Program reservation/playback judgment system, method, program and program recording medium

Abstract

A program reservation/playback judgment system for making an automatic judgment of reservation or playback of a program based on the program information in texts written in a natural language. A natural language program information processing section analyzes texts read-out thereby for extracting the program information in the texts. The extracted program information is displayed as a program information screen for confirming the program information. Upon user's operation of a reservation/playback button, the program of the program information is confirmed. Based on a comparison result of the current date and time with the date and start time of the program information by a current date/time acquisition section, a date/time judgment section makes a judgment whether the program of the program information is reserved for recording or played back, thereby instructing a program monitoring device to reserve or playback.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the accompanying drawings,

FIG. 1 is a block diagram to illustrate an exemplified system for reserving and playing back a program using a natural language as a first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an exemplified screen configuration of a program reservation/playback instruction screen for confirming the program information instructed by a natural language;

FIG. 3 is an exemplified screen configuration of a reservation target term setup screen for setting-up the reservation target term;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for describing an exemplified operation in the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for detailed description of step S13 in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for detailed description of step S16 in FIG. 4;

FIG. 7 is an example of describing a program information that introduces the program by text sentences in a natural language;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram to illustrate an exemplified system for reserving and playing back a program by the same interface as a second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a screen configuration to show an exemplified program reservation/playback instruction screen for enabling the user to input reservation or playback instructions of a program;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart for describing an exemplified operation in the second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a flowchart for detailed description of step S25 in FIG. 10; and

FIG. 12 is a flowchart for detailed description of step S26 in FIG. 10.

Claims

1. A program reservation/playback judgment system including natural language program information processing means for reading texts written in a natural language and including program information comprising at least date, start time, end time and channel number of any program that the user likes to reserve for recording or playback, for extracting the program information included in the texts and for reserving for recording or playing back the program based on the extracted program information, comprising: current date/time acquisition means for acquiring the current date and time; anddate/time judgment means for making a judgment whether the program of the program information is reserved for recording or played back based on the current date and time acquired by the current date/time acquisition means and the program information.

2. A program reservation/playback judgment system in claim 1, wherein the program information extracted from the texts is displayed on a display device as a confirmation screen for enabling the user to operate a confirmation button before the date/time judgment means makes a judgment operation whether the program of the program information is reserved for recording or played back.

3. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 2, wherein the program information extracted from the texts is displayed on the display device as a confirmation screen for enabling the user to edit the displayed contents of the program information on the confirmation screen.

4. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 1, wherein the date/time judgment means compares the date and start time of the program information with the current date and time for instructing reservation for recording the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are future date and time relative to the current date and time, while instructing playback of the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are past date and time relative to the current date and time.

5. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 4, wherein the date/time judgment means instructs monitoring of the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are past date and time relative to the current date and time and also the end time of the program information is future time relative to the current time.

6. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 1, further comprising year complementing means for complementing year information of the date of the program information with reference to the current date and time acquired by the date/time acquisition means if the date of the program information extracted from the texts excludes year information and includes only month and day.

7. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 2, wherein a program information input screen for inputting the program information of any program that the user likes to reserve for recording or playback and comprising at least date, start time, end time and channel number is used as the confirmation screen for displaying on the screen of the display device the program information extracted from the texts.

8. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 1, wherein the texts are either text files of Web pages, electronic mails or electronic libraries, or OCR read-out of newspaper or magazine articles, or alternatively program related texts prepared by the user.

9. A program reservation/playback judgment method having a natural language program information processing step for reading texts written in a natural language and including program information comprising at least date, start time, end time and channel number of any program that the user likes to reserve for recording or playback, analyzing the texts and extracting the program information contained in the texts for reserving or playing back the program based on the extracted program information, comprising: a current date/time acquisition step for acquiring the current date and time; anda date/time judgment step for making a reservation or playback judgment whether the program of the program information is reserved for recording or played back based on the current date and time acquired in the current date/time acquisition step and the program information.

10. A program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 9, wherein the program information extracted from the texts are displayed on the screen of a display device as a confirmation screen, and the reservation or playback judgment operation for making a judgment whether the program of the program information is reserved for recording or played back in the date/time judgment step is performed upon user's confirmation by pushing an operation button.

11. A program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 10, wherein the program information extracted from the texts are displayed on the display device as the confirmation screen for enabling the user to edit the contents of the displayed program information on the confirmation screen.

12. A program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 9, wherein the date/time judgment step compares the date and start time of the program information with the current date and time for instructing reservation for recording the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are future date and time relative to the current date and time, while instructing playback the program of the program information if the date and time of the program information are past date and time relative to the current date and time.

13. A program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 12, wherein the date/time judgment step instructs monitoring the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are past date and time relative to the current date and time and also the end time of the program information is future time relative to the current date and time.

14. A program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 9, further comprising a year complementing step for complementing year information of the date of the program information with reference to the current date and time acquired in the current date/time acquisition step if the date of the program information extracted the texts includes only month and day and excludes year information.

15. A program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 10, wherein a program information input screen for enabling the user to input the program information comprising at least date, start time, end time and channel number of any program that the user likes to reserve for recording or playback is used as the confirmation screen instead of displaying the program information extracted from the texts on a display device.

16. A program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 9, wherein the texts are text files of Web pages, electronic mails, electronic libraries or OCR read-out of articles in magazines or newspapers, or program related texts prepared by the user.

17. A program reservation/playback judgment program for the program reservation/playback judgment method of claim 9 in a computer executable form.

18. A program recording medium for recording the program reservation/playback judgment program of claim 17 in a computer readable recording medium.

19. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 2, wherein the date/time judgment means compares the date and start time of the program information with the current date and time for instructing reservation for recording the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are future date and time relative to the current date and time, while instructing playback of the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are past date and time relative to the current date and time.

20. A program reservation/playback judgment system of claim 3, wherein the date/time judgment means compares the date and start time of the program information with the current date and time for instructing reservation for recording the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are future date and time relative to the current date and time, while instructing playback of the program of the program information if the date and start time of the program information are past date and time relative to the current date and time.