Patent Publication Number: US-2010125678-A1

Title: Electronic device and related method for controlling a peripheral device

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to an electronic device and related method for controlling a peripheral device, and more particularly, to an electronic device and related method for controlling a peripheral device by a HDMI-CEC (High Definition Multimedia Interface-Consumer Electronic Control) signal. 
     2. Description of the Prior Art 
     With the development of computer and communications network technologies, digital home appliances are getting popular and bring great convenience to people in modern life. A digital home integrates the control of personal computers, multimedia entertainment equipment, home electronics such as a refrigerator and a washing machine, and a security system. These digital home appliances are connected to a home gateway through wired/wireless network and communicate with the external network by the home gateway. In a digital home, people perform remote control on digital home appliances, for example, control the angle of a door monitoring system or set the temperature and operation time of an air conditioner, even if they are not home. 
     Please refer to  FIG. 1 , which is a block diagram of a digital home  10  according to the prior art. The digital home  10  comprises a router  100 , a DVD player  102 , a computer  104 , an access point  106 , and an Infrared (IR) transmitter  108 . The peripheral device in the digital home  10 , such as the DVD player  102 , is connected to the access point (AP)  106  via the IR transmitter  108 . The access point  106  and the computer  104  are connected with the Internet via the router  100 . The access point  106  uses a networking protocol as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) to control a connected peripheral device of high complexity, such as a computer, and control another peripheral device of low complexity, such as the DVD player  102 , a television or a set-up box, via the IR transmitter  108 . Note that the IR transmitter  108  can only transmit signals with a single direction and cannot transmit an acknowledge as a response, which means that the access point  106  has no way to recognize whether a transmitted command is successfully received by the DVD player  102  after sending the command, and thereby cannot perform a preferable control according to a response signal. 
     Currently, general peripheral devices do not support a high-level protocol as TCP/IP. The user can only perform remote control on those peripheral devices in the digital system  10  via the access point  106  and cannot directly control the peripheral devices. In other words, a general peripheral device cannot perform the control integration like the access point  106  does, which is inconvenient and inflexible in the digital home. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is therefore a primary objective of the claimed invention to provide an electronic device and related method for controlling a peripheral device. 
     The present invention discloses an electronic device for controlling a peripheral device, the electronic device comprising a data processing unit, a command processing unit, and a transformation unit. The data processing unit is utilized for receiving a control command and transforming the control command into a first command. The command processing unit is coupled to the data processing unit and is utilized for decoding the first command to obtain a task of the peripheral device and encoding the task for generating a second command. The transformation unit is coupled to the command processing unit and the peripheral device, and is utilized for transforming the second command into a third command of CEC format, for controlling operations of the peripheral device. 
     The present invention further discloses a control method for controlling a peripheral device, the control method comprising receiving a control command and transforming the control command into a first command, decoding the first command to obtain a task of the peripheral device and encoding the task to generate a second command, and transforming the second command into a third command of CEC format, for controlling operations of the peripheral device. 
     These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a digital home according to the prior art. 
         FIG. 2  is a block diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG. 3  is a block diagram of a digital home according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG. 4  is a flowchart of a process according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Please refer to  FIG. 2 , which is a block diagram of an electronic device  20  according to an embodiment of the present invention. The electronic device  20  is utilized for controlling multiple peripheral devices located in a region, such as a television, a DVD player, a digital video recorder, a personal video recorder, and a set-up box. First note that, the present invention uses a HDMI-CEC (High Definition Multimedia Interface-Consumer Electronic Control) signal to control peripheral devices, which means that the electronic device  20  controls those peripheral devices supporting HDMI. 
     Briefly, the electronic device  20  is utilized for receiving a control command generated by a control device such as a computer, a mobile phone or a telephone, transforming the control command into a CEC command, and controlling a peripheral device accordingly. For example, a user uses a computer located outside of the home to connect to the electronic device  20  at home, for controlling a video recorder to record programs. In this situation, the electronic device  20  receives a control command generated by the computer and controls the video recorder according a CEC command transformed from the control command. The embodiment of the present invention only describes that the electronic device  20  receives one control command from a peripheral device  22 ; in fact, the electronic device  20  can receive multiple control commands and control multiple peripheral devices respectively. 
     The electronic device  20  comprises data processing units  200 ,  202  and  204 , a command processing unit  206 , a scheduling unit  208 , a CEC transformation unit  210 , a detection unit  212 , an infrared transformation unit  214 , and an infrared assist control unit  216 . The data processing units  200 ,  202  and  204  are utilized for transforming control commands of different formats respectively such that a control command is transformed into a command with a specific format, called the first command later. The specific format is acceptable for the command processing unit  206  and is different depending on types of the corresponding control device. The data processing unit  200  is utilized for transforming a control command of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) format. The data processing unit  202  is utilized for transforming a control command of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) (or Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer, HTTPS) format. When the user uses a mobile phone or a computer to connect to the electronic device  20  via the Internet, the data processing unit  200  or  202  receives the control command of TCP/IP format or HTTP/HTTPS format and transforms the control command. The data processing unit  204  is utilized for transforming the control command which is audio data generated by a telephone. The command processing unit  206  is coupled to the data processing unit  200 ,  202  and  204 , and is utilized for decoding the first command to obtain a task of the peripheral device  22  and encoding the task to generate another command, called a second command later. 
     Note that the data processing units  200 ,  202  or  204  also sends the generated first command to the scheduling unit  208 . The scheduling unit  208  is coupled to the data processing units  200 ,  202 ,  204  and the command processing unit  206 . When there is timing information included in the control command, scheduling unit  208  assists the command processing unit  206  in processing the first command according to the timing information. For example, when the user uses the computer to transmit the control command of TCP/IP format to the electronic device  20 , for controlling a video recorder at home to record a TV program at 6 pm; in this situation, the scheduling unit  208  assists the command processing unit  206  to process the first command, so that the video recorder is waken up on time for the recording task. 
     As mentioned previously, the command processing unit  206  encodes the task of the peripheral device  22  to generate the second command. The CEC transformation unit  210  is coupled to the command processing unit  206  and the peripheral device  22 , and is utilized for transforming the second command generated by the command processing unit  206  into a CEC command, called the third command later, for controlling operations of the peripheral device  22  according to the third command. The detection unit  212  is coupled to the CEC transformation unit  210  and is utilized for assisting the CEC transformation unit  210  to complete a handshaking process to establish a connection with the peripheral device  22 . Besides, the detection unit  212  automatically detects an operation state of the peripheral device  22  via the CEC transformation unit  210 . If the electronic device  20  is coupled to multiple peripheral devices, the detection unit  212  can detect operation states of all peripheral devices. Furthermore, the CEC transformation unit  210  sends the detected operation state back to the command processing unit  206 . The command processing unit  206  controls a corresponding data process unit to generate data related to the operation state and sends the data back to the control device. Therefore, the user knows the current operation state of the peripheral device  22  and can make a further decision accordingly. 
     Besides, the infrared transformation unit  214  and the infrared assist control unit  216  are utilized for controlling those peripheral devices not supporting HDMI and only controlled by an IR transmitter, as shown as a peripheral device  24  in  FIG. 2 . The infrared transformation unit  214  is coupled to the command processing unit  206  and the peripheral device  24 , and is utilized for transforming the second command into an IR control command and controlling a handshaking process to establish a connection with the peripheral device  24 . The infrared assist control unit  216 , in which several IR control commands for different types of peripheral devices are stored, is coupled to the infrared transformation unit  214  and is utilized for assisting the infrared transformation unit  214  to transform the second command into the IR control command. 
     Note that, the electronic device  20  is one of embodiments of the present invention, and those skilled in the art can make alterations and modifications accordingly. The IR transmitter may not be supported by another embodiment not including the infrared transformation unit  214  and the infrared assist control unit  216 . In addition, the data processing units  200 ,  202  and  204  can be integrated into a single data processing unit, and can support another format except TCP/IP and HTTP/HTTPS format. In a conventional digital home, the user remote controls peripheral devices, such as multimedia entertainment equipment, only through an access point and has no way to control the peripheral devices by a general peripheral device. Compared with the prior art, the electronic device  20  transforms the control command into the CEC command to control the peripheral device supporting HDMI, so that whether the electronic device  20  is independent or is installed in a peripheral device, the user can perform remote control on the peripheral devices in a digital home. 
     Please refer to  FIG. 3 , which is a block diagram of a digital home  30  according to an embodiment of the present invention. The digital home  30  comprises the electronic device  20 , a router  300 , a DVD player  302 , a video recorder  304 , a set-up box  306 , and a television  308 . The DVD player  302 , the video recorder  304 , the set-up box  306  and the television  308  are communicated with each other by HDMI CEC signals. The electronic device  20  is coupled to the router  300  and the video recorder  304 , which is connected with the Internet via the router  300 , and controls the peripheral devices as the DVD player  302 , the set-up box  306  and the television  308 , via the video recorder  304 . By HDMI-CEC signal, the electronic device according to the present invention can control a peripheral device through another peripheral device, which enhances the user convenience of a digital home. 
     Please refer to  FIG. 4  for the operations of the electronic device  20 , which is a flowchart of a process  40  according to an embodiment of the present invention. The process  40  comprises the following steps: 
     Step  400 : Start. 
     Step  402 : The data processing unit  200 ,  202  or  204  receives a control command generated by a control device and transforms the control command into a first command. 
     Step  404 : The scheduling unit  208  assists the command processing unit  206  in processing the first command according to timing information when the timing information is included in the control command. 
     Step  406 : The command processing unit  206  decodes the first command to obtain a task of the peripheral device  22  and encodes the task to generate a second command. 
     Step  408 : The CEC transformation unit  210  transforms the second command into a third command of a CEC format, for controlling operations of the peripheral device  22 . 
     Step  410 : The detection unit  212  automatically detects an operation state of the peripheral device  22  via the CEC transformation unit  210  and sends the operation state back to the control device. 
     Step  412 : The infrared transformation unit  214  transforms the second command into an IR control command to control the peripheral device  24 . 
     Step  414 : End. 
     In the process  40 , the control commands of different formats are transformed by the data processing unit  200 ,  202  or  204 , for generating the first command sent to the command processing unit  206 . Step  408  and Step  410  illustrate operations of the CEC transformation unit  210  and the detection unit  212 ; Step  412  illustrates operations of the infrared transformation unit  214 . Step  408  and Step  412  can be operated at the same time. The operation of the process is described in detail in the electronic device  20  mentioned previously, which is not repeated. 
     In conclusion, the electronic device according to the present invention transforms the control command into the command of HDMI-CEC format through the data processing unit, the command processing unit and the CEC transformation unit, and thereby controls the peripheral device according to the command of HDMI-CEC format. The user only requires connecting the electronic device in order to control the peripheral devices in the digital home. Therefore, the user experience of the digital home is greatly improved. 
     Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention.