speech recognition data D IN , and retrieves the item data D P . 
     For example, in the case that there is only one word identifying a program in the speech recognition data D IN , such a speech as “I want to watch a sports program”, the learning function circuit retrieves “sports” as a keyword. When there are two words for example “sports” and “baseball”, the learning function circuit  9  retrieves the two words as keywords. Based on the keyword, item data are read out from the categories shown in FIG.  2 . 
     Furthermore, the learning function circuit  9  reads out retrieval antecedent data D G  relative to the keywords from the item data and retrieval antecedent storing circuit  11 . 
     The read-out item data D P  and the retrieval antecedent data D G  are fed to the program selecting circuit  10  as a selection demand data D CH . 
     In response to the selection demand data D CH , the program selecting circuit  10  retrieves an item data D P  relative to the retrieval antecedent data D G  from the item data D P  based on ambiguous algorithm, thereby identifying a program desired by the user. 
     Further, the program selecting circuit  10  produces a channel selection signal S CH  of the identified item data D P  and a program selection signal S DB  for instructing the program. The channel selection signal S CH  is fed to the frequency selection circuit  3 , the program selection signal S DB  is fed to the demultiplexer circuit  5 , and a display signal S DSP  having channel and program information is supplied to the visual/audio complexing circuit  6 . 
     Accordingly, the frequency selecting circuit  3  tunes based on the program selection signal S DB . The demultiplexer  5  selects the program guide data D PES , visual and audio packetized elementary stream signals D V1  and D AU  from the transport stream signal S TP . These data are displayed on the display  7 . Thus, the user confirms that a desired program is selected. 
     The program selecting circuit  10  combines retrieval steps data until a desired program is identified by the ambiguous algorithm in accordance with the selection demand data D CH  with the program guide data D PES , and produces a program relating data A CH  which is fed to the learning function circuit  9 . 
     The learning function circuit  9  adds the program relating data A CH  to the retrieval antecedent data D G  stored in the retrieval antecedent circuit  11  to produce a new retrieval antecedent data D G  which is stored in the retrieval antecedent storing circuit  11 . 
     The operation of the system of the present invention will be described with reference to flowcharts of FIG.  3  through FIG.  5 . 
     Referring to FIG. 3, the user instructs by utterance, suggesting the selection of a program. For example, when the user utters “I want to watch a television program” (step  100 ), the speech recognition and synthesizer  8  and the learning function circuit  9  recognize the speech, and determine whether a television power supply switch is turned on (step  101 ). When the switch is turned on, the speaker  12  emits synthesized sounds so as to make the user speaks a desired program (step  103 ). 
     When the power supply switch is not turned on, the switch is turned on by the system (step  102 ). At the step  103 , the speaker  12  asks “what is your request?” 
     When the user responds, the speech recognition and synthesizer  8  recognizes the response (step  104 ) and confirms “your request is XXX isn&#39;t it?” (step  105 ). 
     At a step  106 , the user responds. If YES, the program proceeds to a step  108 , and if NO, the program goes to a step  107 . At the step  107 , speaker  12  speaks “once more please”. 
     At the step  108 , the learning function circuit  9  extracts a keyword KW included in the speech recognition data D IN . At a step  109 , it is determined whether the keyword KW is a number of a channel. If YES, the program proceeds to a step  140  of FIG.  5 . If NO, it is determined whether the keyword KW is a name of a program at a step  110 . If it is the case, the program goes to a step  111 , if NO the program goes to a step  113 . 
     At the step  111 , it is determined whether the program is broadcasted at that time. If it is not broadcasted, the speaker informs that the program will be broadcasted at ◯ ◯ o&#39;clock at a step  112  and the program returns to the step  107 . 
     When the keyword KW is not a name of a program, the retrieval antecedent data D G  and the item data D P  are read out from the item data and retrieval antecedent storing circuit  11  (step  113 ). At a step  114 , it is determined whether there is a fact that a program has been selected by the keyword KW. If YES, the name of the antecedent program is displayed on the display  7  (step  115 ), and the speaker asks “is this program OK?” (step  116 ). The user responds at a step  117 . When NO at the steps  114  and  117 , the program proceeds to a step  118  of FIG.  4 . 
     At the step  118 , it is determined whether a program can be identified by the keyword KW. If possible, identified programs are displayed as choices (step  119 ), and the speaker  12  asks “which do you choose?” (step  120 ). At a step  121 , the user inputs a desired program, and the speaker asks “is this program OK?” (step  122 ). 
     If NO at the step  118 , it is determined whether the keyword is provided to instruct a selection mode of a program (step  127 ). If NO at the steps  122  and  127 , the program goes to a step  123 . 
     At the step  123 , categories relative to the keyword are displayed as choices, and speaker asks “which do you choose?” (step  124 ). At a step  125 , the user inputs a desired category, and it is confirmed “is this program OK?” (step  126 ). The steps  124 ,  125  and  126  are repeated until OK. 
     When YES at the step  127 , it is determined whether the category is a desired selection mode at a step  128 . If NO, the program proceeds to a step  133  of FIG.  5 . If YES, frequently watched categories are displayed as choices based on the retrieval antecedent data D G , and the speaker asks “which do you choose?” at a step  130 . At a step  131 , the user inputs a desired category. At a step  132 , the speaker asks “is this program OK?” 
     When NO at the steps  128  and  132 , it is determined whether the category is a basic selection mode (step  133 ). If NO, the speaker informs that the desired program can not be selected at a step  134 , and the program returns to the step  107 . 
     When YES at the step  133 , an uppermost category is displayed as choices, and the speaker asks “which do you choose?” at a step  136 . The user inputs a desired category at a step  137 . The speaker asks “is this program OK?” at a step  138 . If OK, the program proceeds to the step  140 . If NO, lower categories are displayed as choices (step  139 ) and the program returns to the step  136 . 
     When OK at the steps  111 ,  117 ,  122 ,  126 ,  132 , and  138  a chosen program is displayed at the step  140 . At a step  141 , the keyword used for the program choice and the result of the selection are stored in the item data and retrieval antecedent storing circuit  11 . 
     The system of the present invention can be applied to radio broadcasting and multimedia communication networks. 
     The second embodiment of the present invention is described with reference to FIGS. 6-11. In FIG. 6, the same parts as FIG. 1 are identified by the same reference numerals as FIG.  1 . 
     The system of the second embodiment is adapted to be operated by a remote controller  20 . The system is provided with a remote control signal transmitting and receiving circuit  30 , an input changeover switch  40 , an output changeover switch  50 , and a learning function circuit  9   a . The learning function circuit  9   a  has an encoder  60 . 
     The remote control signal transmitting and receiving circuit  30  is provided with a receiving circuit for demodulating a light signal from the remote controller  20  and for producing a received data R IN  and with a transmitting circuit for modulating the audio data D OUT  supplied from the learning function circuit  9   a  through the changeover switch  50  and for transmitting the modulated light signal to the remote controller  20 . 
     The input changeover switch  40  has a fixed contact a connected to an output of the receiving circuit of the remote control signal transmitting and receiving circuit  30 , and a fixed contact b connected to an output of the speech recognition and synthesizer  8 . 
     The output changeover switch  50  has a fixed contact c connected to an input of the remote control signal transmitting and receiving circuit  30 , and a fixed contact d connected to an input of the speech recognition and synthesizer  8 . 
     The movable contacts of the switches  40  and  50  are operated by the remote control signal transmitting and receiving circuit  30 . 
     When the speech recognition data D IN  is fed to the learning function circuit  9   a  through switch  40 , the learning function circuit  9   a  extracts a keyword KW′ included in the speech recognition data D IN , and the keyword KW′ is supplied to the encoder  60 . 
     The encoder  60  reads a code data corresponding to the keyword KW′ with reference to a data table provided in the retrieval antecedent circuit  11 , and converts the keyword KW′ to a keyword KW. The keyword is processed by the program of FIGS. 3-5. 
     When the received data R IN  is fed to the learning circuit  9   a  through the switch  40 , the received data R IN  is supplied to the encoder  60 . 
     The encoder  60  reads a code data corresponding to the receiving data R IN  with reference to a data table provided in the retrieval antecedent circuit  11 , and converts the read out code data to a keyword KW. The keyword is processed by the program of FIGS. 3-5. 
     FIG. 7 shows the data table in the retrieval antecedent circuit  11 . In the data table, keywords KW′ (word) and code data are stored. 
     The encoder  60  changes the word keyword KW′ to the keyword KW in the form of the code data by reading the code data. 
     For example, when the user speaks “sports”, a keyword KW′ of “Sports” (word) is extracted from the speech recognition data D IN , a code data (00)H belonging to the first category al is changed to a key word KW. When the user speaks “baseball”, a code data (20)H belonging to the second category β 1  is converted to a keyword KW corresponding to baseball. Other keywords KW′ are converted to keywords KW of code data. 
     The data table of FIG. 7 is hierarchically composed as shown in FIG.  8 . 
     The learning function circuit  9  identifies a program based on the hierarchized item data (code data). Namely, the data table has two functions. One of the functions is a reference data storing means which is used at a time when the encoder  60  converts the keyword KW′ to the keyword KW, and the other is a reference data storing means which is used by the learning circuit  9   a  at retrieving and learning a program. As a result, the storing capacity is reduced. 
     Furthermore, when the user speaks “team  1 ” of the team name belonging to the lowermost category, the learning function circuit  9  retrieves a retrieval antecedent data D G  and item data D P , supplies both data to the program selecting circuit  10  as the selection demand data D CH . The selection demand data D CH  is represented as (00 20 50 A1) in accordance with the code data of FIG.  7 . Since the item data D P  representing the program information is represented and managed by the code data, it is possible to process a large number of sets of information by a small number of bits. The system is miniaturized and the retrieval can be processed at a high speed. 
     When the program guide data D PES  is applied to the program selecting circuit  10 , and learning circuit  9   a  adds a new item data D P  to the data table in the retrieval antecedent storing circuit  11  in accordance with the program guide data D PES , the encoder  60  converts the program guide data D PES  to the item data D P . Consequently, the program retrieval based on the added new item data can be processed at a high speed. 
     The operation of the system of FIG. 6 is described hereinafter. 
     As shown in FIG. 9, the remote controller  20  has a transmitter-receiver section  20   a , display  20   b , function key  20   c , alphabet key  20   d , ten key  20   e , and others. 
     When the user depresses the key of “Mode Change”, one of four input/output modes shown in FIG. 10 is changed at every depression. 
     For example, when the key is depressed one time, the uppermost first mode is selected. Namely, the contact a of the switch  40  is closed, and contact c of the switch  50  is closed. Thus, input and output operations of the remote controller  20  can be performed. 
     When the start key is depressed in the first mode, an input instruction is given to the learning function circuit  9   a . In response to the instruction, the learning function circuit  9   a  produces the audio data D OUT  corresponding to “what do you want?” The audio data D OUT  is transmitted to the remote controller  20  from the remote control signal transmitting and receiving circuit  30 , so that “what do you want?” is displayed on the display  20   b.    
     The user inputs “I want to watch baseball.” by the alphabet key  20   d , and depresses Decision key. The learning circuit  9   a  retrieves a keyword KW′ of baseball, and retrieves a program based on the keyword KW of the code data (00)H corresponding to the keyword KW′. 
     When the user wants to change the input content, Change key is depressed, and alphabet keys are depressed to input a new content. 
     When Channel key is depressed and the ten key is depressed, a channel of a broadcast station can be directly instructed. 
     For example, when “is this program OK?” (same as step  116  of FIG. 3) is displayed on the display  20   b , the user depresses OK or NO key. 
     When the Mode Change key is depressed again (two times), the second input/output mode of FIG. 10 is selected. In the second mode, the contact a and contact d are closed. Therefore, the output is carried out from the speaker  12 . 
     When the Mode Change is depressed once more (3 times), the third mode is selected. In the mode, contact b and contact c are closed. The mode becomes an audio input mode and a remote controller display mode. 
     In the fourth mode the contact b and contact d are closed. Therefore, the mode becomes the audio input and output modes. 
     If the Mode Change key is depressed, the mode returns to the first mode. 
     FIG. 11 shows a modification of the remote controller  20 . The alphabet key is omitted in the remote controller. Alphabets are assigned to the ten key. For example, “A” “B” “C” are assigned to “0” key, the alphabets are changed from “A” to “C” at every depression of the key. 
     In accordance with the present invention, if there is a fact that the program instructed by the user has been watched by the user, the program is immediately displayed without passing a plurality of steps. Thus, the user is relieved of troublesome reply. 
     While the invention has been described in conjunction with preferred specific embodiment thereof, it will be understood that this description is intended to illustrate and not limit the scope of the invention, which is defined by the following claims.