Patent Application
20080127291
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a digital broadcasting system, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for helping a terminal to easily find a desired service.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) Convergence of Broadcasting and Mobile Service (CBMS) system, which is one type of digital broadcasting system, provides more convenient functions through the convergence of a digital TeleVision (TV) broadcast service having superior mobile reception performance and a mobile communication service. Recently, as analog TVs evolve into digital TVs, users can enjoy a TV service with high video quality of a High Definition (HD) TV level and high audio quality of a Compact Disc (CD) level. However, with the current tendency toward diversification, viewers' current activities and life patterns are different from those of the past. Moreover, as portable devices such as cellular phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and notebook computers have become commonly-used, the demand for enjoying a TV service of HD quality while on the move is ever-increasing. Additionally, much effort has been made much to overcome the limitation of a broadcast network having no reverse channel by combination with mobile communication, resulting in the DVB-H CBMS.
The DVB-H CBMS is configured for a reception terminal capable of using a mobile communication channel and includes the concept of handover supported in a cell-based radio communication system such as in a conventional mobile communication system. However, handover in a broadcast network is different from that in a mobile communication network that constantly manages subscribers. For handover in a mobile communication system, a network receives a measurement report from a terminal to manage an individual user and a network including handover. However, for handover in a general broadcast system, a broadcast operator provides a service and contents without managing every user. In other words, the broadcast operator sends information for broadcast reception to all users over a broadcast network and has no user management function. Thus, handover in the broadcast network has unique technical requirements that are distinguished from handover in the mobile communication system.
Referring to
The SA 120 is provided with content data for the broadcast service from the CC 110 and processes the content data into a form (e.g., audio/video streaming or movie downloading) suitable for a broadcast network in order to generate broadcast service data, generates standardized metadata necessary for an Electronic Service Guide (ESG), and generates billing information according to a user. The SA 120 is also notified of the change in the broadcast service from the CC 110 to deliver a notification event to a notification message generation function in a Service Management (SM) 130 and provides service guide attribute information used for the generation of a notification message to the notification message generation function.
The SM 130 determines a transmission schedule for the broadcast service provided from the SA 120 and generates a service guide. The SA 130 is connected to a broadcast network 140 capable of the broadcast service and an interactive network 150 supporting interactive communication.
The SM 130 also manages subscriber information for reception of the broadcast service, service provisioning information such as information indicating whether the subscriber has purchased related content, and device information for terminals receiving the broadcast service, transmits user billing information to the SA 120, and provides the subscription information, the service provisioning information and the device information to the broadcast network 140 and the interactive network 150.
The broadcast network 140 is for transmitting the broadcast service and DVB-H is as an example of the broadcast network 140 herein.
The interactive network 150 transmits the broadcast service on a point-to-point basis or interactively exchanges control information and additional information associated with the reception of the broadcast service, and may be an existing cellular network such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) network.
A terminal 160 is capable of receiving the broadcast service and has a function of accessing the cellular network according to its capabilities. It is assumed herein that the terminal 160 can access the cellular network.
Next, a description will be made of interfaces between block elements of the DVB-H system.
CBMS-x is an interface within the scope of the Internet Protocol (IP) Datacast over DVB-H specification, and X-x is an interface out of the scope of the IP Datacast over DVB-H specification. More specifically, a CBMS-7 interface extends from the SA 120 to the SM 130, and a CBMS-3 interface directly transmits a message from the SM 130 to the terminal 160 on a broadcast channel via the broadcast network 140. A CBMS-4 interface is used to directly transmit the message transmitted from the SA 130 to the terminal 160 via the interactive network 150 on a dedicated channel with the terminal 160 or a broadcast channel provided by the interactive network 150. A CBMS-6 interface is between the SM 130 and the broadcast network 140, and is used as a transmission path to be used by the SA 130 in the broadcast network 140 or as a reception path of event information generated in the broadcast network 140. A CBMS-1 interface is used to deliver a control signal of the broadcast network to the terminal 160. For example, in DVB-H, a control signal channel called Program Specific Information/Service Information (PSI/SI) corresponds to the control signal. An X-3 interface is used to set up a transmission path to be used between the SM 130 and the interactive network 150. An X-2 interface is used to set up a transmission path to be used between the terminal 160 and the interactive network 150. An X-1 interface is used to set up a transmission path to be used between the CC 110 and the SA 120.
When a user in a DVB-H network moves from a reference network to a neighboring network or to another IP platform, the new network or IP platform to which the user moves has to seamlessly provide a previous service used by the user. A terminal has to find a program viewed by the user prior to handover in the new network and continue receiving the program. In other words, a Transport Stream (TS) providing the same service has to be found in the new network or IP platform when a TS is changed, and frequency information of the new network or IP platform has to be known when a transmission frequency is changed. Information required to perform the above-described process can be acquired by PSI/SI provided by a DVB broadcast network. In this case, detailed handover procedure and method fall out of the scope of the present invention and thus will not be described in detail. Related information is described in ETSI TR 101 211 Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Guidelines on implementation and usage of Service Information (SI).
In the above-described process, a service identifier plays an important role in finding the program viewed by the user. This concept is also applied to movement between cells and sub-cells in the same manner. When the previous service viewed by the user does not exist in the new network or IP platform to which the user moves, the terminal searches for a service capable of substituting for the previous service in the new network or IP platform. Herein, the previous service and the service capable of substituting for the previous service may have different programs according to locations, but are similar in nature.
As discussed above, even when a DVB-H terminal moves, it can allow a user to seamlessly view a user selected service and provide necessary information to the user and the terminal itself. However, according to the prior art, when service identifiers of a previous network in which the terminal is previously located and a new network to which the terminal moves are different, the terminal cannot find a correct service. Neither can the terminal find a correct service when service identifiers of a previous IP platform in which the terminal is previously located and a new IP platform to which the terminal moves are different. In other words, if different networks or IP platforms assign different service identifiers to the same service, the terminal has difficulty finding a desired service in a new network or IP platform to which the terminal moves.
An aspect of the present invention is to address at least the above problems and/or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described below. Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for helping a terminal to find the same or similar service in other IP platforms and continue the service.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method for providing a broadcast service to a terminal by a network in a digital broadcasting system. The method includes collecting IP address information for each of services provided by a plurality of IP platforms, selecting a manner in which to transmit the collected IP address information to the terminal, and transmitting the collected IP address information to the terminal in the selected manner.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method for receiving a broadcast service from a network by a terminal in a digital broadcasting system. The method includes receiving IP address information for each of services provided by a plurality of IP platforms from the network, checking IP address information of the service provided by the another IP platform if a currently received service is substantially the same as a service provided by another IP platform, and continuing to receive the service provided by the another IP platform using the checked IP address information.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method for providing a broadcast service to a terminal by a network in a digital broadcasting system. The method includes collecting service ID information for each of services provided by a plurality of providers, selecting a manner in which to transmit the collected service ID information to the terminal, and transmitting the collected service ID information to the terminal in the selected manner.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method for receiving a broadcast service from a network by a terminal in a digital broadcasting system. The method includes receiving service ID information for each of services provided by a plurality of providers from the network, checking service ID information of the service provided by the another provider if a currently received service is also provided by another provider, and continuing to receive the service provided by the another provider using the checked service ID information.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method for providing a broadcast service to a terminal by a network in a digital broadcasting system. The method includes collecting service ID information and IP address information for each of services provided by a plurality of providers within a single IP platform, selecting a manner in which to transmit the collected service ID information and IP address information to the terminal, and transmitting the collected service ID information and IP address information to the terminal in the selected manner.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method for receiving a broadcast service from a network by a terminal in a digital broadcasting system. The method includes receiving service ID information and IP address information for each of services provided by a plurality of providers within a single IP platform, checking service ID information and IP address information of the service provided by the another provider if a currently received service is also provided by another provider, and continuing to receive the service provided by the another provider using the checked service ID information and IP address information.
According to the present invention, there is provided a network device for providing a broadcast service to a terminal in a digital broadcasting system. The network device includes an SA for aggregating contents from sources and their related metadata in order to provide an application for a particular service and an SM for generating an ESG for the broadcast service from the metadata collected by the SA and managing roaming of the terminal to a neighboring network. The SM collects mapping information of services provided from different IP platforms or different providers from the IP platforms or providers and provides the collected mapping information to the terminal.
According to the present invention, there is provided a terminal device for receiving a broadcast service from a network. The terminal device includes a broadcasting receiver for receiving a broadcast service or signal from a broadcast network, an interactive adaptor for receiving an interactive service or signal from an interactive network, and a mobility management and control for managing roaming to a neighboring network. The broadcasting receiver receives mapping information for services provided from different IP platforms or different providers from a network, and the mobility management and control controls to receive a desired service from an IP platform other than the IP platform in which the terminal device is currently located or a provider other than a provider from which the terminal device currently receives the service.
The above and other features and advantages of preferred embodiments of the present invention will be more apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The matters defined in the description such as a detailed construction and elements are provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of preferred embodiments of the invention. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Also, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions are omitted for the sake of clarity and conciseness. The following terms are defined in consideration of their functions in the present invention and may vary according to a user, an operator's intention or custom. Therefore, their definition should be based on the overall contents of the specification.
While a Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) Convergence of Broadcasting and Mobile Service (CBMS) system is an example of a digital broadcasting system, the present invention is not limited thereto and can also be applied to other digital broadcasting systems.
One service can be identified by an IP address that is uniquely assigned within one IP platform, and can also be identified by a service IP which is assigned by a provider. Herein, an IP platform is mapped to an SM based on a one-to-one correspondence. A provider may be, for example, an ESG provider and a service provider that are included in the SM and an SA, respectively.
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
Table 1 shows the mapping information 330 provided to the terminal.
As shown in Table 1, the terminal only needs to consider the mapping information 330 of IP addresses and IP platforms for the same or similar services. In Table 1, a ‘type’ indicates a relationship between two services and may be one of ‘identical’, ‘variation’ and ‘associated’.
To provide the mapping information 330, the network may define a new element as below.
The new element shown in Table 2 may be added in an ESG, e.g., a service fragment, an acquisition fragment, a notification or other signaling in a broadcasting or interactive manner.
Referring to
Referring to
In step 504, the terminal searches in the acquired service mapping information for an IP address in another IP platform, which corresponds to a currently received service in the current IP platform. In step 505, the terminal changes its IP address to the found IP address to continue receiving the desired service.
The terminal may also send a request for the service mapping information to the network.
In other words, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
In other words, a service ID ‘A’ is assigned to a service 611 in a provider-1610 and a service ID ‘B’ is assigned to a service 612 in a provider-2620. Since the service 611 and the service 621 are similar to each other, the network provides service ID mapping information 630 for providers between the services 611 and 621 to the terminal. Even when a provider changes, e.g., from the provider-1610 to the provider-2620 or vice-versa, the terminal having received the service IP mapping information 630 can continue receiving the desired service from the changed provider using the service ID mapping information 630.
Table 3 illustrates the service ID mapping information 630 provided to the terminal.
As shown in Table 3, the terminal only needs to consider a service ID and a provider ID for the same or similar services. In Table 3, a ‘type’ indicates a relationship between two services and may be one of ‘identical’ indicating the same service, ‘variation’ indicating a variation of the same service, and ‘associated’ indicating an associated service.
To provide the service ID mapping information 630, the network may also define a new element as below.
The new element shown in Table 4 may be added in an ESG, e.g., a service fragment, an acquisition fragment, a notification or other signaling in a broadcasting or interactive manner.
As illustrated in
Referring to
The terminal may also send a request for the service mapping information to the network.
In other words, as illustrated in
The two manners in which to provide the service mapping information according to the first and second embodiments of the present invention can be used independently or simultaneously. However, when two or more providers (e.g., two ESG providers) exist in a single IP platform and provide the same or similar services, service mapping information may be provided according to a third embodiment of the present invention to be described below, which can be classified into two cases.
First, even when the same service is provided by different providers, an IP platform may assign one unique IP address to the service. In this case, the terminal has to consider IP addresses. In other words, if IP addresses for services provided from different providers are the same, the terminal recognizes these services as the same even when the providers assign different service IDs to the services.
Second, when the same service is provided by different providers, an IP platform may assign different IP addresses to the same service provided by the providers.
As illustrated in
In this case, the network provides service ID mapping information 940 between the different providers 910 and 920 or IP address mapping information 930 in the single IP platform 900 to the terminal in order to support service continuity.
The IP address mapping information 930 provided to the terminal is as below.
In Table 5, a ‘type’ indicates a relationship between two services and may be one of ‘identical’ indicating the same service, ‘variation’ indicating a variation of the same service and ‘associated’ indicating an associated service.
To provide the IP address mapping information 930, the network may also define a new element as below.
In Table 6, a mapping IP address for the same or similar services in a single IP platform is listed. Provider information may be added to indicate an IP address for each provider.
If there are two or more mapping IP addresses, two mapping IP addresses may be listed as below.
This new element shown in Table 7 may be added in an ESG, e.g., a service fragment, an acquisition fragment, a notification or other signaling in a broadcasting or interactive manner.
Referring to
Referring to
The terminal may also send a request for the service mapping information to the network.
In other words, as illustrated in
In the third embodiment of the present invention, for fast and efficient service reception change of the terminal, a mapping IP address, a service ID, and other information such as a frequency, a network and a cell ID may be delivered together to the terminal.
Referring to
A Service Management (SM) 1220 includes an ESG provision 1221, a service configuration/resource allocation 1222, a security/service protection provision 1223 and a Mobility Management (MM) 1224 as its sub-entities. The MM 1224 supports a roaming process by communicating with the other three entities 1221 through 1223, transmits/receives roaming request and response, supports a roaming process by communicating with other entities and sub-entities and communicates with an MM of another network for information exchange. The service configuration/resource allocation 1222 registers service applications that contend for the bandwidth of a broadcast bearer, assigns services to location related to broadcast network topology and bandwidth and schedules services over time. The ESG provision 1221 aggregates ESG (metadata information) pieces from the SA 1210. The security/service protection provision 1223 manages user access to the SA 1210.
Referring to
As is apparent from the foregoing description, by providing service mapping information between different providers for the same or similar services to a terminal in a digital broadcasting system, the terminal can be provided with service continuity.
While the invention has been shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-65305 | Jun 2007 | KR | national |
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) to a U.S. Provisional Patent Application filed in the U.S. Patent Office on Nov. 8, 2006 and assigned Ser. No. 60/857,509 and a Korean Patent Application filed in the Korean Intellectual Property Office on Jun. 29, 2007 and assigned Serial No. 2007-65305, the contents of both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60857509 | Nov 2006 | US |
