Broadcasting apparatus and method, receiving apparatus and method, and medium

• US 7,310,810 B1
• Filed: 05/18/2000
• Issued: 12/18/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Saturn Licensing LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Hamada, Ichiro, Tsutsui, Shintaro, Nagano, Susumu
• Primary Examiner(s): Kelley; Chris
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ustaris; Joseph G
• Application Number:
  US09/744,121
• Time in Patent Office: 2,770 Days
• Field of Search: 725/8, 725/1, 725/2, 725/4, 725/86, 725/91, 725100-101, 725/104, 725138-139, 725/142, 725/144, 725/151
• US Class Current: 725/91
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 40/90 specially adapted for satellite broadcast receiving

Abstract

To compensate a failure in downloading of music piece data. For example, when a viewer instructs purchase of a music pieceC to an IRD at a timing t0 during the sixth transmission of music piece data, the music piece data to be transmitted for the seventh time immediately after the instruction is usually downloaded. When the downloading of the music piece data transmitted for the seventh time fails for some reason, downloading is re-executed on music piece data to be transmitted for the eighth time. The music piece data for the final transmission time in each of musical pieces is used for re-execution. Timing at which downloading of the music piece data transmitted for the time immediately preceding the final time can be instructed is set as purchase limit time by using elapsed time since program start time.

Claims

1. Broadcasting equipment for multiplexing downloadable content data together with program information onto a main broadcast signal of a broadcast program into a transport stream, comprising:

generating means for generating the program information, the program information including a purchase limit time;

multiplexing means for repeatedly multiplexing the downloadable content data and the program information a plurality of times onto the main broadcast signal thereby generating the transport stream, the transport stream including a plurality of data segments, each data segment being representative of the downloadable content data; and

purchase limit time setting means for setting the purchase limit time based on the time it takes to download a data segment representative of the downloadable content data.

2. The broadcasting equipment according to claim 1, wherein the content data includes audio data encoded by the ATRAC system or audio data encoded by the MPEG2 system.

3. The broadcasting equipment according to claim 1, further comprising an encoder that formats a portion of the content data into encoded content data that is provided to the multiplexer and repeatedly multiplexed.

4. The broadcasting equipment according to claim 1, wherein the purchase time limit is set as the time at which the next to last data segment in the transport stream may be downloaded.

5. The broadcasting equipment according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of data segments form a sequence of n data segments in the transport stream, the n^th data segment being the last multiplexed segment, and wherein the purchase time limit is set in a time period during the (n−

2)^th data segment arrives at a receiving unit.

6. An apparatus for preparing content data that includes video data and audio data for transmittal as a broadcast signal, the apparatus comprising:

an encoder for encoding the audio data into at least one audio data packet;

a generator for creating a control message, the control message including a purchase limit time based on the time it takes to download the audio data packet; and

a multiplexer for combining the at least one audio data packet with the control message to form the broadcast signal such that the at least one audio data packet is repetitively transmitted as part of the broadcast signal.

7. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the encoder compresses the audio data according to the MPEG2 compression format.

8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the encoder compresses the audio data according to ATRAC format.

9. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the encoder encodes the audio data into one audio data packet that is repetitively transmitted as part of the broadcast signal.

10. The apparatus according claim 6, wherein the control message includes a preview time parameter.

11. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the control manage includes a parameter that defines a limit for the number of times the audio data can be previewed.

12. An apparatus for processing a transport stream having video data and audio data, the audio data comprising a plurality of encoded audio data packets within the transport stream, the apparatus comprising:

a user interface operative to receive instructions from a user for initiating downloading of the audio data;

a descrambler for extracting program information from the transport stream, the program information including a purchase time limit associated with the time for downloading one of the audio data packets; and

a control unit that determines whether the audio data can be downloaded by comparing the purchase time limit to an elapsed time setting associated with the transport stream.

13. The apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the audio data packet comprises an MPEG2 packet.

14. The apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the audio data comprises an ATRAC packet.

15. The apparatus according to claim 12, wherein if the control unit determines that the audio data cannot be downloaded within the purchase time limit, an indication is provided to the user that the purchase time has elapsed.

16. Receiving equipment for receiving a transport stream obtained by repeatedly multiplexing downloadable content data together with program information onto a main broadcast signal a plurality of times, comprising:

receiving means for receiving an instruction of downloading the content data from a user, the content data being represented by a plurality of data packets in the transport stream;

capturing means for capturing the content from the transport stream in response to the download instruction received by the receiving means;

re-executing means for re-executing capture of the content when the capturing means fails to capture the content;

extracting means for extracting the program information corresponding to the content data from the transport stream; and

stopping means for stopping the receiving process of the receiving means in accordance with a purchase limit time included in the program information, and

wherein the purchase limit time is set based on the time it takes to download one or more of the data packets representative of the content data.

17. The receiving equipment according claim 16, wherein the content data includes audio data encoded in the ATRAC system or audio data encoded in the MPEG2 system.

18. A method for multiplexing downloadable content data together with program information onto a main broadcast signal of a program into a transport stream broadcasting, comprising:

setting a purchase limit time based on the duration of the time it takes to download a data segment representative of the downloadable content data;

generating the program information including the purchase limit time; and

repeatedly multiplexing the data segment and the program information a plurality of times onto the main broadcast signal to generate the transport stream.

19. A computer-readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions, that when executed by the computer, cause the computer to perform a method for multiplexing downloadable music content data together with program information onto a transport stream for broadcast, comprising:

segmenting the downloadable music content data into a plurality of data segments that each comprise the music content data;

setting a purchase limit time based on the duration in time of one of the plurality of data segments for the downloadable music content data;

generating the purchase limit time; and

repeatedly multiplexing the downloadable music content data, the purchase time limit and the program information onto a broadcast signal of a program to generate the transport stream.

20. A method for receiving a transport stream obtained by repeatedly multiplexing downloadable contents data together with program information onto a main broadcast signal a plurality of times, comprising:

receiving an instruction of downloading the contents data from a user, the contents data being represented by a plurality of data packets in the transport stream;

capturing the contents from the transport stream in response to the download instruction;

re-executing capture of the contents when the capturing fails to the capture the contents;

extracting the program information corresponding to the contents data from the transport stream; and

stopping the receiving process in accordance with a purchase limit time that is defined by a contents data download time included in the program information, the contents data download time being set based on the time it takes to download one of the data packets and the time remaining to complete broadcasting of the transport stream.