JP2003283673A - Conference call system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a conference call system in which each telephone terminal can receive voice data and image data matching its acoustic outputting characteristic and image displaying characteristic. <P>SOLUTION: The voice processing section 30 of a server 10 processes the voices of the voice data V of a speaker transmitted to the telephone terminal at each destination, so that the voices expressed by the voice data V may become suitable to the voice band A of the loudspeaker of the telephone terminal at each destination stored in the storing section 40 of the server 10. The image processing section 50 of the server 10 processes the image data D of the photograph of the face of the speaker, so that the image shown by the image data D transmitted to the telephone terminal at each destination together with the voice data V may become suitable to the screen size of the telephone terminal at each transmitting destination stored in the storing section 40. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a system has been used in which users at remote locations hold a telephone conference. In recent years, various types have been introduced due to the price reduction of videophones, the spread of personal computers and the Internet, and the enhancement of functions such as installed telephones and mobile telephones including mobile telephones (these are all called telephone terminals below). A telephone conference system using the above-mentioned telephone terminals has also been proposed. These telephone conference systems carry out a telephone conference by multiplexing voice data from the telephone terminal devices of conference participants who are speakers and transmitting it to the telephone terminal devices of each attendee. Some of them are voice data and the image data of the face photo of the speaker (sender of the voice data) and the image data of the image of the meeting attendees combined with the image of the virtual meeting room. A system that allows all attendees to feel like a normal meeting held in the same meeting room,
A system has been proposed that aims to record the content of the conference, automatically processes the billing for the conference participants, accepts and registers the conference participation, and promotes the conference more efficiently. ing.

[0003]

However, with the diversification of telephone terminals used by participants participating in a conference call,
The conventional telephone conference system may have the following problems. For example, in order to make it easier to hear the voice output from the voice output device (here, it corresponds to the speaker of the telephone terminal, etc.), this voice output is performed according to the acoustic output characteristics of the voice output device (such as the voice band that the speaker can express). It is necessary to optimize (equalize) the band and frequency characteristics of voice data input to the device.
On the other hand, in the conventional conference call system, voice data having similar characteristics (frequency characteristics, signal level, etc.) is transmitted to different telephone terminals. Therefore, depending on the type of telephone terminal, there is a problem that it is difficult to hear the voice.

When the telephone terminal is a mobile telephone,
Although the acoustic output characteristics of the mobile phone are inferior to the acoustic output characteristics of the conference call terminal, as described above,
In a conventional conference call system, voice data having similar characteristics is transmitted to a mobile phone and a conference call exclusive terminal. The voice data with a wide voice band is inevitably larger in size than the voice data with a narrow voice band, and a mobile phone that can only express a narrow voice band cannot express it even if it receives voice data with a wide voice band. In addition, it takes time to receive a large amount of audio data, resulting in waste and inefficiency.

Further, in a teleconference system for transmitting some image data together with voice data to a telephone terminal of a participant, the image data to be transmitted has image display characteristics of the telephone terminal (screen size and resolution of the image display section of the telephone terminal). Such)
If it is not suitable for, the telephone terminal side suffers from the problem of inefficiency as well as when receiving the above-mentioned voice data, and in some cases, the image represented by the transmitted image data looks good. However, problems such as not being able to confirm may occur.

[0006] The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a telephone conference device that enables efficient telephone conference by transmitting voice data and image data suitable for each participant's telephone terminal. The purpose is.

[0007]

A first conference call device of the present invention is a conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals, and the acoustic output characteristics of each of the telephone terminals. Represented by the voice data, a sound output characteristic acquisition unit for acquiring the voice output characteristic, a reception unit for receiving the voice data input from the plurality of telephone terminals, a transmission unit for transmitting the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals. Voice processing means for performing voice processing on the voice data so that the voice that is suitable for the acoustic output characteristics of each of the telephone terminals of the transmission destinations of the transmitting means. It is a feature.

Here, "acoustic output characteristics" of the telephone terminal
Means the characteristic that a telephone terminal outputs sound to space,
For example, the bandwidth of the voice that can be expressed by the speaker of the telephone terminal, the volume, the sound quality, and the like can be given as examples.

A second conference call device of the present invention is a conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals, the image display characteristic for acquiring the image display characteristic of the plurality of telephone terminals. Acquisition means, reception means for receiving voice data input from the plurality of telephone terminals, transmission means for transmitting the voice data and predetermined image data together with the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals, and the predetermined A storage unit that stores image data, and an image represented by the predetermined image data are images suitable for image display characteristics of each of the telephone terminals of the transmission destinations of the transmission unit,
An image processing means for performing image processing on the predetermined image data is provided.

Here, the "image display characteristic" of the telephone terminal means a characteristic at the time of displaying an image on the telephone terminal side, such as a monitor of a computer, an installed telephone, a liquid crystal display portion of a portable telephone, or the like. The screen size and resolution can be given as examples.

Further, in the second telephone conference apparatus of the present invention, the "predetermined image data" transmitted together with the voice data means the image data required by the intention of the conference organizer or the participants and the telephone call. It means image data and the like determined according to the specifications of the conference device. For example, it may be image data capable of confirming the face of the speaker, or image data showing a virtual conference room in which the face photograph images of all the conference participants are arranged.

Further, the sound output characteristic acquisition means and the image display characteristic acquisition means in the present invention, when the voice data is received from the participant, the attached information of the voice data (for example, in the case of the voice data from the mobile phone), etc. The characteristic may be automatically acquired, or may be acquired by registering the participant in advance.

The telephone conference apparatus of the present invention includes a language type registration means for registering a language type used by each user of the telephone terminal, and a language type conversion means for converting the voice data into a language type used by each user. It is preferable that the transmitting means further comprises: and the transmitting means transmits the voice data converted by the language type converting means to a corresponding telephone terminal.

[0014]

According to the first telephone conference device of the present invention,
When the voice data from the speaker is transmitted to the telephone terminal of each conference participant, the voice processing is performed so that the voice represented by the voice data becomes a voice suitable for the acoustic output characteristics of the destination telephone terminal. Since the sound output characteristics of the destination telephone terminal side are utilized, it is possible to prevent problems such as waste of time due to receiving voice data that exceeds the sound output capability of the telephone terminal. it can.

According to the second conference call device of the present invention, when the image data is transmitted to the telephone terminals of the respective conference participants together with the voice data from the speaker, the image represented by the image data is transmitted. Since image processing is performed so that the image is suitable for the image display characteristics of the destination telephone terminal, the image display characteristics of the destination telephone terminal side are utilized and the image display capability of the telephone terminal is exceeded. It is possible to prevent problems such as waste of time and difficulty in image confirmation due to receiving and displaying image data.

By providing the first and second telephone conference devices of the present invention with language type conversion means for converting voice data into a language type desired by the user of the telephone terminal, telephone calls made by conference participants of different language types. You can have a meeting.

[0017]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a telephone conference system which is an embodiment of the telephone conference apparatus of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the telephone conference system of this embodiment is
Personal computer using internet telephone 1
Or mobile phone 2 or installed phone 3 with liquid crystal display
Or a telephone terminal such as the video conference apparatus 4 and a server 10 for conducting a telephone conference using these telephone terminals. The server 10 and each telephone terminal
Connected via a public communication network such as a telephone network or the Internet.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the server 10 of the telephone conference system shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, the server 10 receives the input from each of the telephone terminals, and receives the name, face photograph image data D, and terminal type of the conference participant via each telephone terminal before the conference is held. , A band A of the speaker of the terminal, a screen size S of the image display unit, a registration unit 25 for registering a language type L to be used,
Storage unit 40 that stores the registration contents of the registration unit 25 for each participant
And the band of the voice represented by the voice data V of the speaker (hereinafter, referred to as the voice of the speaker) received via the receiving unit 15 after the start of the conference is the band A of the speaker of each telephone terminal of the transmission destination. So that the voice data V is output, the voice processing unit 30 for performing voice processing on the voice data V and the voice data V ′ output by the voice processing unit 30 are converted into the language type used by the user of the destination telephone terminal. The language conversion unit 45 and the face photograph image data D of the speaker are read from the storage unit 40, and the photograph image represented by the face photograph image data D (hereinafter abbreviated as photograph image) is stored in the destination telephone terminal. An image processing unit 50 that processes the image display unit to a size suitable for the screen size of the image display unit, a language conversion unit 45, and an image processing unit 50.
Audio data V ″ and image data D ′ respectively output from
A combination processing unit 60 for combining and to obtain combined data M,
A transmitter 70 for transmitting the composite data M to the corresponding telephone terminal.
It is equipped with and.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the stored contents of the storage unit 40 which stores the contents registered by the registration unit 25 before the conference is held. As illustrated, the storage unit 40 stores in the storage unit 40 the type of terminal used by the user of the participant, the band A of the speaker of the terminal,
The language type L and the facial photograph image data D are stored for each participant user (user 1, user 2, ... User 4). In this way, when the conference participants are registered in the registration unit 25, the preparation for holding the conference is completed.

Next, the operation of the server 10 of the telephone conference system of the present embodiment after the conference is started will be specifically described by using the example shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the server 10 after the start of the conference. As illustrated, when the conference starts, when the receiving unit 15 of the server 10 receives the voice data V from any of the telephone terminals (S10), the voice processing unit 30 refers to the storage content of the storage unit 40, Confirm the voice band A of the speaker of each destination telephone terminal (S2
Along with 0), voice processing is performed on the voice data V so that the voice band of the voice data V matches the band of the speaker of the destination telephone terminal, and the processed voice data V ′ is converted into a language. It is output to the unit 45 (S25).

Upon receiving the voice data V ′ output from the voice processing unit 30, the language conversion unit 45 first refers to the stored contents of the storage unit 40 and uses it by the user who is the sender of this voice data V ′. The language type L to be used is compared with the language type L used by each destination user (S30). If the source language type and the destination language type are the same (S30: N
o. For example, the transmission source is the user 1 and the transmission destination is the user 3
If it is), the audio data V ′ is directly output to the synthesis processing unit 60 as the converted audio data V ″.
If the source language type and the destination language type are different (S
30: Yes. For example, when the transmission source is the user 1 and the transmission destination is the user 2), the voice data V ′ is converted into the language type of the transmission destination user, and the converted voice data V ″ is converted.
Is output to the synthesis processing unit 60 (S35). Voice processing unit 3
0 and the language conversion unit 45 obtain the voice data V ″ to be transmitted to the telephone terminals of all the participants by performing the processing from step S20 to step S35 for all the telephone terminals of the destinations.

On the other hand, steps S20 to S35
In parallel with the above processing, the image processing unit 50
The face photograph image data D of the sender of the voice data V is read from (S40), and the screen size S of each destination telephone terminal is confirmed, and the size of the face photograph is the same as that of the destination telephone terminal. Image processing is performed on the face photograph image data D so that the size matches the screen size S,
The processed image data D ′ is output to the synthesis processing unit 60 (S45, S50). The image processing unit 50 performs steps S40 to S5 for all the destination telephone terminals.
The process up to 0 is performed to obtain the face photograph image data D ′ of the speaker to be transmitted to the telephone terminals of all the participants.

The synthesis processing unit 60 outputs the voice data V ″ (V1 ″ for the user 1 and the user 2 for the user 2 which is output from the language conversion unit 45 and is to be transmitted to each destination telephone terminal. , V2 ″, ...) and the face photograph image data D ′ of the speaker output from the image processing unit 50 for transmission to each destination telephone terminal are transmitted to each destination telephone terminal. And outputs to the transmission unit 70 (S60).
By 0, the composite data M (M1 for user 1, M2 for user 2, ...) Is transmitted to the telephone terminals of the corresponding users (S70).

As described above, according to the telephone conference system of this embodiment, when the voice data of the speaker and the face photograph image data are transmitted to the telephone terminals of the conference participants, the telephone terminals of the respective destinations are transmitted. By performing voice processing and image processing on the voice data and the facial photograph image data, respectively, according to the voice band and screen size of the speaker, the telephone terminal device side of the destination transmits the voice of its own speaker. Avoid receiving audio data that has a band that exceeds the band or image data that is larger than your screen size to avoid wasting time and obtain audio and images that are suitable for your own acoustic output characteristics and image display characteristics. be able to.

Further, in the telephone conference system shown in FIG. 1, by converting the language type according to the language type used by the destination user, it is possible to realize a telephone conference with participants of different language types. .

Although the preferred embodiment of the telephone conference apparatus of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, and various modifications are made unless the gist of the present invention is changed. be able to.

For example, the image processing section 50 adjusts the size of the image of the image data to be transmitted according to the screen size of the destination telephone terminal, but according to the resolution of the destination telephone terminal. Image processing may be performed on the image data.

Further, the voice processing section 30 is adapted to process the voice band of the voice data to be transmitted in accordance with the voice band of the speaker of the destination telephone terminal. You may make it perform the audio | voice processing based on a volume range, sound quality, etc.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a telephone conference system as an embodiment of a telephone conference apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a server 10 included in the image service system shown in FIG.

3 is a diagram showing an example of stored contents of a storage unit 40 of the server 10 shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the server 10 shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Personal computer 2 mobile phones 3 installed telephones 4 video conferencing equipment 10 servers 15 Receiver 25 Registration Department 30 voice processing unit 40 storage 45 Language converter 50 Image processing unit 60 Synthesis processing unit 70 Transmitter V voice data D face photograph image data L language type

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals, comprising: acoustic output characteristic acquisition means for obtaining acoustic output characteristics of each of the telephone terminals; and the plurality of telephone terminals. Receiving means for receiving voice data input from the transmitting means, transmitting means for transmitting the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals, and voice represented by the voice data for each telephone of the transmission destinations of the transmitting means. A telephone conferencing apparatus comprising: a voice processing means for performing voice processing on the voice data so that the voice is suitable for the acoustic output characteristic of the terminal. 2. A conference call device for conducting a conference call using a plurality of telephone terminals, the image display characteristic obtaining means obtaining image display characteristics of the plurality of telephone terminals, and the plurality of telephone terminals. Receiving means for receiving the voice data input from, a transmitting means for transmitting the voice data and predetermined image data together with the voice data to the plurality of telephone terminals, and a storage means for storing the predetermined image data, An image subjected to image processing on the predetermined image data so that the image represented by the predetermined image data becomes an image suitable for the image display characteristics of each of the telephone terminals of the transmission destinations of the transmission means. A telephone conference apparatus comprising: a processing unit. 3. A language type registering unit for registering a language type used by each user of the telephone terminal, and a language type converting unit for converting the voice data into a language type used by each user, 3. The telephone conference apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting unit transmits the voice data converted by the language type converting unit to a corresponding telephone terminal.