The present invention relates to a broadcast receiving apparatus for receiving a broadcast signal and displaying a picture, such as, a television receiver, for example, and in particular, it relates to a broadcast receiving apparatus enabling to receive plural kinds of television signals broadcasted (for example, digital/analog terrestrial broadcastings, and digital/analog BC/CS broadcasting), in plural numbers thereof, simultaneously, as well as, the structures of a tuner and further a distributor for that.
The terrestrial digital broadcasting is started in 2003, and accompanying with this, it is necessary for a broadcast receiving apparatus (i.e., a television receiving apparatus) to receive three (3) kinds of broadcast signals, including the conventional analog broadcasting and the BS/CS therein. Also, at the same time, in recent years, a flat-type display panel comes to a main stream, as a display device in the broadcast receiving apparatus, in the place of the conventional cathode ray tube (CRT). However, as such the flat-type display panel is widely used one, mainly, applying a liquid crystal panel or a plasma display panel (hereinafter, being abbreviated by “PDP”), and it is called by a thin-type or flat-type television.
Then, in the broadcast receiving apparatus, accompanying with an increase of the number of kinds of the receivable signals broadcasted, it is necessary to deal with those three (3) kinds broadcast signals, i.e., mounting or packaging at least three (3) kinds of tuners therein. At that instance, in particular, in case of the thin or flat-type television, an internal space thereof is small, comparing to that within the structures of the conventional CRT-type television, and for that reason, it is difficult to install those necessary three (3) pieces of the tuners within an inside of the apparatus, in the form of an internal circuit. Further, multi-functioning is remarkable, in recent years, for the television receiving apparatus, and in particular, for achieving so-called, a TV built-in recording function or a two-screen function, including a simultaneous recording function of viewing one program broadcasted while recording other program broadcasted at the same time, at least two (2) pieces of the tuners are necessary for each of the kinds of the broadcasts, respectively. Thus, with this, at least six (6) pieces of tuners, in total, must be installed within an inside of broadcast receiving apparatus.
However, conventionally, for dissolving such the problem, for example, three (3) kinds of the tuners for receiving the broadcasts, each being formed separately, i.e., a tuner for use of terrestrial digital broadcastings, a tuner for use of terrestrial analog broadcastings, and a tuner for use of BS/CS, are combined with as one (1) piece of unit, and further two (2) pieces of the units are installed within the inside of the apparatus, for dealing with the TV built-in recording function and/or the two-screen function.
In the broadcast receiving apparatus, according to such the conventional art, various kinds of broadcasted signals received with an antenna are supplied to the two (2) pieces of the tuner units mentioned above, via an antenna splitter, however, in that instance, it is necessary to connect between the splitter and the tuners by means of a cable. And, the cable is wound around from the antenna, which is set up, reaching to the position where the broadcast receiving apparatus is set up, but in that instance, accompanying with the winding-around of that cable, disturbance is made upon a very weak signal flowing inside, and further there brings about a problem of attenuation of the signal level thereof. Also, in particular, for the broadcast receiving apparatus, installing two (2) pieces of the tuners mentioned above for enabling the TV built-in recording function and/or the two-screen function, it is disadvantageous in small-sizing and thin-sizing thereof.
On the other hand, conventionally, in the following Patent Document 1, for example, there is disclosed a digital broadcast receiving apparatus, comprising a first tuner being built within a metal shield body, a second tuner also being built within that metal shield body, and a balloon built-in distributor for distributing an antenna input at each of high-frequency input terminals of the first and second turners, thereby directly connecting that distributor with each of the high-frequency input terminals of the first and second turners, respectively.
Also, in the following Patent Document 2 is already known an electronic tuner comprising a first electronic tuner and a second electronic tuner, being built within a common shield housing, and a distributor having two (2) distributing outputs for distributing an antenna input to those electronic tuners respectively.
Further, in the following Patent Document 3 is already known a receiving apparatus having at least two (2) tuners, which are built within a common shield housing, each the tuner comprising an antenna input terminal, respectively, wherein a both-sided substrate of mounting parts, for building up-each tuner, installs the said parts on one side surface thereof while utilizing almost the entire area of the other surface thereof to be a ground surface, and two (2) pieces of the tuners are disposed to be in parallel with each other, facing the ground surfaces thereof, i.e., being in plane-symmetric manner, thereby reducing mutual interfering disturbances in case of applying the structures of parallel disposition.
Thus, with such the conventional arts as mentioned above, in particular, from those Patent Documents 1 and 2 mentioned above, it is already known that the distributor is attached with the antenna input terminals of two (2) pieces of the tuners, and further in the Patent Document 3 is already known the structures of disposing the two (2) pieces of both-sided substrates, each mounting the parts for the each tuner thereon, facing each other on the other surfaces thereof, i.e., applying almost the entire surfaces thereof to be the ground surfaces, thereby reducing mutual interfering disturbances, for installing two (2) pieces of the tuners. However, sufficient consideration is not given yet on the mounting or packaging structures, being suitable for achieving the small-sizing and the thin-sizing thereof, as well as, resolving the above-mentioned problems accompanying with winding-around of the cables, including therein the structures of disposing the distributor, to which the antenna input terminals are connected, in particular, in case when mounting or packaging a tuner unit capable to receive plural numbers of broadcasting methods on the substrate.
Then, the present invention, accomplished by taking the drawbacks relating to such the conventional arts as was mentioned above into the consideration thereof, provides a technology for enabling to mount or package the tuner units in plural numbers thereof, each being capable to receive broadcasted signals of plural kinds (i.e., three (3) kinds) corresponding to plural numbers of broadcasting methods, with small-sizing and thin-sizing thereof, in particular, within the thin or flat-type broadcast receiving apparatus. Also, with small-sizing of the structures of the distributor, to which the antenna input terminal is connected, the present invention provides a tuner device, hardly generating attenuation of level of a very weak signal due to the winding-around of cable and a distributor for the same, and further a broadcast receiving apparatus using the same therein.
According to the present invention, firstly there is provided a tuner device, being capable to receive broadcast signals differing in broadcasting method thereof, comprising: plural numbers of tuner units, each being able to receive the broadcast signals differing in kind of broadcasting, and having plural numbers of input terminals; a substrate for mounting said plural numbers of tuner units on both surfaces thereof, disposing upper and lower surfaces of said tuner units into same direction; and distributors configured to distribute an antenna signal, each being attached between the input terminals of said plural numbers of tuner units, bridging over the both surfaces of said substrate.
And, according to the present invention, in the tuner device as described in the above, preferably, said distributor comprises the antenna input terminals, being provided in direction perpendicular to the surface of said substrate, or preferably, said substrate comprises a grounding layer in a part thereof, being formed so as to cover one of said tuner units. Further, within the tuner device as described in the above, it is preferable that an electromagnetic shield is further provided on said one of the tuner units.
Also, according to the present invention, there is provided a distributor for the tuner apparatus, as described in the above, comprising: an antenna input terminal; a built-in amplifier for amplifying an input signal inputted therein from said antenna input terminal to a predetermined level; and a pair of output terminals for outputting an output from said amplifier, separately. Further, according to the present invention, within the distributor, as described in the above, it is preferable that said antenna input terminal is disposed in direction perpendicular to said pair of output terminals.
In addition thereto, according to the present invention, there is further provided a broadcast receiving apparatus, being capable to receive broadcast signals differing in broadcasting method thereof, as well as, plural numbers of the broadcast signals, simultaneously, comprising: a housing; a receiver portion, which is configured to receive the broadcast signals from different antennas; a signal processing portion, which is configured to produce audio/video signals upon basis of the signal received by said receiving portion; and a display portion, which is configured to display the audio/video signals from said signal processing portion, wherein said receiver portion comprises plural numbers of tuner units, each being capable to receive the broadcast signals differing in broadcasting method thereof and having plural numbers of input terminals, said plural numbers of tuner units are mounted on both surfaces of a substrate, disposing upper and lower surfaces of said tuner units into same direction, and distributors, which are configured to distribute an antenna signal, are attached between the input terminals of said plural numbers of the tuner units, each bridging over the both surfaces of said substrate.
Further, according to the present invention, the broadcast receiving apparatus, as described in the above, preferably, said broadcast signals differing in broadcasting method thereof include an analog terrestrial broadcasting signal, digital BS/CS broadcasting signals, and a digital terrestrial broadcasting signal, or preferably, said broadcast receiving apparatus having the TV built-in recording function or the two (2)-screens function, and further, preferably it is constructed with the thin or flat-type display.
As was mentioned above, with the tuner device, the distributor for the same, and the broadcast receiving apparatus, according to the present invention, it is possible to mount the tuner devices in plural number thereof, each being receivable plural kinds of broadcasting signals corresponding to plural numbers of broadcasting methods, in particular, within the housing of the thin or flat-type broadcast receiving apparatus, thereby achieving small-sizing and thin-sizing thereof. Also, since it is possible to small-size the structures of the distributors, to which the antenna inputs are connected, there can be obtain also a practically superior effect of providing superior structures for mounting or packaging, without causing attenuation of level of the very weak signal due to the winding-around of the cable, etc.
Those and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:
Hereinafter, embodiments according to the present invention will be fully explained by referring to the attached drawings.
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Following to the above, explanation will be made on the circuit structures of the broadcast receiving apparatus, the detailed structures of which was explained in the above, in particular, mainly the tuner portions thereof, including the main tuner 110 and the sub-tuner 120 thereof, by referring to
On the other hand, as was mentioned previously, each of the main tuner 110 and the sub-tuner 120 is constructed to be as the three-in-one tuner capable to receive the three (3) kinds of broadcast signals, and for example, in the main tuner 110, the input signal from the input terminal 111 is outputted in the form of an IF signal after being inputted into a U/V tuner circuit 115 for the terrestrial broadcast signal. On the other hand, the input signal from the input terminal 112 is outputted in the form of an I/Q signal after being inputted into a tuner circuit for BS/CS signals. However, those IF and I/Q signals are digital signals. Further, in this three-in-one tuner, a part of the output from the U/V tuner circuit 115 is outputted to an analog signal processing circuit 170 for conducing image processing or the like in the form of the analog signal, through an A/V demodulation circuit 117 for demodulating the terrestrial broadcast signal and a sound multiplex demodulation circuit 118.
On the other hand, the digital IF signal from the U/V tuner circuit 115 and the digital I/Q signal from the BS/CS tuner circuit 116 are further inputted into an OFDM circuit 151 and an 8 PSK (8 Phase Shift Keying) circuit 152 building up a digital modulation circuit 150, respectively, and after being modulated into predetermined digital signals, they are outputted to a digital signal processing circuit 180 for conducting digital signal processing, including such as MPEG decoder or the like, for example.
Further, in the similar manner to the main tuner 110, the sub-tuner 120 also comprises the U/V tuner circuit for the terrestrial broadcast signal 125, the BS/CS tuner circuit 126, the A/V demodulation circuit 127, and the sound multiplex demodulation circuit 128, thereby outputting an analog signal to the analog signal processing circuit 170, and at the same time, outputting the IF signal and the I/Q signal in the form of analog signal to digital signal processing circuit 180, through the digital demodulation circuit 160 which is also built up with the OFDM circuit 161 and the 8 PSK circuit 162.
And, the video/audio signals from the analog signal processing circuit 170 or the digital signal processing circuit 180 are outputted, through a switch (SW) circuit 190, input/output circuits of which are exchanged through a control signal from a controller apparatus for controlling the apparatus as a whole (i.e., being construed with a CPU), for example, the PDP 11 and the speakers 12 thereof (see
In this manner, with the broadcast receiving apparatus according to the present invention, the details of which were mentioned above, i.e., using the three-in-one tuner capable to receive plural kinds (three (3) kinds) of broadcast signals therein, and installing them within the thin or flat-type broadcast receiving apparatus, there is no necessity of using the antenna cable therein, which was used therein conventionally, since those tuners are disposed on both sides of the substrate, so that the antenna splitters, each being disposed vertically, can be attached directly onto the antenna input terminals of those tuners, in the structures thereof, it is advantageous from a viewpoint of performances/costs thereof, and also since the sub-tuner can be mounted on the reverse side of the substrate where conventionally no part is mounted on, therefore it is advantageous from a viewpoint of an area for mounting or packaging; i.e., enabling to mount or package the tuner portions with small-sizing and thin-sizing thereof. In particular, disposing the antenna input terminals to be perpendicular to the surface of the substrate, on which the tuner units are mounted, enables to distribute an improvement on the area for mounting or packaging thereof within the thin or flat-type television, as well as, enabling to dispose the antenna input terminals direction to the rear of the receiving apparatus; therefore it makes the operation for connecting the antenna cable easy. Thus, with small-sizing of also the structures of the distributors, to which the antennal input terminals are connected, it is possible to provide the tuner units that hardly generates attenuation of the very weak signal level due to winding-around of the cables, the distributors for the same, and also the broadcast receiving apparatus using those therein.
Also, since the tuner units having the same configuration can be used as the main tuner and the sub-tuner (i.e., enabling the common use), it is possible to deal with a single tuner model, depending on a situation on the market or the like, easily, by removing the lower-side tuner unit (i.e., the sub-tuner), for example.
While we have shown and described several embodiments in accordance with our invention, it should be understood that discloses embodiments are susceptible of changes and modification without departing from the scope of the invention. Therefor, we do not intend to be bound by the details shown and described herein but intend to cover all such changes and modifications that falls within the ambit of the appended claims.
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