Information processing apparatus and method therefor in a data transfer network

• US 6,212,681 B1
• Filed: 08/01/1997
• Issued: 04/03/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Ikeda, Toshihiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Kostak, Victor R.
• Application Number:
  US08/875,692
• Time in Patent Office: 1,341 Days
• Field of Search: 348/7, 348/12, 348/13, 348/8, 455/4.2, 455/5.1, 345/327
• US Class Current: 725/92
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/409 Data transfer via television network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2143 located in a single building, e.g. hotel, hospital or museum arrangements specially adapted for plural spots in a confined site in broadcast systems H04H20/63; adaptations for transmission by electric cable for domestic distribution in television systems H04N7/106
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2182 involving memory arrays, e.g. RAID disk arrays RAID arrays per se G06F3/0689; use of parity to protect data in RAID systems G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2318 using striping
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 Games
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

Digital data of a plurality of video/audio softs is stored in a plurality of random-accessible large capacity storage device (9) and a control device (8) designates the reading of the video/audio softs and a vacant channel number to decoder devices of a multi-channel output, so that the designated video/audio softs are intermittently read out by time division from the large capacity storage devices every predetermined blocks by the decoder devices to be temporarily stored and thereafter decoded and outputted from the designated number channels, and thus, any soft can be supplied to the terminal devices at any supply starting time, irrespective of whether the requested softs are the same or different, so long as the number of the output channels of the data processing device is within the permissible range. The softs can be supplied to a number of terminal devices of which the number is beyond the number of the prepared softs, and even when the requests are concentrated to a specific soft, the access of the soft can be performed in a short time without increasing the waiting time, and it may be sufficient to merely prepare a small capacity memory in the decoder devices, so that the cost of the decoder devices can be reduced.

Claims

1. An information processing device in a multi-channel data transfer network wherein said information processing device serves as a data supply side, comprising:

random-accessible large capacity storage means for storing digital data of a plurality of video/audio softs, previously allocated to channels, every predetermined blocks in dispersion, wherein the stored digital data can be a combination of conventional video contents and game contents;

control means having management information which indicates file names of the plural video/audio softs, recording positions in said random-accessible large capacity storage means, and allocated channel numbers, receiving a request for designating reproduction of any one data of the plural video/audio softs from an external, and designating reproduction of a data file of one video/audio soft corresponding to the request of reproduction-designated to said random-accessible large capacity storage means every time the request command is inputted; and

decoder means having a plurality of output channels simultaneously outputting video/audio soft data in parallel, registering the management information transferred from said control means, directly accessing the random-accessible large capacity storage means to intermittently read out the video/audio soft data designated by said control means from said random-accessible large capacity storage means based on the management information, every blocks in dispersion to be decoded, and thereafter continuously outputting the requested video/audio soft data in analog form from a channel of a designated number.

2. The information processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said control means previously writes the digital data file of the video/audio softs every predetermined blocks in dispersion into said random-accessible large capacity storage means in accordance with a given rule.

3. The information processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein, every time said control means receives a request for reproduction-designating data of any one of the plural video/audio softs from an external, said control means designates one vacant channel number in response to the request for reproduction designation.

4. The information processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said decoder means accommodates a plurality of temporary storing devices for temporarily storing the digital data of the video/audio softs read out from said random-accessible large capacity storage means, a plurality of data extending devices arranged in parallel corresponding to said plurality of temporary storage devices for extending and restoring the read out data, corresponding to the number of channels, and a pair of first-in first-out memories arranged in parallel between said respective temporary storage devices and data extending devices converting parallel data to serial data, thereby continuously supplying the data intermittently read out from said pair temporary storage devices to said data extending devices.

5. The information processing device as claimed in claim 2, wherein the management information is automatically produced and registered by said control means at the time of writing the video/audio soft data, and the management information is transferred to said decoder means and is held in common between said control means and said decoder means, so that said control means and said decoder means are directly accessible to said random-accessible large capacity storage means respectively.

6. The information processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein, every time a request for adding/renewal of a video/audio soft is inputted to said control means from an external, said control means checks in response to the adding/renewal request whether or not there exists a spare room for data transfer to said random-accessible large capacity storage means, based on the current reproduction condition of the video/audio soft data, and when said random-accessible large capacity storage means has a spare room for data transfer, said control means confirms the file name of the requested video/audio soft for adding/renewal, and thereafter said control means receives the data of the requested video/audio soft adding/renewal to thereby carry out the adding/renewal for the video/audio soft to said random-accessible large capacity storage means in a period when said decoder means reads the data from said random-accessible large capacity storage means, and when there is no spare room for data transfer, a reply is sent such that the request for adding/renewing the video audio soft is to be retransmitted after a predetermined time lapse when the presence of a spare room for transfer is guessed based on the present reproduction condition of the video/audio soft.

7. The information processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the video/audio soft is a video soft having compression-coded data and said decoder means comprises a video decoder device for decoding the compression-coded video soft data, and wherein said video decoder device accommodates a plurality of MPEG decoders serving as data extending means for extending and thawing digital data of a compression-coded video soft, corresponding to the plural output channels.

8. The information processing device as claimed in claim 7, wherein said video decoder device accommodates a plurality of DRAMs for temporarily storing the digital data of the video/audio soft read out from said random-accessible large capacity storage means, a plurality of MPEG decoders arranged in parallel corresponding to said plural DRAMs for extending and restoring the read-out data, corresponding to the number of the channels of said video decoder device, and a pair of first-in data first-out memories arranged in parallel between said each DRAM and MPEG decoder for converting parallel data to serial data, whereby the data intermittently read out from said pair of DRAMs is continuously supplied to said MPEG decoder.

9. The information processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the video/audio soft is a game soft and said decoder means comprises a game decoder device for decoding the game soft data, an wherein said game decoder device accommodates game data extending devices for extending and thawing digital data of a game soft and varying the data in response to a pad signal from an external, corresponding to the plural output channels of said game decoder device.

10. The information processing device as claimed in claim 9, wherein said game decoder device accommodates a plurality of DRAMs for temporarily storing the digital data of the game soft read out from said random-accessible large capacity storage means, a plurality of game decoder elements arranged in parallel corresponding to said plural DRAMs for extending and restoring the read-out data, corresponding to the number of the channels of said game decoder device, and bi-directional first-in data first-out memories arranged in parallel between said each DRAM and game decoder elements, whereby the data intermittently read out from said pair of DRAMs is continuously supplied to said game decoder elements.

11. An information processing system in a multi-channel data transfer network, wherein said information processing system serves as a data supply side and includes a host computer, an information processing device, a switching device and a plurality of terminal devices, wherein said host computer generally controls said information processing device and said switching device and receives requests for reproduction of video/audio data from any of said plurality of terminal devices and transmits the requests for reproduction to said information processing device and controls the circuit connection of said switching device so that the reproduced video/audio data is supplied from said data processing device to each of said plurality of terminal devices which is a source of generating the request for reproduction,

characterized in that said information processing device comprises:

random-accessible large capacity storage means for storing digital data of a plurality of video/audio softs previously allocated to channels, every predetermined blocks in dispersion, wherein the stored digital data can be a combination of conventional video contents and game contents;

control means having management information which indicates file names of the plural video/audio softs, recording positions in said random-accessible large capacity storage means, and allocated channel numbers, receiving a request for designating reproduction of any one data of the plural video/audio softs from an external, and designating reproduction of a data file of one video/audio soft corresponding to the request of reproduction-designation to said random-accessible large capacity storage means every time the request command is inputted; and

decoder means having a plurality of output channels simultaneously outputting video/audio soft data in parallel, registering the management information transferred from said control means, directly accessing the random-accessible large capacity storage means to intermittently read out the video/audio soft data designated by said control means from said random-accessible large capacity storage means based on the management information, every blocks in dispersion to be decoded, and thereafter continuously outputting the requested video/audio soft data in analog form from a channel of a designated number.

12. An information processing method in a multi-channel data transfer network, wherein said information processing method is performed on a data supply side and comprises:

storing digital data of a plurality of video/audio softs previously allocated to channels, every predetermined blocks in dispersion, in random-accessible large capacity storage means, wherein the stored digital data can be a combination of conventional video contents and game contents;

receiving a request for designating reproduction of any one data of the plural video/audio softs from an external, and designating reproduction of a data file of one video/audio soft corresponding to the request of reproduction-designation to the random-accessible large capacity storage means every time the request command is inputted;

registering management information which indicates file names of the plural video/audio softs, recording positions in the random-accessible large capacity storage means, allocated channel numbers and the like;

confirming whether or not there exists a vacant channel based on the management information;

directly accessing the random-accessible large capacity storage means to intermittently read out the designated video/audio soft data by time division every predetermined blocks from the random-accessible large capacity storage means based on the management information; and

decoding the intermittently read out data by time division and continuously outputting the read out data in analog form from a channel of the designated number after subject to D/A conversion.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein said decoding comprises reading out by random-accessing the video/audio soft data stored in dispersion in the plurality of random-accessible large capacity storage means.

14. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein said decoding comprises:

temporarily storing the digital data of the video/audio soft read out from the random-accessible large capacity storage means;

extending and restoring the read out data; and

converting the extended data from parallel data into serial data.

15. The method as claimed in claim 12, comprising:

every time a request for adding/renewal of a video/audio soft is inputted from an external, checking in response to the adding/renewal request whether or not there exists a spare room for data transfer to the random-accessible large capacity storage means, based on the current reproduction condition of the video/audio soft data;

when the random-accessible large capacity storage means has a spare room for data transfer, confirming the file name of the requested video/audio soft for adding/renewal, and thereafter receiving the data of the requested video/audio soft for adding/renewal to thereby write the video/audio soft data for adding/renewal to be intermittently inputted every block in dispersion into the random-accessible large capacity storage means to thereby carry out the adding/renewal of the video/audio soft in a period of reading the data from the random-accessible large capacity storage means;

and when there is no spare room for data transfer, replying that the request for adding/renewing the video/audio soft is to be retransmitted after a predetermined time lapse when the presence of a spare room for transfer is guessed based on the present reproduction condition of the video/audio soft.

16. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein the video/audio soft is a video soft having compression-coded data and said decoding comprises decoding the compression-coded video soft data.

17. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein the video/audio soft is a game soft and said decoding comprises decoding the game soft data, and wherein said decoding the game soft data comprises extending and thawing digital data of the game soft to be varied in response to a pad signal from an external.