This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-168343, filed Jun. 8, 2005, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field
One embodiment of the invention relates to a recording/playback apparatus and recording/playback method for executing a plurality of applications required for a recording/playback process.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a recording/playback apparatus which mounts a DVD drive and a hard disk drive has been very popular. Such recording/playback apparatus can simultaneously execute a plurality of processes in real time, for example, recording one program while playing back another. When a plurality of processes are to be simultaneously executed in real time, the processing performance (processing capability) of each unit which performs various processes becomes an issue. That is, when a load exceeds the processing performance of each unit in executing a plurality of processes, a processing delay (real-time processing error) occurs.
For example, in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-165115, the following technique has been disclosed. In this technique, a resource such as a hard disk is shared. In executing an uninterruptible process and a background process other than the uninterruptible process, a required hard disk access bandwidth is allocated to the uninterruptible process, and after that, the remaining amount of bandwidth is calculated to allocate the maximum hard disk access bandwidth to the background process within the range of the remaining amount of bandwidth.
A general architecture that implements the various features of the invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. The drawings and the associated descriptions are provided to illustrate embodiments of the invention and not to limit the scope of the invention.
Various embodiments according to the invention will be described hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings. In general, according to one embodiment of the invention, a recording/playback method comprises calculating, based on a guaranteed performance for guaranteeing a real-time operation for each unit which performs various processes for a recording/playback process, and required performances for each unit in executing the various processes, a sum of the required performances for each unit in executing a plurality of designated real-time processes, and comparing the sum of the required performances for each unit with the guaranteed performance for each unit, and executing, when the sum of the required performances for the plurality of the real-time processes does not exceed the guaranteed performance, the plurality of designated real-time processes, and changing, when the sum of the required performances for the plurality of the real-time processes exceeds the guaranteed performance, some of the plurality of designated real-time processes and executing the changed processes.
The basic operation of the above-described recording/playback apparatus will be described below. As shown in
In order to operate a plurality of designated application software programs, it is determined, with reference to the required performances shown in
For example, assume that the real-time operation can be guaranteed until the performance of the CPU 10 exceeds 1.0, the transfer bandwidth of the memory bus 13 exceeds 1.0 GB/s, and the transfer bandwidth of the I/O bus 14 exceeds 400 MB/s. That is, the ROM 30 stores a guaranteed performance (information representing that the real-time operation is guaranteed until the performance of the CPU 10 exceeds 1.0, the transfer bandwidth of the memory bus 13 exceeds 1.0 GB/s, and the transfer bandwidth of the I/O bus 14 exceeds 400 MB/s) for guaranteeing the real-time operation, for each unit (e.g., CPU 10, memory bus 13, or I/O bus 14) which performs various processes for the recording/playback process.
The execution of the following processes (A) to (C) will be considered.
(A) TV viewing process
(B) TV viewing process and recording process without transcodec
(C) TV viewing process, recording process 1 without transcodec, and recording process 2 with transcodec
That is, since the performance in the process (A) does not exceed the system performance for guaranteeing the real-time operation, the TV viewing process can be executed in real time.
Similarly, since the performance in the process (B) does not exceed the system performance for guaranteeing the real-time operation, the TV viewing process and the recording process without a transcodec can be executed in real time.
However, since the performance in the process (C) exceeds the system performance for guaranteeing the real-time operation, the three processes, i.e., the TV viewing process, the recording process 1 without the transcodec, and the recording process 2 with the transcodec cannot be executed in real time.
To cope with this, some of the plurality of real-time processes are changed (to reduce a load) to execute these processes. For example, the following process (D) is executed.
(D) TV viewing process, recording process 1 without transcodec, and recording process 2 without transcodec
As described above, the real-time operation can be guaranteed by checking the real-time operation before starting the real-time process.
In the above description, the recording process with the transcodec is changed to that without the transcodec in order to reduce the load. In this case, for example, by default setting or user setting, the nonvolatile area of the memory 11 stores information which allows to change the recording process with the transcodec to that without the transcodec. With reference to this information, the CPU 10 determines that the plurality of processes including the recording process with the transcodec cannot be executed in real time. In accordance with this determination, the recording process with the transcodec is changed to that without the transcodec of the plurality of designated real-time processes, thereby executing the changed process.
When a recording destination is a hard disk drive (having a relatively large storage capacity), the recording process with the transcodec may be allowed to be changed to that without the transcodec. On the other hand, when the recording designation is a DVD (having a relatively small storage capacity), the recording process with the transcodec may be inhibited to be changed to that without the transcodec.
However, in the above-described load reduction method, the process (C) (the TV viewing process, the recording process 1 without the transcodec, and the recording process 2 with the transcodec) cannot be executed, and the process (D) (the TV viewing process, the recording process 1 without the transcodec, and the recording process 2 without the transcodec) can be executed. In order to execute the recording process 1 without the transcodec and the recording process 2 with the transcodec, the following method may be employed.
For example, as shown in
For example, assume that the real-time operation is guaranteed until the performance of the CPU 10 exceeds 1.0, the transfer bandwidth of the memory bus 13 exceeds 1.0 GB/s, and the transfer bandwidth of the I/O bus 14 exceeds 400 MB/s.
(C1) TV viewing process (upon omitting image quality improvement process), recording process 1 without transcodec, and recording process 2 with transcodec
As described above, before starting the real-time process, the real-time operation is checked. If the performance exceeds the guaranteed performance, the omissible process is omitted and the real-time operation is checked again, thereby guaranteeing the real-time operation.
The CPU 10 may determine whether the plurality of designated real-time processes can be executed, in recording reservation setting. Based on the determination that the plurality of real-time processes cannot be executed, information representing that some of the plurality of designated real-time processes are to be changed (omitted) may be output. The output information is displayed on a display to notify a user that some of the real-time processes are to be changed (omitted). Also, at the display timing, the user may set some of the real-time processes to be changed (omitted) in order to reduce the load.
Furthermore, the CPU 10 may determine whether the plurality of designated real-time processes can be executed, immediately before executing the reserved recording process (e.g., 5 min before executing the reserved recording process). Based on the determination that the plurality of real-time processes cannot be executed, information representing that some of the plurality of designated real-time processes are to be changed (omitted) may be output. In this case, similarly, the output information can be displayed on the display to notify the user that some of the real-time processes are to be changed (omitted). At this display timing, the user may also set some of the processes to be changed (omitted) in order to reduce the load.
As a method of reducing the load, a filtering level may be adjusted in decoding. For example, when the filtering process is omitted, the load can be greatly reduced.
If the sum of the required performances exceeds the guaranteed performance (NO in ST4), the application is changed to a light-load process, or the omissible process is omitted (YES in ST6) (ST7). After that, the CPU 10 calculates the sum of the performances required for each of the plurality of applications (upon changing or omitting some applications) to check whether the sum of the required performances exceeds the guaranteed performance (ST4). If the sum of the required performances does not exceed the guaranteed performance (YES in ST4), the plurality of applications (upon changing or omitting some applications) are activated at the designated timing (ST5).
According to the above-described embodiment, the following effects can be obtained.
(1) When a plurality of application software programs are to be operated, a required performance for each application software and a guaranteed performance (the guaranteed performance of a CPU 10 and the guaranteed transfer bandwidths of the memory bus 13 and I/O bus 14) for guaranteeing a real-time operation in a system are prepared. The performance required for the application is compared with the guaranteed performance for guaranteeing the real-time operation in the system to check whether the required performance exceeds the guaranteed performance. If the required performance does not exceed the guaranteed performance, the application is operated, thereby guaranteeing the real-time operation.
(2) When a plurality of application software programs are to be operated, information representing a required performance and an omittable process for each application software, and a guaranteed performance (the guaranteed performance of the CPU 10 and the guaranteed transfer bandwidths of the memory bus 13 and I/O bus 14) for guaranteeing a real-time operation in a system are prepared. The performance required for the application is compared with the guaranteed performance for guaranteeing the real-time operation in the system to check whether the required performance exceeds the guaranteed performance. If the required performance does not exceed the guaranteed performance, the application is operated. If the required performance exceeds the guaranteed performance, an omissible process is omitted. After that, whether the required performance exceeds the guaranteed performance is checked again. If the required performance does not exceed the guaranteed performance, the application is operated, thereby performing the real-time process more flexibly.
While certain embodiments of the inventions have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventions. Indeed, the novel methods and systems described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the methods and systems described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the inventions.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2005-168343 | Jun 2005 | JP | national |