Patent Application
20130265500
This application claims priority to EP Application No. 12 163 632.8-2223 filed on Apr. 10, 2012, the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety by reference herein.
The present invention relates to the field of media player devices which include radio tuners for receiving radio and television broadcast signals such as Frequency Modulation (FM) tuners, Amplitude Modulation (AM) tuners, Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) tuners, Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) tuners, Ultra High Voltage (UHF)/Very High Frequency (VHF) tuners, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) tuners, Advanced Televising System Committee (ATSC) tuners, Integrated Service Digital Broadcasting (ISDB) tuners and the like.
Media player devices are consumer electronic devices which are capable of storing and reproducing digital media content such as audio data, image data, video data, digital documents, etc. The data is typically stored on a hard drive, a digital versatile disc (DVD), solid state memory devices or the like. Particularly, portable media player devices are often referred to as “MP3 players” although modern devices support a large number of digital formats such as Moving Pictures Experts Group-2 (MPEG-2) Audio Layer III (MP3), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) for coding audio data and H.264 Audio Video Coding (AVC), and MPEG-4 Part 2 (MPEG-4 Visual) for coding video data. However, the above is not a complete list of formats as a huge number of audio and video compression standards and container formats exist in the field.
As mentioned above, most media player devices use non-volatile memory (nowadays usually solid state disks) for storing the media files, wherein the data is usually hierarchically structured using a file system supporting a directory structure. Common disk file systems are, e.g., File Allocation Table (FAT) or FAT/FAT32, extended File Allocation Table (exFAT), Hierarchical File System (HFS) or HFS/HFS+, second/third/fourth extended file system (ext2/ext3/ext4), etc. Further, a media player is often equipped with a user interface (including, e.g., a display, buttons, scroll wheels, a touch screen or the like) which enables a user to browse the file system and to choose a file or a whole directory whose content he/she would like to have reproduced by the media player.
Some media player devices, particularly media player devices used in automobiles, are additionally equipped with a tuner for receiving radio (i.e., audio and television) broadcast signals. In order to listen to a radio program or watch a TV program the media player activates the tuner and the user can “tune” the receiver (i.e., the tuner) to the desired frequency within one or more defined frequency bands (e.g. FM, AM (short wave, medium wave, and long wave bands), UHF band, etc.). When activating the radio tuner, the user interface of the media player typically switches to a specific “tuner mode” as the usual handling of a tuner (e.g., choosing a desired broadcast station, scanning a selected frequency band for broadcast stations, selecting preset frequencies stored in a memory, etc.) is different from the usual handling of, e.g., a modern MP3 player and thus the respective user interfaces are designed differently.
There is a need for a media player device including a radio (audio and/or television) tuner which provides an improved usability and allows an easy and comfortable handling.
A media player device including a tuner for receiving audio or television broadcast signals (or both) is described herein. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the media player device comprises a data storage unit which includes a file system. The file system includes a plurality of files, each of which represents a broadcast frequency. The media player device further includes a user interface, a tuner which is tunable to a selectable broadcast frequency, and a controller unit that is coupled to the tuner as well as to the file system and the user interface to enable a user to select a file. The controller unit is configured to tune the tuner to a broadcast frequency corresponding to a selected one of the files.
The invention can be better understood with reference to the following drawings and description. The components in the figures are not necessarily to scale, instead emphasis is placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention. Moreover, in the figures, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts. In the drawings:
As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention that may be embodied in various and alternative forms. The figures are not necessarily to scale; some features may be exaggerated or minimized to show details of particular components. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention.
FIG: 1 illustrates in a block diagram that illustrates the structure of a media player device in accordance with one exemplary embodiment of the invention. The media player device includes a controller unit 10, a user interface 30, a storage unit including a file system 20 as well as a tuner and decoder unit 40. The controller unit 10 is configured to control the function of the tuner and decoder unit 40. Further, the controller unit 10 controls the data flow between the file system 20, the tuner and decoder unit 40 and the user interface 30. For demodulating and/or decoding broadcast signals, the tuner and decoder unit 40 is coupled with (or includes) a radio frequency (RF) front end 45 that receives broadcast signals via an antenna 46. The tuner and decoder unit 40 is further coupled to an amplifier 50 which is configured to amplify the audio signal(s) provided by the tuner and decoder unit 40. The amplified signals are then reproduced via the loudspeakers (or earphones) 60.
The tuner and decoder unit 40 is configured to demodulate the received broadcast signals and optionally—in case of digital broadcast—to decode the digitally coded (e.g. using an AAC codec) audio data. Further, the tuner and decoder unit 40 can also decode digitally coded audio data originating from media files stored in the file system 20. In the latter case, (i.e., when reproducing stored audio data) the RF front end and the tuner are idle, (i.e., switched to standby mode). The user interface 30 allows the user to browse the file system and to select a desired media file (containing, e.g. coded audio data in accordance with the AAC standard) which he/she would like to listen to. User interfaces which are configured to provide this task are sufficiently known in the field and not further described herein.
In order to “seamlessly” integrate the media player function (i.e., reproducing stored media data) and the tuner function (i.e., reproducing broadcast signals received “over the air”) the file system includes not only files containing digitally coded media (audio, video, images, documents, etc.) data but also files which represent a broadcast frequency, i.e., a radio or a television broadcast channel). When the user selects such a file via the user interface 30, the controller unit tunes the tuner to a frequency corresponding to the broadcast frequency associated with the selected file. The frequency information may be included in the file name or in the (meta-) data contained in the file. Further, metadata may be included in these files such as, for example, information about the radio station, provided via the Radio Data System (RDS) communication protocol or other comparable services. This information is provided by the tuner and decoder unit 40 and may be stored in the respective file and/or provided to the user via the user interface 30 (e.g., via a display).
The file system 20 may include one “station file” for each single frequency the tuner can be tuned to, regardless of whether a broadcast station which broadcasts over that frequency actually exists. The station files may be grouped into different directories, whereby different directories may represent different frequency bands. One directory may, for example, be provided for the FM band and include station files representing the broadcast frequencies from 87.5 MHz to 108.0 MHz in steps of, for example, 0.5 MHz. Another directory may be provided, for example, for the terrestrial DAB and include station files representing the broadcast frequencies (or DAB frequency blocks) in the VHF-III band (e.g., 174 MHz-230 MHz, frequency blocks 5A-12D). Similarly, separate directories may be provided for frequencies used for AM broadcast, for DVB-T video broadcast, etc.
One exemplary file system (tree-) structure is illustrated in
As illustrated in
A further directory is named “MP3/AAC” in the present example. This branch of the directory tree contains media files such as MP3 or AAC coded music data. As illustrated in
Although various exemplary embodiments of the invention have been disclosed, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made which will achieve some of the advantages of the invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. It will be obvious to those reasonably skilled in the art that other components performing the same functions may be suitably substituted. It should be mentioned that features explained with reference to a specific figure may be combined with features of other figures, even in those where not explicitly been mentioned. Further, the methods of the invention may be achieved in either all software implementations, using the appropriate processor instructions, or in hybrid implementations that utilize a combination of hardware logic and software logic to achieve the same results. Such modifications to the inventive concept are intended to be covered by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12163632.8 -2223 | Apr 2012 | EP | regional |
