Television receiver and additional information transmitting method

• US 6,335,763 B1
• Filed: 01/30/1997
• Issued: 01/01/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Nishio, Toshiro, Imai, Kiyoshi, Usui, Akira, Hagiwara, Kiyokazu
• Primary Examiner(s): Harvey, David E.
• Application Number:
  US08/791,295
• Time in Patent Office: 1,797 Days
• Field of Search: H04/N.708, H04/N.7087, H04/N.544, H04/N.5445, 348/13, 348/461, 348/468, 348/563, 348/564, 348/553, 340/825.26, 340/825.27
• US Class Current: 348/564
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/426 Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof H04N5/44 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42661 for reading from or writing on a magnetic storage medium, e.g. hard disk drive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42669 the medium being removable
• 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 21/433 Content storage operation, e.g. storage operation in response to a pause request, caching operations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4348 Demultiplexing of additional data and video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4355 involving reformatting operations of additional data, e.g. HTML pages on a television screen optimising the visualization of content for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/9577; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/066; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/454 Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
• 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 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8153 comprising still images, e.g. texture, background image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8405 represented by keywords
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/0882 for the transmission of character code signals, e.g. for teletext circuits for the digital non-picture data signal H04N7/035
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/0887 for the transmission of programme or channel identifying signals

Abstract

A television receiver receiving an analog video signal, comprises additional information detecting means for separating and extracting an additional information code from the analog video signal, and outputting the additional information code; additional information recording means for recording the additional information code output from the additional information detecting means; additional information writing switch means for passing or blocking the additional information code that is output from the additional information detecting means toward the additional information recording means, in response to a control signal; conversion means for converting the additional information code output from the additional information detecting means or the additional information code reproduced from the additional information recording means into a character or an image; and signal synthesizing means for synthesizing the analog video signal and the additional information that has been converted into a character or an image by the conversion means, and outputting the synthesized signal as a monitor output signal.

Claims

1. A television receiver receiving a digitally coded compressed television signal, comprising:

digital television signal analysis means for analyzing the digitally coded compressed television signal, separating and extracting additional information from the digitally coded compressed television signal, and outputting the additional information as an additional information code;

additional information recording means for recording the additional information code;

additional information writing switch means for passing an additional information code corresponding to a previously input key word and blocking the additional information code that is output from the digital television signal analyzing means toward the additional information recording means, in response to a control signal;

conversion means for converting the additional information code output from the digital television signal analyzing means or the additional information code reproduced from the additional information recording means into a character or an image;

digital television signal decoding means for decoding the digitally coded compressed television signal and output a video signal; and

signal synthesizing means for synthesizing the video signal output from the decoding means and the additional information that has been converted into a character or an image by the conversion means, and outputting the synthesized signal as a monitor output signal.

2. A television receiver as defined in claim 1 wherein the control signal controls the additional information writing switch means so that it passes the additional information code only when additional information designated by the user is detected.

3. An additional information transmitting method for transmitting a digitally coded television signal in which a program or commercial segment plus additional information relating to the segment are multiplexed, wherein the additional information to be transmitted is written in a user data region which is specified by the MPEG 2 standard of ISO/IFC 13818-2 (1996):

Information Technology-Generic Coding of moving pictures and associated audio-Part 2;

Video of the digitally coded television signal when the additional information is transmitted, wherein transmitted as the additional information are a code showing an object that provides information, and one of a character information code and an image information code which shows information of the object.

4. An additional information transmitting and receiving method for transmitting and receiving a digitally coded television signal in which a programor commercial segment plus additional information relating to the segment are multiplexed;

wherein the additional information to be transmitted is written in a user data region which is specified by the MPEG 2 standard of ISO/IFC 13818-2 (1996);

Information Technology-Generic Coding of moving pictures and associated audio-Part 2;

Video of the digitally coded television signal when the additional information is transmitted; and

on the receiver'"'"'s side, the digitally coded television signal including the additional information is decoded to separate the additional information from an ordinary video signal, and the additional information and the video signal are reproduced,

wherein transmitted as the additional information are a code showing an object that provides information, and one of a character information code and an image information code, which shows information of the object; and

on the receiver'"'"'s side, the digitally coded television signal including the additional information is decoded to extract, as the additional information, the code showing an object that provides information and the character information code or the image information code, and to extract an ordinary video signal, and the additional information and the video signal are produced.