KR20060105977A - Device and method for transmitting and receiving rating information - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides an apparatus and method for transmitting and receiving viewing rating information in digital multimedia broadcasting. The present invention provides a transmission for transmitting a viewing rating of a screen unit to a screen requiring a viewing rating different from that of a program unit. The stage generates and transmits the rating information of the screen unit separately, and the receiving stage extracts the rating information of the screen unit.

Therefore, according to the present invention, not only the program unit but also the screen unit requiring the viewing grade information, the viewing grade and the screening time and duration, which are time information thereof, can be provided so that the transmitter can provide more accurate viewing grade information on the program. And the receiving end can broaden the choices for the program.

ATSC, Audience Rating Information, PSIP

Description

Apparatus and Method of transmitting and receiving Rating Information}

1 is a view showing an embodiment of a user-data area that defines viewing rating information in units of screens according to the present invention;

2 is a conceptual block diagram of a transmitter for generating and transmitting audience rating information in units of screens according to the present invention.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a process of transmitting viewing rating information in units of screens according to the present invention.

4 is a conceptual block diagram of a receiving unit for extracting rating information of a screen unit according to the present invention;

5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of extracting and processing viewing rating information in units of screens according to the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings

10: PSIP information block 20: video user-data block

30: Video / audio data block 40: Other data block

50: viewing grade generation unit 60: screening time generation unit

70: duration generator 110: PSIP information extraction block

120: video user-data extraction block

130: video / audio data extraction block

140: other data extraction block 150: viewing grade extraction unit

      160: screening time extraction unit 170: duration extraction unit

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to digital multimedia broadcasting, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for transmitting and receiving rating information about a broadcast program.

Recently, with the spread of digital television, viewers can watch various programs.

However, some of the programs may be inappropriate for viewers (eg, adolescents, children, etc.) of a certain class. In such cases, appropriate measures are required on the side of transmitting and receiving the programs.

That is, the transmitting end should generate and transmit the rating information for the program to be transmitted, and the receiving end should be able to select whether to restrict the viewing by extracting the rating information for the received program.

In this case, the receiving end may view the extracted viewer rating information, and the viewer may select whether to restrict the viewing of the program. If the viewer selects the viewing restriction for the program, the entire program to which the rating information is transmitted is now transmitted. Will restrict parental control.

However, even when viewing rating information is transmitted as described above and the entire program is restricted by the viewer's selection, except for a few specific screens constituting the program, the rating is different from the ratings transmitted by the transmitting end. There may also be sufficient cases to transmit.

For example, if a rating is transmitted to a child or a teen that is inappropriate for a whole program to be viewed, and the receiving end has set a parental level for the rating, the entire program is restricted. .

Therefore, even if only a few screens of the program are a program that a viewer of a certain layer can fully watch, according to the transmission / reception schemes up to now, the transmitting end can transmit only the rating information of the entire program to the corresponding program. There is a problem in that it is not possible to provide more accurate rating information, and the receiving end has a problem of narrowing the program selection by extracting only the rating information of the program unit.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to define a rating level information of a screen unit in a video user-data area of Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) information, and An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and a method for transmitting / receiving viewing rating information in units of screens together with viewing rating information.

In order to achieve the above object, a feature of the apparatus for transmitting rating information according to the present invention includes: a rating rating generator for generating a corresponding rating for a screen requiring a rating different from that of a program unit of a broadcast program to be transmitted; A screening time generating unit for generating a screening time that is a broadcast start time in a program of a screen on which the viewing rating is generated; And a duration generator for generating a duration time remaining from the screening time of the screen to the end time.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for transmitting audience rating information, comprising: a first step of generating audience rating information in a program unit when audience rating information is required for a broadcast program to be transmitted; A second step of determining whether there is a screen that requires a different viewing grade than the viewing grade of the program unit; A third step of generating viewing rating information in units of screens and inserting it into a video user-data area if the rating is required as a result of the determination; And a fourth step of transmitting the inserted rating unit rating information together with the rating unit information in the program unit.

In this case, the viewing rating information of the screen unit preferably includes a screening time and a duration.

In addition, it is preferable to continuously transmit the audience rating information until the duration of the audience rating information becomes zero.

Features of the viewing rating information receiving apparatus according to the present invention includes a rating rating extraction unit for extracting the viewing ratings of the screen unit received with the viewing rating information of the program unit; A screening time extracting unit for extracting a screening time which is a broadcast start time of the corresponding screen in the program received together with the extracted screen unit ratings; It is configured to include a duration extraction unit for extracting the duration time remaining from the extracted screening time to the end time.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for receiving rating information, the method comprising: extracting rating information in units of screens from a received signal; A second step of determining whether a presentation time included in the extracted audience rating information is reached; A third time of normally playing the program when the duration is zero after limiting the viewing of the screen until the duration included in the audience rating information becomes zero when the result of the determination is the screening time; It comprises a step.

At this time, the first step, it is preferable to parse the video user-data area of the received PSIP information to extract the viewing rating information in the unit of the screen.

In addition, in the third step, if the duration is not zero, it is preferable to continuously receive the rating information.

Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

In addition, the terminology used in the present invention was selected as a general term widely used as possible at present, but in certain cases, the term is arbitrarily selected by the applicant, and in this case, since the meaning is described in detail in the corresponding part of the present invention, a simple term is used. It is to be clear that the present invention is to be understood as a meaning of terms rather than names.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A preferred embodiment of an apparatus and method for transmitting and receiving rating information in digital multimedia broadcasting according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In this case, the description will be avoided by overlapping the description and comparing the conventional rating information transmission and reception device and method with the conventional rating information transmission and reception device and method for ease of description.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, the operation of the apparatus and method for transmitting and receiving rating information on a screen basis according to the present invention will be described in detail as follows.

The present invention is intended to be able to transmit and receive viewing rating information even on a screen unit constituting the program in a method of transmitting and receiving only viewing rating information in a conventional program unit.

That is, when a viewing grade of a program and a screen constituting the program is required to be different from each other, the viewing grade information can be transmitted and received on the screen unit, so that the correct rating information for the corresponding program and the screen can be transmitted and received. It is.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a user-data area in which audience rating information in units of screens is defined according to the present invention.

Currently, the video signal of a digital television follows the video standard of MPEG-2. FIG. 1 is a syntax of the standard of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), which is an American standard for terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting among digital multimedia broadcasting. .

The syntax is a video user-data area in the picture area among a sequence layer, a picture layer, and a group of picture (GOP) area having a video user-data area in the ATSC standard. This is an example of syntax related to data transmission such as caption.

In FIG. 1, there is a 'user_data_type_code' field, which defines video user-data with an 8-bit value.

In FIG. 1, a value of "0x03" is currently defined as a code indicating caption_data, and a value of "0x06" is defined as a code indicating bar data (bar_data).

In the present invention, except for the value already defined in the 'user_data_type_code' field, a new '0x0A' value is newly defined and used as the viewing rating information in units of screens.

The '0x0A' value is composed of three parts: 'viewing grade (RATING_INFO)', 'showing time (PRESENTATION_TIME)', 'duration time (DURATION_TIME)'.

The 'viewing grade' field is defined as representing information on a viewing grade of a screen unit constituting a program.

That is, it is determined whether there is a screen to be defined differently from the viewing grade of the program unit among the screens constituting the program, and as a result of the determination, the viewing grade is defined for the screen requiring the viewing grade.

The 'showing time' field defines time information about when a specific screen having a viewing level defined in units of screens starts in a corresponding program.

The 'Duration time' field is time information on when the screen in which the viewing class is defined is terminated, and the transmitted information defines a duration, which is a difference between the screening time and the end time of the specific screen, and how much the specific screen is. Tell them if they last for a while.

That is, when a viewing grade in units of screens is defined for a specific screen, time information defining the screening time and duration of the screen is transmitted to the receiving end together with the viewing grade.

In this case, even if the screen is given the same viewing rating, it is necessary to continuously transmit the viewing rating information including the rating and time information until the end of the screen, that is, until the duration becomes zero.

This is because the viewer cannot always assume that the viewer views from the beginning of the screen where the rating information is defined.

For example, if a specific screen defined with screen rating information is composed of 10 screens, assuming that each screen is broadcast for 1 second, the transmitter does not transmit the rating information for all 10 screens. In this case, if the viewer turns on the television at the beginning of the second screen, the viewer may not receive the rating information and may not be able to select whether to restrict the viewing.

Thus, the transmitting end should define the ratings and time information for each of the 10 screens and transmit the rating information.

In this case, the duration should be defined as 10 seconds in the first screen, 9 seconds in the second screen, 8 seconds in the third screen, and the duration should be defined as 1 second in the last screen.

Thus, when the receiving end receives the rating information of the first screen, the duration is 10 seconds, if receiving the rating information for the next screen, the duration will be received 9 seconds.

At this time, it should be noted that the first screen has received 10 seconds as the duration and the next screen has received 9 seconds does not limit the viewing for all '19' seconds.

That is, if the received duration is smaller than the initial duration already received on the first screen, the duration is not reset and the duration is not reset until the received duration becomes zero. .

The three parts constituting the above-mentioned audience rating information are information transmitted from a transmitter that transmits a digital multimedia broadcast such as a broadcaster.

Referring to the transmitter for transmitting the rating information in the screen unit as described above, Figure 2 is a conceptual block diagram of a transmitter for generating and transmitting the rating information in the screen unit according to the present invention.

The transmitter consists of a PSIP information block 10, a video user-data block 20, a video / audio data block 30, and other data blocks 40.

The PSIP information block 10 is a block for generating PSIP information including all general information about broadcast as a program and system information protocol in broadcast and cable on the ground.

The video user-data block 20 is a block for generating a portion of the video signal related to the user-data.

The video / audio data block 30 is a block for generating information about broadcast data, that is, video data and audio data, to be decoded by an actual receiver.

In the present invention, the audience rating information generator 50, the show time generator 60, and the duration generator 70 are added to the video user data block to generate and transmit the audience rating information in units of screens.

The viewer rating generator 50 may generate a corresponding viewer rating in units of screens.

The screening time generation unit 60 may generate time information on the broadcast start time of the screen on which the viewing rating is generated.

The duration generation unit 70 may generate a duration that is a difference between a start time and an end time of the broadcast screen on which the rating is generated, that is, time information about how long the screen lasts.

Now, a method of generating and transmitting audience rating information on a screen basis using the configuration block will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a process of transmitting audience rating information on a screen basis according to the present invention.

First, the rating unit determines the rating of the viewing grade for the program to be transmitted, and generates the viewing grade information A of the program unit when the viewing grade is required as a result of the determination. (S step 10)

After generating the viewing grade (A) of the program unit, it is determined whether there is a specific screen that requires a different viewing grade (B). (S 20 levels)

As a result of the determination, if there is no specific screen requiring the viewing grade information B in the screen unit, only the viewing grade information A in the program unit is inserted into the PSIP information block 10 to transmit the program.

However, if there is a screen that requires audience rating information B in units of screens as a result of the determination, a corresponding rating is generated for each screen that requires audience rating information in units of screens. (S 30 levels)

When the viewing grade is generated, a PRESENTATION TIME is generated to inform time information about the display time of when the screen in which the viewing grade is defined starts from within the program. (S 40 levels)

After generating the viewing grade and the screening time, a DURATION TIME is generated to inform the difference between the screening time and the end time of the screen, that is, time information about how long the screen lasts. (S 50 levels)

In operation S30 to S50 described above, the audience rating information including the audience rating and the time information is generated and inserted into the video user-data area. (S 60 levels)

The video user-data area is then inserted back into the PSIP information. (S 70 levels)

Through the above-described steps, the audience rating information of a specific screen unit is inserted into the PSIP information and transmitted.

The transmitter may transmit the generated PSIP information together with the broadcast program. (S 80 levels)

In the above, the configuration block and the process of the transmitting end have been described. Now, referring to the accompanying drawings for the receiving end receiving and extracting the transmitted viewing rating information, FIG. 4 is a viewing rating in units of screens according to the present invention. Conceptual block diagram of a receiver for extracting information.

In the case where the audience rating information of the conventional program unit is transmitted, the receiving end includes the PSIP information extraction block 110, the video user-data extraction block 120, the video / audio data extraction block 130, and the other data extraction block 140. It consisted of

However, in the present invention, the above-described transmitting end is inserted by inserting the viewer rating extractor 150, the screening time extractor 160, and the duration extractor 170 into the video user-data extraction block 130 of the conventional component block. And extracting the rating information of the screen unit transmitted from the.

Referring to the configuration of the receiver of FIG. 4, the transmitter has the inverse structure of the transmitter of FIG. 2, wherein the transmitter generates audience rating information in units of screens constituting a program. The receiving unit of FIG. 4 is characterized in that to extract the viewing rating information of the generated screen unit.

That is, the viewer rating extractor 150 extracts the transmitted viewer rating, and the screening time extractor 160 extracts the screening time which is time information on the start time of the program of the specific screen having the rating. The duration extractor 170 extracts a duration of time information on the difference between the start time and the end time of the specific screen in which the viewing grade is defined, that is, how long the broadcast will last.

Referring to the process of extracting the rating information of the screen unit transmitted by the transmitting end by using the configuration of the receiver, Figure 5 is a sequence illustrating a process of extracting and processing the viewing rating information of the screen unit in accordance with the present invention It is also.

For convenience of explanation, it is assumed that the viewer restricts viewing when there is viewing grade information on the corresponding screen.

First, the PSIP information extraction block 110 parses the PSIP information part of the received broadcast stream. (S 110 levels)

The parsing result is determined by extracting whether there is an audience rating information (X) in program units from the PSIP information. (S 120 levels)

If the rating information (X) of the program unit is not extracted as a result of the determination, the entire broadcast program is normally played for the received broadcast program and displayed.

However, if the rating result (X) of the program unit is extracted as a result of the determination, the video user-data area is parsed to determine whether there is the viewing rating information (Y) of the screen unit (S130). It is determined whether the viewing grade information Y of the screen unit is extracted. (S 140 steps)

Therefore, if the viewing rating information Y of the screen unit is not extracted as a result of the determination, this is a case where only the viewing rating information X of the program unit is transmitted, thereby limiting the viewing of the entire broadcast program. (S 150 steps)

However, if the rating result (Y) of the screen unit is extracted as a result of the determination, the next step, parsing the viewing rating information of the screen unit to extract the viewing rating and time information thereof. (S 160 steps)

Thus, it is determined whether the screening time of the specific screen having the viewing grade of the screen unit is reached.

If it is not yet the screening time as a result of the determination, it continues to wait until the screening time, and if the screening time is reached, go to the next step. (S 170 steps)

If the screening time is reached, the viewer starts to restrict the viewing of the specific screen having the rating (step S180). At this time, the duration of the extracted time information is determined to determine when to limit the viewing of the broadcast program. Check to determine if the duration is zero. (S 190 steps)

As a result of the determination, if the duration is not zero, the viewing is continuously restricted to the screen having the viewing rating. If the duration is zero, the viewing restriction due to the viewing rating information of the screen unit is Since it is finished, you can play the broadcast screen normally. (S 200 steps)

The above-described process shows a process of processing the rating information of one screen unit at the receiving end. As the broadcasting program may have a plurality of rating information of the screen unit, the viewing rating and The above process may be repeated according to the time information.

In addition, when transmitting and receiving viewing rating information on a screen basis through the above-described process of FIGS. 3 and 5, it is not necessary to define the same viewing rating information for each screen so that more accurate rating information can be delivered to viewers on the corresponding screen. Can be.

The method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving the rating information in the digital multimedia broadcasting described above have been described based on the ATSC standard as an example, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

In addition, as described above, in the present invention, for the convenience of explanation, when the rating information of the screen unit is present, it has been described as the viewing restriction on the screen having the viewing rating information. Information can be arbitrarily set, and can vary depending on what is set at the receiving end.

The effects of the apparatus and method for transmitting / receiving viewing rating information in the digital multimedia broadcasting according to the present invention described above are as follows.

First, according to the present invention, the viewing grade information can be transmitted not only in the program unit but also in the screen unit, so that the transmitting end can transmit more accurate viewing grade information.

Secondly, according to the present invention, even in the case of the receiving end, it is possible to extract viewing rating information in units of screens to widen a range of program selection.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

Therefore, the technical scope of the present invention should not be limited to the contents described in the embodiments, but should be defined by the claims.

Claims (8)

In a digital television transmitter, A viewing rating generation unit generating a corresponding viewing rating for a screen requiring a viewing rating different from that of a program unit of a broadcast program to be transmitted; A screening time generating unit for generating a screening time that is a broadcast start time in a program of a screen on which the viewing rating is generated; And a duration generator for generating a duration time remaining from the screening time to the end time of the screen. In the digital television transmission method, A first step of generating viewing rating information of a program unit when viewing rating information is required for a broadcast program to be transmitted; A second step of determining whether there is a screen that requires a different viewing grade than the viewing grade of the program unit; A third step of generating viewing rating information in units of screens and inserting it into a video user-data area if the rating is required as a result of the determination; And a fourth step of transmitting the inserted rating information on the screen unit together with the rating information on the program unit. The method of claim 2, And the rating information of the screen unit includes a screening time and a duration. The method of claim 2, And transmitting the rating information continuously until the duration of the rating information becomes zero. In a digital television receiver, A viewing rating extracting unit which extracts a viewing rating of a screen unit received together with viewing rating information of a program unit; A screening time extracting unit for extracting a screening time which is a broadcast start time of the corresponding screen in the program received together with the extracted screen unit ratings; And a duration extractor for extracting a duration remaining from the extracted screening time to an end time. In the digital television reception method, Extracting viewing rating information in units of screens from the received signal; A second step of determining whether a presentation time included in the extracted audience rating information is reached; A third time of normally playing the program when the duration is zero after limiting the viewing of the screen until the duration included in the audience rating information becomes zero when the result of the determination is the screening time; Method of receiving the rating information, characterized in that it comprises a step. The method of claim 6, wherein the first step, Parsing the video user-data area of the received PSIP information to extract the viewing rating information in units of screens. The method of claim 6, wherein in the third step, And if the duration is not zero as a result of the determination, the rating information is continuously received.

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