Digital broadcast recording/viewing support apparatus

• US 20030098929A1
• Filed: 01/04/2002
• Published: 05/29/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Nono, Tomoyuki
• Granted Patent: US 7,209,632 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/731
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/426 Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof H04N5/44 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4345 Extraction or processing of SI, e.g. extracting service information from an MPEG stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4348 Demultiplexing of additional data and video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47214 for content reservation or setting reminders; for requesting event notification, e.g. of sport results or stock market stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; notification of incoming messages in packet switching networks H04L51/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/478 Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4882 for displaying messages, e.g. warnings, reminders arrangements for providing short real-time information to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1895
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/782 on tape
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8233 the additional signal being a character code signal

Abstract

The receive part 101 demodulates and decodes a digital modulated signal obtained by receiving a digital broadcast to generate a transport stream and extracts data-broadcast data transmitted over a data channel. An electronic program list generator 102 generates, from program sequence information included in the transport stream, display data for a program list. Based thereon, a video display part 110 displays the program list. When the user looks at this and selects a program desired for preset recording through an input operation part 109, a system control part 105 determines whether the weather during the broadcast time period of the program will be bad or not based on weather forecast information obtained from the data-broadcast data. As a result, if the weather is determined as bad, the system control part 105 causes the video display part 110 to provide a display indicating a possibility of degradation in image quality, etc., during the broadcast time period.

Claims

1. A recording/viewing support apparatus for supporting recording or viewing a program selected by a user as a desired program from among programs scheduled to be aired as digital broadcasts, said apparatus comprising:

program specifying information obtaining means for obtaining program specifying information that specifies said desired program based on an operation by said user;

weather forecast information obtaining means for obtaining, based on said program specifying information, weather forecast information for relevant weather at a location where said digital broadcast is received during a broadcast time period of said desired program as relevant weather forecast information;

determining means for determining, based on said relevant weather forecast information, whether said relevant weather will be so bad or not as to degrade said desired program in image quality or sound quality; and

notifying means for giving, when said determining means determines that said relevant weather will be bad, a notice of a possibility of degradation in image quality or sound quality of said desired program.

2. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

searching means for searching, when said determining means determines that said relevant weather will be bad, for a same program to be aired at different time, which is a program that is equal in content to said desired program and is scheduled to be aired in a time period different from the broadcast time period of said desired program; and

same program information displaying means for displaying information that specifies said same program to be aired at different time found by said searching means.

3. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

said program specifying information obtaining means includes:

receiving means for receiving said digital broadcast and generating a transport stream;

program information displaying means for displaying a program list based on program sequence information included in said transport stream; and

input operation means, operated by the user for selecting said desired program from among programs shown in said program list, for obtaining said program specifying information based on the operation by said user.

4. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

said program specifying information obtaining means includes:

receiving means for receiving said digital broadcast and generating a transport stream;

program information displaying means for displaying a program list based on program sequence information included in said transport stream; and

input operation means, operated by the user for selecting said desired program from among programs shown in said program list, for obtaining said program specifying information based on the operation by said user, and

said searching means searches for said same program to be aired at different time by using said program sequence information.

5. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

when said searching means finds said same program to be aired at different time, said weather forecast information obtaining means obtains weather forecast information for weather during a broadcast time period of said same program to be aired at different time as new relevant weather forecast information,

when said new relevant weather forecast information is obtained, said determining means determines, based on said new relevant weather forecast information, whether the weather during the broadcast time period of said same program to be aired at different time will be so bad or not as to degrade said desired program in image quality or sound quality, and

said notifying means gives the notice of the possibility of degradation in image quality or sound quality of said same program to be aired at different time during the broadcast time period when the weather is determined as bad.

6. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

said searching means searches not only digital broadcast programs but also analog broadcast programs for said same program to be aired at different time.

7. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein

said weather forecast information obtaining means includes receiving means for receiving a data broadcast, and obtains said relevant weather forecast information from said data broadcast.

8. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein

said weather forecast information obtaining means includes interfacing means for accessing to the Internet, and obtains, through the interfacing means, said relevant weather forecast information via the Internet.

9. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein

when a probability of precipitation included in said relevant weather forecast information is larger than a predetermined value, said determining means determines that said relevant weather will be so bad as to degrade said desired program in image quality or sound quality.

10. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein

when a laundry index included in said relevant weather forecast information is smaller than a predetermined value, said determining means determines that said relevant weather will be so bad as to degrade said desired program in image quality or sound quality.

11. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising:

storing means for storing correlation data that relates a probability of precipitation to a receive level degradation probability defined as a probability at which a receive level of said digital broadcast becomes smaller than a predetermined level threshold value, wherein

said determining means calculates, based on said correlation data, the receive level degradation probability corresponding to the probability of precipitation included in said relevant weather forecast information and, when the calculated receive level degradation probability is larger than a predetermined probability threshold value, determines that said relevant weather will be so bad as to degrade said desired program in image quality or sound quality.

12. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising:

storing means for storing correlation data that relates a laundry index to a receive level degradation probability defined as a probability at which a receive level of said digital broadcast becomes smaller than a predetermined level threshold value, wherein

said determining means calculates, based on said correlation data, the receive level degradation probability corresponding to the laundry index included in said relevant weather forecast information and, when the calculated receive level degradation probability is larger than a predetermined probability threshold value, determines that said relevant weather will be so bad as to degrade said desired program in image quality or sound quality.

13. A recording/viewing support apparatus for supporting recording or viewing a program selected by a user as a desired program from among programs scheduled to be aired as digital broadcasts, said apparatus comprising:

program specifying information obtaining means for obtaining program specifying information that specifies said desired program based on an operation by said user;

weather forecast information obtaining means for obtaining, based on said program specifying information, weather forecast information for relevant weather at a location where said digital broadcast is received during a broadcast time period of said desired program as relevant weather forecast information;

storing means for storing correlation data that relates the weather forecast information to a receive level degradation probability defined as a probability at which a receive level of said digital broadcast is smaller than a predetermined level threshold value; and

notifying means for obtaining the receive level degradation probability corresponding to said relevant weather forecast information, and notifying said user of the obtained receive level degradation probability as information indicative of a possibility of degradation in image quality or sound quality of said desired program.

14. The recording/viewing support apparatus according to claim 13, wherein

said correlation data relates said receive level degradation probability to a probability of precipitation or a laundry index included in said relevant weather forecast information.