Electronic appliance

• US 20060256224A1
• Filed: 05/15/2006
• Published: 11/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: JVC Kenwood Corporation
• Original Assignee: Victor Company of Japan Limited (JVC Kenwood Corporation)
• Inventors: Kitaura, Masahiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,679,689 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/333.10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42204 User interfaces specially adapted for controlling a client device through a remote control device; Remote control devices therefor constructive details of casings for the remote control device H01H9/0235; user interfaces for controlling a tuning device of a television receiver through a remote control H03J9/00; remote control of peripheral devices connected to a television receiver through the remote control device of the television receiver H04B1/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42206 characterized by hardware details
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42225 characterized by types of remote control, e.g. universal remote control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4223 Cameras H04N23/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4312 involving specific graphical features, e.g. screen layout, special fonts or colors, blinking icons, highlights or animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4318 by altering the content in the rendering process, e.g. blanking, blurring or masking an image region image enhancement or restoration in general G06T5/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764

Abstract

A video camera picks up an image of an operator. The picked-up image is subjected to a mirror image conversion. An image for operation, including operation buttons and the operator'"'"'s image that is subjected to the mirror image conversion are mixed and displayed on a screen of a television receiver. The operator selects a desired operation button by using a universal remote controller with light emitting portions, and executes the operation on the screen. A detecting portion in the television receiver detects which operation button is operated, and executes a control operation corresponding to the operated operation button.

Claims

1. An electronic appliance comprising:

a display device;

a video camera that picks up an image of an operator positioned in front of the display device;

a mirror image converter configured to execute a mirror image conversion of the image picked up by the video camera;

an operation image generator configured to generate an image for operation, including an image of at least one operation button;

a mixer configured to mix an image signal of the image that underwent the mirror image conversion with an image signal of the image for operation;

a detector configured to detect a predetermined selecting operation for selecting one of the at least one operation button made by an operator displayed on a screen of the display device using an on-hand control unit having light emitting portion, with a mixed image obtained by the mixer displayed on the screen of the display device; and

a controller configured to execute a control operation corresponding to the selected operation button for which the predetermined selecting operation is detected by the detector.

2. An electronic appliance according to claim 1, wherein the light emitting portion of the on-hand control unit has a light emitting means for emitting a light in N colors (N is an integer of 2 or more), and the on-hand control unit has N color selecting buttons corresponding to the N colors,

the detector has a discriminating means for discriminating the N colors, and

the controller executes a control operation corresponding to a color discriminated by the discriminating means of the detector.

3. An electronic appliance according to claim 1, wherein the on-hand control unit has operation buttons used to cause the light emitting portion to emit the light corresponding to the predetermined selecting operation, and an infrared light emitting means for emitting infrared information that indicates a determination of the predetermined selecting operation, whereby the light emitting portion and the infrared light emitting means are configured to operate according to an operation state of the operation buttons,

the electronic appliance further comprising an infrared sensor that senses the infrared information, and

wherein the controller determines the predetermined selecting operation detected by the detector based on the infrared information indicating the determination of the predetermined selecting operation, sensed by the infrared sensor, and executes the control operation.

4. An electronic appliance according to claim 1, wherein the on-hand control unit has a selfluminous means for emitting lights in light emission patterns corresponding to M (M is an integer of 1 or more) spatial frequency regions, and M frequency region selection buttons that correspond to the light emission patterns corresponding to M spatial frequency regions,

the detector has a discriminating means for discriminating the light emission patterns corresponding to M spatial frequency regions, and

the controller executes the control operation corresponding to a spatial frequency region discriminated by the discriminating means of the detector.

5. An electronic appliance according to claim 1, wherein the on-hand control unit has a selfluminous means for emitting lights in N colors (N is an integer of 1 or more) in each of light emission patterns corresponding to M (M is an integer of 1 or more) spatial frequency regions, and M×

N frequency/color region selection buttons that correspond to N colors in each of the light emission patterns corresponding to M spatial frequency regions,

the detector has a discriminating means for discriminating M×

N types of light emission states, and

the controller executes the control operation corresponding to a light emission state discriminated by the discriminating means of the detector.