Patent Application
20080185485
This invention contains subject matter related to Japanese Patent Application JP 2007-027065 filed in the Japanese Patent Office on Feb. 6, 2007, the entire contents of which being incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a display rack capable of mounting a display apparatus such as a television receiver on the top surface thereof. Particularly, the invention relates to the display rack including an amplifier and a display portion indicating a status of the amplifier.
2. Description of the Related Art
Display racks capable of mounting a television receiver or other apparatuses have been used. Recently, such display racks incorporating an amplifier that amplifies audio signals output from the television receiver, an audio apparatus and a video apparatus stored in such display racks, and a speaker that outputs the amplified audio signals have been increasingly used.
Such display racks may need a display portion to indicate the ON/OFF state of power supply and indicate the status of an electric device such as an amplifier to the user.
Further,
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H01-297006 discloses a piece of furniture for a living room storing an audio/video apparatus and provided with a display portion to display the state of a control device controlling the audio/video apparatus.
Typically, a display rack for mounting a television receiver or other apparatus is arranged and used in a living room or the like, so that the design thereof may require such quality as a part of interior decoration. Therefore, such display rack may use materials giving a sense of quality, use a glass material for the top board portion, shelf board portion and the like. However, a display portion for displaying a status of the electric device is typically formed of a FL (Fluorescent Lamp), a liquid crystal panel or the like. Therefore, it may be difficult for such elements to be matched with the materials constituting the top board portion and the leg portions of the display rack. That is, when being provided on the front surface or the top surface of the display rack, the display portion may affect the appearance of the display rack.
In addition, if such display portion is provided on the front surface or the top surface of the display rack, a cover to protect the display portion may be required. With such cover being added, the display rack may have a complicated structure and the cost thereof may increase. Further, if the display portion is provided on the top board portion of the display rack, unevenness due to the provided display portion may restrict the position of a television receiver or the like arranged on the top board portion.
It is desirable to provide a display portion indicating the status of an electric device inexpensively without affecting the appearance of a display rack.
According to an embodiment of this invention, there is provided a display rack on which a display apparatus is mounted. The display rack includes an amplifier, a top board portion, a transparent top board portion, and a display portion. The amplifier amplifies an audio signal input from a signal source of the display apparatus. The top board portion stores the amplifier. The transparent top board portion is formed of a transparent member and provided above the top board portion. The display portion indicates a status of the amplifier and is arranged under the transparent top board portion with a display surface thereof facing upward.
Accordingly, details displayed on the display portion can be checked through the transparent top board portion provided above the top board portion.
According to the embodiment of this invention, since the display portion is provided under the transparent top board portion, the display portion may not affect the appearance of the display rack.
Embodiments according to this invention will be described with reference to
An audio/video apparatus such as an apparatus for DVDs (Digital Versatile Disks) may be mounted on the shelf board portion 40. The top board portion 30 stores an amplifier 50 that amplifies audio signals output from the audio/video apparatus mounted on the shelf board portion 40 and output from the television receiver mounted on the glass top board portion 31 and a plurality of speaker units that output the audio signals amplified in the amplifier 50. As shown in
A front-left speaker unit 10Fl, front-center speaker unit 10FC, front-right speaker unit 10FR are arranged as speaker units in this order from the left end. Sound emitting portions of the respective speaker units are directed to the front surface of the top board portion 30 and covered with a grill net 34 for preventing dust. A subwoofer responsible for sound in a bass frequency range (0.1 channel) among the speakers constituting such speaker unit 10 is provided in a subwoofer box 10SW arranged under the shelf board portion 40.
The glass top board portion 31 is arranged above the top board portion 30 with a glass-top-board-portion support member 32 in between. Under the glass top board portion 31 is provided a display portion 60, indicating a status of the amplifier 50, with a display surface 61 thereof facing upward. Further, the display portion 60 is provided in a position close to the front surface in the depth direction of the glass top board portion 31 and the amplifier 50 is arranged behind the display portion 60 in the depth direction. In this embodiment, the display portion 60 is formed of a FL (Fluorescent Lamp).
An operation portion 70 is provided in a lower right position on the front surface of the top board portion 30 and is used to carry out an input operation for the electric device such as the amplifier 50. The operation portion 70 includes four buttons, for example. The four buttons are a power supply button 71, input switching button 72, volume down button 73 and volume up button 74 in this order from the left end. A remote controller not shown in the figure may also carry out an input operation on the amplifier 50, and an infrared light receiving portion 80 is arranged on the rear surface of the grill net 34 provided on the front surface of the top board portion 30. The amplifier 50 is controlled based on an operation signal generated by depressing any of the buttons constituting the operation portion 70 and an operation signal received at the infrared light receiving portion 80. The controlled state is displayed on the display surface 61 of the display portion 60. On the display portion 60 is displayed a status of the amplifier 50 such as power ON/OFF, a type of input selector, a type of input format, for example, Dolby Digital and DTS (Digital Theater Systems) and volume value.
Next, with reference to
With such configuration as described above, the details displayed on the display portion 60 can be viewed from above the top surface of the glass top board portion 31. Further, the display portion 60 is arranged close to the front side in the depth direction of the display rack 100, and therefore the display surface 61 may be prevented from being hidden under a leg portion of the television receiver 110 or other display apparatus mounted on the glass top board portion 31.
Next, an internal configuration of the display rack 100 will be described with reference to
In the amplifier 50, an audio signal for a subwoofer, an audio signal for a center channel, an audio signal for a front-left channel, and an audio signal for a front-right channel are supplied to signal processing units 2SW, 2FC, 2FL, and 2FR, respectively. The signal processing units 2SW, 2FC, 2FL, and 2FR carry out signal processing on the audio signals of respective channels. Subsequently, the resultant audio signals of respective channels are supplied to the amplifiers 5SW, 5FC, 5FL and 5FR. The input audio signals are respectively amplified also in the amplifiers 5SW, 5FC, 5FL and 5FR. The amplified audio signals are supplied to speakers 10SW-b, 10SW-a, 10FC, 10FL, and 10FR to be then output as audio signals.
In addition, the infrared light receiving portion 80 and the operation portion 70 are connected to a control unit 3 so that various kinds of adjustment and ON/OFF operation may be carried out by operating buttons constituting the operation portion 70 or buttons provided on a remote controller or the like. The control unit 3 is also connected to the display portion 60 where the status of the amplifier 50 is displayed based on an operation signal input using the remote controller, or the like.
As described above, since the display portion 60 that displays the status of the amplifier 50 is arranged under the glass top board portion 31, the external appearance of the display rack 100 may not be affected by the display portion 60. Further, since the display portion 60 is not provided on the surface but is provided in the inside of the top board portion 30, the top board is prevented from being uneven, so that a display apparatus is arranged on the surface without restriction.
Further, the glass top board portion 31 serves as a top board of the display rack 100 and a cover protecting the display portion 60. Therefore, there is no need to separately provide the cover protecting the display portion 60, enabling manufacturing costs to be reduced.
It should be noted that the display surface 61 of the display portion 60 is arranged in parallel with the glass top board portion 31 in the above-described embodiment; however, the display surface 61 may be arranged being inclined to the front surface of the display rack 100 at a predetermined angle.
The display portion 60′ is arranged at a predetermined angle in the direction of the front surface of the display rack 100 in this case. Accordingly, the details displayed on the display portion 60′ can be recognized even if the display apparatus is mounted on the glass top board portion 31 with a part of a leg portion of the display apparatus being overlapped with the position of the display surface 61′. That is, the position where the display apparatus is mounted can be selected with more flexibility.
Further, according to the above-described embodiment of this invention, although the FL (Fluorescent Lamp) is used to provide the display portion 60, the display portion 60 may be formed with an LED (Light Emitting Diode) or other light-emitting materials alone.
Further, according to the above-described embodiments of this invention, the glass top board portion 31 is provided to cover the whole surface of the top board portion 30. However, the glass top board portion 31 may be arranged for a part of the area of the top board portion 30.
Further, according to the embodiments of this invention, a transparent glass plate is used as the glass top board portion 31. However, other glass plate such as ground glass plates not completely transparent or the like may be used as the glass top board portion 31, as long as the plate has transmittance with which details displayed on the display portion 60 can be seen through the glass top board portion 31. In addition, a glass plate having a transparent area, through which only the display portion 60 can be seen, as a part of area of the glass top board portion 31 may be used as the glass top board portion 31.
Further, according to the embodiments of this invention, the glass-top-board-portion support member 32 is used to arrange the glass top board portion 31 on the top board portion 30. However, the glass-top-board-portion support member 32 may not be used and the glass top board portion 31 may be directly provided on the top board portion 30.
Further, a glass plate is used in the embodiments of this invention. However, any material having sufficient light transmittance, strength to receive the weight of a display apparatus, and surface hardness against friction or the like can be used to form a top board portion.
Furthermore, a 3.1 channel speaker system is used as an example of the speaker system in the above-described embodiments. However, the embodiments can also be applied to other configurations such as incorporating speakers only for the right and left channels, arranging only one woofer speaker that emits sound in a bass range, and the like.
Moreover, the above-described embodiments can be applied to various other configurations in which, for example, four speaker units, six speaker units including a subwoofer are provided for obtaining a surround sound environment of 5.1 ch or the like. In addition, the embodiments can be used to obtain other channel configurations than the 5.1 ch surround sound environment.
It should be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications, combinations, sub-combinations and alterations may occur depending on design requirements and other factors insofar as they are within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-027065 | Feb 2007 | JP | national |
