Patent Application
20070212018
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-042998, filed Feb. 20, 2006, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field
One embodiment of the invention relates to a broadcast recording apparatus for recording a broadcast program, and particularly to a broadcast recording apparatus and a broadcast recording method for providing lock setting for avoiding automatic deletion of a program at a stage of image recording reservation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with prevalence of a digital device, a broadcast receiving apparatus such as a hard disk recorder has been generally used. It becomes possible to easily record/reproduce more video image information than a case of a recording/reproducing process using a conventional video tape recorder (VTR). In such a broadcast receiving apparatus, it becomes possible to further easily carry out an unattended image recording process by utilizing electronic program guide supplied from a broadcast station or a server.
However, in the conventional techniques (Jpn. Pat. Applns. KOKAI Publication No. 2003-289490, and KOKAI Publication No. 2004-86288), there is a problem that program lock setting cannot be provided at a stage of program recording reservation.
A general architecture that implements the various feature of the invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. The drawings and the associated descriptions are provided to illustrate embodiments of the invention and not to limit the scope of the invention.
Various embodiments according to the invention will be described hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings. In general, according to one embodiment of the invention, a broadcast recording apparatus, comprising: a tuner unit which receives a broadcast signal, demodulates the received signal, and outputs a video image/voice signal; a reservation setting unit which makes image recording reservation for a specific program, and then, provides lock setting for preventing automatic deletion after image recording at the time of the image recording reservation; a reserved image recording unit which, when a time indicated by reservation information has come, records a video image/voice signal of the broadcast signal in a storage region together with the lock setting; and a lock control unit which, if it is judged that a free space of the storage region is insufficient when the reserved image recording unit performs reserved image recording in accordance with reservation information, deletes a signal to which the lock setting is not provided, from among the video image/voice signals stored in the storage region.
Now, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
(Configuration)
First, in a broadcast receiving apparatus 10 of
Therefore, in the following description of the embodiments section with reference to
In
In addition, the broadcast receiving apparatus 10 of
Further, the broadcast receiving apparatus 10 has an operating unit 32 connected to the control unit 30 via the data bus B, the operating unit receiving an operation of a user or an operation of a remote controller R. Here, the remote controller R enables an operation that is substantially identical to that of the operating unit 32 provided at the main body of the broadcast receiving apparatus 10. This remote controller enables a variety of settings such as settings of a recording/reproducing instruction of the hard disk drive unit 18 or the optical disk drive unit 19, an edit instruction, and tuner operation and reserved image recording.
(Basic Operation)
Reproducing Broadcast Contents
In the thus configured broadcast receiving apparatus 10 that is a digital television, a broadcast signal is received under the control of the control unit 30 or the like and broadcast contents from the BS/CS tuner 12 or the terrestrial digital/analog tuner unit 13 are displayed on the display 26 in accordance with an operating signal responsive to an operation of the user's remote controller R or the operating unit 32.
Recording Process
Now, an operation at the time of recording will be described in detail including those of other embodiments. As an input side of the broadcast receiving apparatus 10, the communication unit 11 such as LAN is connected to an external device to make communication with a program information providing server or the like through a communication channel such as the Internet via a modem or the like, for example, or to download broadcast contents or the like. In addition, the BS/CS digital tuner unit 12 and the terrestrial digital/analog tuner unit 13 each channel-select and demodulate a broadcast signal via an antenna, input a video image signal and a voice signal, and are compatible with a variety of broadcast signals. Examples of such broadcast signals include: a terrestrial analog broadcast signal; a terrestrial digital broadcast signal; a BS analog broadcast signal; a BS digital broadcast signal; a CS digital broadcast signal or the like without being limited thereto. In addition, the number of the tuner units provided is not necessarily one, and there is included a case of providing two or three and more terrestrial tuner units or BS/CS tuner units so as to function in parallel in response to a reserved image recording request.
In addition, the communication unit 11 described previously may be an IEEE1394 interface and can receive digital contents from an external device over a network. In addition, this communication unit can receive a luminance signal or a color difference signal, a video image signal such as a composite signal, or a voice signal from an input terminal (not shown). These signals are selectively supplied to the encoder unit 21 while inputs thereof are controlled by the selector 16 controlled under the control unit 30 or the like.
The encoder unit 21 has video and audio analog/digital converters that digitize an analog video signal or an analog audio signal inputted by the selector 16; a video encoder; and an audio encoder. Further, this encoder unit includes a subsidiary video image encoder. An output of the encoder unit 21 is converted into a compression format such as a predetermined MPEG, and then, is supplied to the control unit 30 described previously.
In addition, the BS/CS digital tuner 12 or the like is not always incorporated. It is preferable that this digital tuner should be externally provided via a data input terminal and supply a received digital signal to the encoder unit 21 or the control unit 30 via the selector unit 16.
Here, the apparatus of
The signal editing unit 20 can carry out an editing process such as partially deleting video objects of a plurality of programs recorded in the hard disk drive unit 18 or the optical disk D or connecting objects of different programs to each other.
Reproducing Process or the Like
Now, a process for reproducing recorded information will mainly be described in detail including those according to other embodiments.
The MPEG decoder unit 23 comprises a video processor that properly combines a decoded subsidiary video image with a decoded main video image and that superimposes and outputs a menu, a highlight button, subtitles or any other subsidiary video image on the main video image.
An output audio signal of the MPEG decoder unit 23 is supplied to a speaker after being analog-converted by a digital/analog converter (not shown), via the selector unit 17 or is supplied to an external device via an interface (I/F) unit 27. The selector unit 17 is controlled by means of a select signal from the control unit 30. In this manner, the selector unit 17 can directly select a signal having passed through the encoder unit 21 when a digital signal from each of the tuner units 12 and 13 is directly monitored.
Reserved Image Recording Process
In addition, the communication unit 11 enables a program table based on electronic program information acquired from the tuner units 12 and 13 to be displayed on a screen in response to a program specified in accordance with an operation of a user's remote controller R or the like by using the program table generating unit 43. In addition, based on reserved image recording information and due to the working of the control unit 30 and the program table generating unit 43, when a reservation time has come, a video image/voice signal obtained by demodulating the program information received by the BS/CS digital tuner unit 12 or the terrestrial digital/analog tuner unit 13 is recorded (reserved/image-recorded) in the hard disk drive unit 18, for example, through an encoding process of the encoder 21 or the like.
The broadcast receiving apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment thus has a comprehensive function, and carries out a recording/reproducing process using an optical disk D or the hard disk drive unit 18 with respect to a plurality of sources.
Now, with reference to flow charts of
Lock Function Setting Process
With reference to the flow chart of
Next, if the lock setting described previously has been provided to reservation information (step S14), this video image/voice file is handled as a video image/voice file to be protected, and then, lock setting is provided without requiring a user's operation in particular, by working of the lock control unit 42 or the like (step S15).
Deleting Process
Now, with reference to the flow chart of
Therefore, if a user thinks that a certain video file is an important program that must be stored at the time of image recording reservation process, the user provides the lock setting at the time of the image recording reservation process, thereby making it possible to reliably protect and store the video image file of that program without subsequently requiring any user's operation in particular.
The user can arbitrarily provide setting as to what kind of video image file is to be deleted, making it possible to arbitrarily select what kind of video image file should be deleted.
(Application to Broadcast Receiving Apparatus)
The processes described in the flow charts of
One skilled in the art can achieve the present embodiment in accordance with a variety of embodiments described above. Further, a variety of modified examples of these embodiments can also be easily conceived by one skilled in the art and can be applied to a variety of embodiments even if one does not have any inventive ability. Therefore, the present invention covers a broad range without departing from a disclosed principle and novel features and is not limited to the embodiments described above.
While certain embodiments of the inventions have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventions. Indeed, the novel methods and systems described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the methods and systems described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the inventions.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006-042998 | Feb 2006 | JP | national |
