Patent Application
20090248909
The present invention relates in general providing or simulating consumer electronic control (CEC) functionality to non-CEC devices.
It is now typical for a user's home entertainment system to be made up of several peripheral consumer electronic devices, such as digital set top boxes (STBs), personal video recorders (PVRs), digital video disk (DVDs) and so on. These components are most often coupled to a single display, which is itself configured to select any one of its various available inputs at the touch of a button. Modern displays tend to ascribe a generic name to each such input, such as “Input 1,” “Input 2,” etc. The problem with this approach is that, in order to switch from one media source to another (e.g., from DVD to PVR), a user has to essentially remember which input is associated with which media source, or scroll through each and every one of the various available inputs until the desired input has been selected.
With that said, the incorporation of the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) has become increasingly prevalent with display devices, as well as with peripheral consumer electronic devices. One advantage of HDMI capable devices is that they may be able exchange certain information with the display device. That is, under the HDMI specification there is an optional protocol referred to as the consumer electronic control (CEC) protocol. As fully defined in Supplement 1 of the HDMI Specification 1.3 (Jun. 22, 2006), the CEC protocol was designed to provide control functions between audio/video (A/V) devices that are connected via an HDMI cable. CEC assumes that all A/V source products in a system are directly or indirectly connected to a “root” display. In short, the CEC protocol is a one-wire, “party line” that connects up to ten source devices through standard HDMI cabling. The CEC protocol includes mechanisms for physical address discovery, logical addressing, arbitration, retransmission, broadcasting, and routing control. In short, this means that CEC-capable peripheral devices can provide identifying information to the display so that a user can determine exactly which device is the current source device (e.g., DVD, PVR. STB, etc.), and not just the generic name of the input (e.g., Input 1, Input 2, etc.).
Unfortunately, many HDMI peripheral devices have not been designed to comply with or otherwise make use of the CEC protocol. In such cases, the connected display device will be unable to properly detect the type of connected peripheral device, and instead will only be able to display the generic name of the input, as is the case with all non-HDMI devices. Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus for providing or simulating CEC functionality for HDMI devices that are not otherwise CEC-capable.
Disclosed and claimed herein are methods and apparatus for providing or simulating peripheral device functionality, such as CEC functionality. In one embodiment, an HDMI switch includes HDMI peripheral device ports, each of which is coupled to a corresponding peripheral device, as well as an HDMI display device port coupled to a display device. The switch further includes a processor coupled to the HDMI peripheral device ports and to the HDMI display device port. The processor is configured to receive device identification information from the peripheral devices coupled to the HDMI peripheral device ports and to detect which of the HDMI peripheral device ports is an active port. In addition, the processor is configured to transmit the device identification information for the peripheral device coupled to the active port to a display device in accordance with an HDMI communication protocol. In one embodiment, the peripheral device coupled to the active port is not configured to communicate according to the HDMI communication protocol.
While in one embodiment the HDMI communication protocol is the CEC protocol, in other embodiments the HDMI communication protocol corresponds to any bi-directional communication protocol under the HDMI standard.
Other aspects, features, and techniques of the invention will be apparent to one skilled in the relevant art in view of the following detailed description of the invention.
The features, objects, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings in which like reference characters identify correspondingly throughout and wherein:
One aspect of the present disclosure relates to an HDMI switch, which includes a plurality of peripheral device ports, each of which may be coupled to a corresponding peripheral device. The switch may also include a display device port for coupling to a display device. In one embodiment, the switch is configured to receive device identification information from one or more of the peripheral devices coupled to the peripheral device ports and to detect which of the peripheral device ports is an active port. The switch may then transmit the device identification information for the peripheral device coupled to the active port to a display device in accordance with an HDMI communication protocol, such as the consumer electronic control (CEC) protocol. In one embodiment, the peripheral device coupled to the active port is not configured to communicate according to the HDMI communication protocol.
As used herein, the terms “a” or “an” shall mean one or more than one. The term “plurality” shall mean two or more than two. The term “another” is defined as a second or more. The terms “including” and/or “having” are open ended (e.g., comprising). The term “or” as used herein is to be interpreted as inclusive or meaning any one or any combination. Therefore, “A, B or C” means “any of the following: A; B; C; A and B; A and C; B and C; A, B and C”. An exception to this definition will occur only when a combination of elements, functions, steps or acts are in some way inherently mutually exclusive.
Reference throughout this document to “one embodiment”, “certain embodiments”, “an embodiment” or similar term means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, the appearances of such phrases or in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner on one or more embodiments without limitation.
In accordance with the practices of persons skilled in the art of computer programming, the invention is described below with reference to operations that are performed by a computer system or a like electronic system. Such operations are sometimes referred to as being computer-executed. It will be appreciated that operations that are symbolically represented include the manipulation by a processor, such as a central processing unit, of electrical signals representing data bits and the maintenance of data bits at memory locations, such as in system memory, as well as other processing of signals. The memory locations where data bits are maintained are physical locations that have particular electrical, magnetic, optical, or organic properties corresponding to the data bits.
When implemented in software, the elements of the invention are essentially the code segments to perform the necessary tasks. The code segments can be stored in a processor readable medium or transmitted by a computer data signal. The “processor readable medium” may include any medium that can store or transfer information. Examples of the processor readable medium include an electronic circuit, a semiconductor memory device, a ROM, a flash memory or other non-volatile memory, a floppy diskette, a CD-ROM, an optical disk, a hard disk, a fiber optic medium, a radio frequency (RF) link, etc.
The present disclosure relates to the fact that most home entertainment systems are actually comprised of several source components with which the display device (i.e., the sink device) needs to interface, including for example a STB, PVR, home theater (HT) system, etc.
To that end,
Switch 110 is further depicted as being coupled by HDMI connection 150 to an HDMI port 130 of a sink device in the form of display 140 (e.g., television). The display 140 may include additional HDMI ports, such as port 160. Additionally, the HDMI switch 110 may have CEC functionality for bi-directional CEC communication with the display 140. In another embodiment, the HDMI switch 110 may communicate with the display using any bi-directional communication protocol under the HDMI specification.
In addition, the switch 110 may be configured to communicate with the display device 140 using the CEC protocol, regardless of whether any of the connected peripheral devices are themselves CEC-capable. In this fashion, and as will be described in more detail below with reference to
In one embodiment, the HDMI switch (e.g., switch 110) of the present disclosure may be user-configurable. In other words, a user may be provided with the ability to program or configure the various ports (e.g., ports 1201-1203) of the switch to correspond to particular types or names of connected peripheral devices. For example, in the embodiment depicted in
To that end,
In the depicted embodiment, the user has selected the set top box option from the menu for Port 1 (i.e., port 1201), thereby corresponding to the attached STB 230 (see
While
Referring now to
Referring now to
Process 500 continues to block 520 where the switch detects an active switch port. In one embodiment, this detection may occur upon powering up or initialization, and/or upon the user making a peripheral device selection. In any event, the active switch port corresponds to which of the available HDMI peripheral device ports will be used to provide an input signal to a connected display device. It should of course be appreciated that the user may select which of the plurality of HDMI peripheral device ports to make active using a remote control device, a graphical user interface or user inputs on the switch itself.
Once the active port has been detected, process 500 may then continue to block 530 where the device identification information corresponding to the active switch port may be sent using an HDMI communication protocol, such as the CEC protocol. In one embodiment, this device identification information may be sent to a connected display device (e.g., display device 140) over an HDMI connection (e.g., HDMI connection 150). Moreover, it should be appreciated that the for the device identification information to be transmitted may correspond to a device type or name for the peripheral device that is coupled to the active port. As such, the display device will be able to display device-specific information corresponding to the currently-selected source device instead of the generic input name, despite the fact that such source device may not be CEC-enabled.
Referring now to
While certain exemplary embodiments have been described and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments are merely illustrative of and not restrictive on the broad invention, and that this invention not be limited to the specific constructions and arrangements shown and described, since various other modifications may occur to those ordinarily skilled in the art. Trademarks and copyrights referred to herein are the property of their respective owners.
