CN101262585B - Information inquiry method and device for digital TV programs - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a method for inquiring the information of a digital television program and a device thereof. The method comprises the steps that the electronic program guide (EPG) of a digital television is enquired, analyzed and calculated on the basis of time periods according to inquiry instruction information containing an inquiry time period input by a customer; the information of the television program in the inquiry time period obtained by inquiry is output. The method of the invention can inquire the information of the television program in the time period by taking the time period as an inquiry condition according to the inquiry instruction information in a digital format input by the customer and can input and display the inquiry result on the program inquiry interface of a television in the mode of a program list for the customer to further select and operate. Therefore, the method of the invention solves the technical problem that the customer fails to rapidly inquire the information of the television program in a certain special time period, aiming at the information of the electronic program guide currently.

Description

Information query method and equipment for digital television programs

Technical Field

The invention relates to a digital television information processing technology, in particular to a method and equipment for inquiring information of a digital television program based on time intervals.

Background

With the rapid development of electronic technology and video transmission technology and the continuous maturity of digital television technology, the digital television set-top box has gone into thousands of households, so that users can better enjoy the high-quality service brought to life by the digital television, the number of television programs is greatly increased, the colleagues of the users for selecting television programs are enriched, and the inconvenience is brought to the users when selecting the channels and programs to watch.

At present, the method for inquiring and selecting television programs by a digital television set top box is as follows: electronic Program Guide (EPG) information is transmitted in the digital tv Program information, and is sorted according to the searched time of the tv programs and the time of the tv Program service, and displayed on the Program query/selection interface of the tv set as a tv Program list. The user may select a channel to view program guide information for the channel, including program information, the time the program was broadcast, program profiles, and the like.

The current general method for displaying electronic program menu is to list the electronic program data by using channel and time as main body, such method focuses on each channel, for example, when positioning channel CCTV1, all program lists in one week of the channel can be viewed. The method enables a user to conveniently care about the programs broadcasted by the channel so as to determine whether the broadcasting time of one program is within the proper watching time of the user. However, since there are too many tv programs and most of the program lists start from the zero point, this causes inconvenience in searching for programs by users, especially for tv users who only care about programs of all channels in a period of time, each time switch to a channel and then search for a program in a period of time, if they want to watch programs in the period of time of other channels, the inquiry speed is slow.

Another method for displaying electronic program menu is to display the program types of the programs, such as movie, news, shows, sports, and the like, in a classified manner. This does bring great convenience to the user, however, the excessive program information may cause time and labor waste when the user queries the program information in a specific time period, for example, the user may need to turn many pages to query when trying to view the program from 8 o 'clock to 9 o' clock in the next day; at present, operators rarely classify programs accurately and in detail, and most of the programs are all set as film and television.

Therefore, today, when the digital television technology is rapidly developed, it is necessary to provide a more convenient and faster information query method for querying television programs for users while ensuring that a user is provided with a comprehensive introduction of television program information through an electronic program menu.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a method and equipment for inquiring information of a digital television program based on time intervals, which are used for solving the technical problem that a user cannot quickly inquire the information of the television program in a certain specific time interval aiming at the information of an electronic program menu (EPG).

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention discloses an information query method for digital television programs, comprising:

according to the query instruction information containing the query time interval input by the user, carrying out query analysis and statistics on the electronic program menu information of the digital television according to the time interval;

and outputting the television program information obtained by the query within the query time interval.

The electronic program menu information is obtained by analyzing the received digital television program code stream information.

Preferably, the step of performing query analysis and statistics on the electronic program menu information according to time intervals includes:

reading a television program list of each channel in the electronic program menu information;

analyzing the information of each television program in the television program list, and judging whether the playing start time of the television program is within the query time interval, if so, the television program is one of the query results;

and counting all the inquired television programs.

Preferably, the present invention further comprises the steps of: and storing the television program information obtained by inquiry.

Preferably, the program information obtained according to the query condition is output in a program list manner, and each piece of television program information in the program list includes a program name, program name information, and play start time information.

Preferably, the query instruction information is input through a digital television remote controller, and includes the query time interval information in a digital input format and the query control information.

Correspondingly, the invention also discloses an information inquiry device of the digital television program, which comprises:

the instruction receiving unit is used for receiving query instruction information containing a query time interval input by a user;

the program information storage unit is used for storing electronic program menu information;

the program information query unit is connected with the instruction receiving unit and the program information storage unit, and is used for performing query analysis on the electronic program menu information according to time intervals and counting, querying and obtaining all television program information located in the query time intervals;

and the program information output unit is connected with the program information inquiry unit and used for outputting the television program information within the inquiry time interval.

Wherein, the program information inquiry unit comprises:

the program information reading module is used for reading a television program list of each channel in the electronic program menu information;

the query analysis module is connected with the program information reading module and used for analyzing the information of each television program in the television program list and judging whether the playing start time of the television program is within the query time interval or not, if so, the television program is one of the query results;

and the information statistics module is connected with the query analysis module and is used for performing statistics on all queried television programs.

Preferably, the apparatus of the present invention further comprises: the electronic program menu information acquisition unit and the program information storage unit are used for searching and receiving the code stream information of the searched digital television program, acquiring the electronic program menu information by analyzing the code stream information, and storing the acquired electronic program menu information to the program information storage unit.

Preferably, the query instruction information is input through a digital television remote controller, and includes the query time interval information in a digital input format and the query control information.

Compared with the prior art, the invention has the following beneficial effects:

1. the invention provides a query of digital television program information based on time intervals, and the query instruction information in a digital format is input by a user, so that the corresponding television program information in the time intervals can be queried by taking the time intervals as query conditions, and query results are input and displayed on a program query interface of a television in a program list mode for further selection operation of the user;

2. the user can simply inquire the instruction information in a digital format by using the remote controller, and the method is simple to implement and convenient to operate.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic flow diagram of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The invention provides an information query method and equipment taking time intervals as query conditions, which are used for querying Electronic Program Guide (EPG) information acquired by a television set top box and outputting a query result to a program query interface of a television in a television program list mode, so that a user can quickly and conveniently search the television program information in the concerned time intervals.

Fig. 1 is a schematic flow chart of a preferred embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a tv set-top box is taken as an example, and the essence of the present invention is explained in detail from when a user turns on the set-top box to when the user needs to complete a tv program query within a time period.

The embodiment specifically comprises the following steps:

step S110: turning on a power supply, powering on the set-top box, and starting system initialization;

the system initialization step not only is to restore information such as default parameters of each element in the set-top box and set hardware drive, but also is to analyze electronic program menu (EPG) information from the front-end code stream information of the received television program and store the currently obtained EPG information in the memory of the set-top box.

Step S120: reading program list information and preset information saved in power failure;

the invention sets that the program list searched out before (or before) power failure and the program information preset by the user need to be stored in a power failure mode so as to be still existed when the computer is started next time, thereby facilitating the use and the query operation of the user.

Step S130: receiving and inputting query instruction information containing a query time interval;

the inquiry command information is input through a digital television remote controller and comprises inquiry time interval information in a digital input format and inquiry control information. For example, the format of the start time and the end time of the query period information may be year-month-day-hour-minute, that is, the following format in which each letter represents a specific number: YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM.

The query time interval information can be simply and digitally input by a remote controller without inputting complex representatives such as Chinese characters and the like; after the user inputs the query time interval information, the user can press a control button for starting query, and then the query can be started. Therefore, the input of the query instruction information is simple to realize and convenient to operate.

Step S140: carrying out query analysis and statistics on the electronic program menu information according to time intervals;

the steps may specifically include:

a. reading a television program list of each channel in the electronic program menu information from a memory of the set-top box;

b. analyzing the information of each television program in the television program list, and judging whether the playing start time of the television program is within the query time interval, if so, the television program is one of the query results;

c. and counting all the inquired television programs.

Step S150: outputting all the television program information obtained by inquiry in a program list mode;

the purpose of this step is to output the query result, and output the information of the plurality of tv programs obtained by this query, including each piece of tv program information including the program name, the program name information, and the play start time information, to the query interface of the display device (e.g., a tv) in a list manner, for the user to select or schedule the program.

And meanwhile, the query result is saved while being output.

Step S160: for selecting a scheduled program or a play program operation.

The step is that the user obtains the query result by outputting the query result in step S150, that is, the user can select or schedule the tv programs in the displayed tv program list through the remote controller. If the user selects to play, directly switching to the selected program to play; if the user performs the operation of reserving the program, the user is prompted to watch the reserved television program about 1 minute before the program is played.

In addition, as an improvement of the invention, the query interface can be popped up in a full-screen playing state through a shortcut key, and the interface can be optimized, for example, a program is set to be a ChannelList size, so that the program can be watched and queried without affecting a watching subject.

In addition, please refer to fig. 2, which is a diagram illustrating the result of a preferred embodiment of the present invention. The embodiment is still taken as an example at the set top box to further explain in detail how to implement the information query of the digital television program based on the time slot.

The embodiment comprises the following steps:

an electronic program menu (EPG)information obtaining unit 210, configured to search and receive code stream information of a searched digital television program, obtain electronic program menu (EPG) information by analyzing the code stream information, and store the obtained electronic program menu information in a programinformation storage unit 220;

a programinformation storage unit 220, configured to store the electronic program menu information;

aninstruction receiving unit 240, configured to receive query instruction information including a query period input by a user;

the user may input the query instruction information through theremote controller 300, and the query instruction information includes the query time interval information in a digital input format and query control information.

A programinformation query unit 230, connected to theinstruction receiving unit 240 and the programinformation storage unit 220, for performing query analysis on the electronic program menu information according to time intervals, and performing statistical query to obtain all television program information located in the query time intervals;

the program information output unit 250 is connected to the programinformation query unit 230, and is configured to output the television program information within the query time interval in a program list manner.

The program information output unit 250 outputs the query result to adisplay device 400, such as a television, and the user obtains the query result through a query interface on the television.

The programinformation query unit 230 includes:

a programinformation reading module 231, configured to read a television program list of each channel in the electronic program menu information;

a query analysis module 232, connected to the programinformation reading module 231, configured to analyze information of each tv program in the tv program list, and determine whether the playing start time of the tv program is within the query time interval, if so, the tv program is one of the query results;

and theinformation statistics module 233 is connected to the query analysis module 232, and is configured to perform statistics on all queried television programs.

Therefore, the invention can inquire out the corresponding television program information in the time interval by taking the time interval as the inquiry condition through inputting the inquiry instruction information in the digital format by the user, and inputs and displays the inquiry result on the program inquiry interface of the television in the mode of a program list so as to provide the user for further selection operation.

In summary, the invention has the following beneficial effects:

1. the invention provides a method for inquiring digital television program information based on time intervals, and provides a simple and quick inquiry method for inquiring the television program information in a certain specific time interval by a user;

2. the user can simply inquire the instruction information in a digital format by using the remote controller, and the method is simple to implement and convenient to operate.

Claims (4)

1. An information query method for a digital television program is characterized by comprising the following steps:

step 1, turning on a power supply, powering on a set top box, and starting system initialization;

step 2, reading the program list information and the preset information stored in the power failure;

step 3, receiving query instruction information containing query time intervals input by a user;

step 4, carrying out query analysis and statistics on the electronic program menu information of the digital television according to time intervals, wherein the electronic program menu information is obtained by analyzing the received digital television program code stream information;

step 5, outputting the television program information obtained by the query within the query time interval;

step 6, according to the selection of the user to the query result, the operation of playing the program or reserving the program is carried out;

wherein,

in step 1, the system initialization step is:

restoring default parameter information of each element in the set-top box, setting a hardware drive, analyzing electronic program menu information from the front-end code stream information of the received television program, and storing the currently obtained electronic program menu information in a memory of the set-top box;

in step 4, the step of performing query analysis and statistics on the electronic program menu information according to time intervals includes:

reading a television program list of each channel in the electronic program menu information;

analyzing the information of each television program in the television program list, and judging whether the playing start time of the television program is within the query time interval, if so, the television program is one of the query results;

counting all the inquired television programs;

in step 6, the program playing operation is performed by: and directly switching to the program selected by the user for playing.

2. The method for querying information of a digital television program according to claim 1, wherein the step 5 further comprises: and storing the television program information obtained by inquiry.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein in step 5, the program information obtained according to the query condition is outputted in a program list, and each piece of tv program information in the program list includes a program name and program name information and play start time information.

4. The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the query command information is inputted via a digital TV remote controller, and includes query time slot information in a digital input format and query control information.

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