KR20040050574A - Apparatus and method for recording and reproducing of the highlight information of digital audio file - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A highlight data recording and regenerating system and method is provided to offer a start position and a size of highlight data of a digital audio file, and to enable a user to listen to the highlight data of a wanted music for a few seconds. CONSTITUTION: The system comprises a storage(100), a signal processor(300), an input module(200), and a controller(400). The storage(100) records a digital audio file at a record media. The signal processor(300) converts the digital audio data, stored at the storage(100), into the analog audio file. The input module(200) sets a highlight part of the audio data, and inputs an instruction for regenerating the highlight part. The controller(400) generates the highlight data according to the set highlight part, outputs a signal for recording the highlight data at a user extended area, and reads the highlight data.

Description

Apparatus and method for recording and reproducing of the highlight information of digital audio file}

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for recording / reproducing highlight information of a digital audio file. More particularly, the present invention relates to recording / reproducing on a recording medium by adding information on a highlight portion of audio data to a predetermined area of a digital audio file. It relates to an apparatus and a method.

With the development of modern technology, useful devices for reproducing or restoring desired records regardless of time and place have been widely used. Among the devices that have been popularly presented are recording media such as magnetic tape, floppy disk (FD), compact disk (CD), and the like, and devices using the recording media. With the development of digital technology, these recording media are becoming larger, and devices using the recording media are also becoming smaller and faster. The development of such recording media and systems, and the popularization of the Internet, enable individuals to acquire and store large amounts of information.

However, in spite of the large capacity of the information acquired by the individual, the individual tends to repeatedly use only the information he / she prefers, and some information may be stored without being used at all without being stored on the recording medium.

In particular, as digital music becomes more common and the cost of storage space (memory) becomes cheaper, a lot of digital music can be stored in a storage space such as a PC. However, if you want to listen to the music that you saved after time passes, you can't find the song you want because you can't remember the song name. Therefore, a function for easily searching for and managing songs is required.

In the conventional music file search method, the intro function is used to listen and search for the first 10 seconds, the file name is searched directly, and the ID3 is included in the song. , Genre, etc.).

In the case of searching by searching the file name, the music file mainly uses the name of the song as the file name, so if the title of the song is known, the desired file can be found. In this case, however, if you do not know the title of the song you want, you will not find it.

When the ID3 information is read and searched, the desired song is found by reading the information (name, song, genre, etc.) of ID3 attached to the music file. Although you can classify or search songs of the desired singer and genre, it is difficult to find the song without knowing the title of the song as in the above method.

As shown in Fig. 1, a method of using the intro function is a method in which a file (song) intro portion is continuously searched for only about 10 seconds. However, this feature only listens to the first few seconds of the song, so most of the time, you end up listening to only the previous part of the song. By the way, it is very difficult to discriminate songs by only listening to a part of the previous week, and when only a part of the song is well known through a CF or a movie, it is almost impossible to find it in this way.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above problems of the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for recording / reproducing information on the starting point and size of a highlight portion in a predetermined region of a digital audio file. By listening to a few seconds of the highlight portion of the songs to be searched for, it provides an easy way to find the desired music.

1 is a flowchart illustrating a conventional file search method using an intro function.

2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a highlight information recording / reproducing apparatus of a digital audio file of the present invention;

3 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a digital audio file;

4 is a flowchart for explaining a highlight information recording process according to the present invention;

5 is a flowchart illustrating a file searching process using highlight information of the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols for main parts of drawing>

100: storage unit 200: input unit

300: signal processing unit 400: control unit

420: highlight information detector 440: highlight information generator

460: buffer

The highlight information recording / reproducing apparatus of the digital audio file of the present invention for achieving the above object comprises: a storage unit for recording / reproducing a digital audio file on a recording medium; A signal processor converting digital audio data of the digital audio file stored in the storage unit into an analog audio signal and outputting the analog audio signal; An input unit for inputting a command for designating a highlight portion of the audio data, recording of highlight information, and reproducing a set highlight portion for executing a highlight function for reproducing a predetermined region of the audio data; And generating the highlight information according to the designation of the highlight portion from the input unit, outputting a signal corresponding to the storage unit to record the highlight information in the user extension area of the digital audio file, and reading out the highlight information. It includes a control unit.

Preferably, the control unit includes a buffer for storing data of the digital audio file read out from the storage unit, a highlight information detection unit detecting whether the highlight information exists in the digital audio file and reading the highlight information; And a highlight information generator for generating the highlight information corresponding to an external input signal.

The highlight information may include at least one piece of information about a start point and a size of a highlight portion of the digital audio file.

A method for recording / reproducing highlight information of a digital audio file of the present invention for achieving the above object comprises the steps of: recording / reproducing a digital audio file on a recording medium; A signal processing step of converting audio data of the digital audio file stored in the storing step into an analog audio signal and outputting the analog audio signal; An input step of inputting a command for designating a highlight portion of the audio data, recording of highlight information, and playing a highlight portion to execute a highlight function for reproducing a predetermined region of the audio data; And generating the highlight information according to the designation of the highlight portion in the input step, outputting a signal corresponding to the storing step to record the highlight information in the user extension area of the digital audio file, and reading the highlight information. Shipment control step; includes.

Preferably, the controlling step includes a buffering step for storing data of the digital audio file read out from the storage unit, a highlight for detecting the presence of the highlight information in the digital audio file and reading the highlight information. And a highlight information generation step of generating the highlight information corresponding to the information detection step and the external input signal.

The highlight information may include at least one piece of information about a start point and a size of a highlight portion of the digital audio file.

Hereinafter, the highlight information recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a highlight information recording / reproducing apparatus of a digital audio file according to the present invention. Referring to the drawings, the highlight information recording / reproducing apparatus of the digital audio file includes a storage unit 100, an input unit 200, a signal processing unit 300, and a control unit 400.

The storage unit 100 is a device for storing digital audio files in a recordable / reproducible recording medium such as a hard disk, a magnetic tape, an optical disk, and the like.

The input unit 200 is a keyboard, a mouse, or a touch panel, and a start point and an end point of a highlight portion during reproduction of digital audio data are input through the input unit.

The signal processor 300 converts the digital audio data input from the storage unit into an analog voice signal and outputs the analog audio signal to the speaker.

The controller 400 includes a highlight information detector 420, a highlight information generator 440, and a buffer 460.

The highlight information detector 420 detects whether highlight information exists in the digital audio file. In this case, the highlight information refers to information about a position, a size of the start point of the highlight portion of the digital audio file, the number of highlight portions, and the like. If the search result highlight information does not exist, the buffer 460 outputs the digital audio data to the signal processor 300, and the signal processor 300 converts the input digital audio data into an analog voice signal and outputs the analog audio signal. During playback of the audio data, the user inputs the start point and the end point of the highlight portion through the input unit 200. In this case, two or more highlight portions may be designated.

The highlight information generation unit 440 generates the highlight information by finding an address in the digital audio file at the start point and the end point of the input highlight part and calculating the address, size, and number of highlight parts at which the highlight part starts.

The buffer unit 460 temporarily stores the digital audio file read from the storage unit 100 and adds the generated highlight information to a predetermined area of the digital audio file.

The digital audio file to which the highlight information is added in the buffer unit 460 is recorded on the recording medium in the storage unit 100.

3 is a diagram schematically showing the configuration of a digital audio file. Referring to the drawings, a digital audio file generally includes a file header indicating an attribute of a file such as a file format, a file size, a compression format, and a sampling frequency, an audio data area, and a user extended area in which a user can arbitrarily record information. Divided.

For example, in a method using ID3 v2, among the frame IDs of ID3 v2, there are frame IDs starting with "X", "Y", and "Z" which are available to the user. Use this to record highlight information in digital audio files. For example, the frame ID may be set to "ZHGT", and the beginning of the highlight (byte unit) and size information may be input. For example, if the above example is written in HEX CODE, it can be expressed as "5A 48 47 54 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 1C 7E B2 00 05 00 00". To solve this, 5A 48 47 54 → 'ZHGT', 00 00 00 08 → '8 byte frame body', 00 00 → 'No flag set', 00 1C 7E B2 → 'Highlight part start is 1867442 byte', 00 05 00 00 → 'Highlight part size is defined as 327680 byte'.

4 is a flowchart for explaining a recording process of highlight information.

When the digital audio file is designated from the input unit 200 (s20), the storage unit 100 reproduces the designated digital audio file recorded on the recording medium and outputs the digital audio file to the buffer 460 of the controller 400. The highlight information detector 420 searches whether highlight information exists at a predetermined address of the user extension area of the digital audio file temporarily stored in the buffer 460 (s22). As a result of the search, if the highlight information exists, the flow ends. If not, the digital audio data of the digital audio file stored in the buffer 460 is output to the signal processor 300 to be converted into an analog audio signal (s24). ). The user may designate at least one or more points of the highlight portion of the song through the input unit 200 while listening to the song flowing out of the speaker (S26). Based on the input signal, the highlight information generator 440 finds an address in the digital audio file at the start point and the end point of the highlight part, calculates the start point and size of the highlight in bytes, and counts the number of input highlight parts (s28). ). Information such as the start point, size, and number of highlights generated by the highlight information generation unit 440 is added to a predetermined area of the digital audio file stored in the buffer 460 as described above, and output to the storage unit 100. do. The storage unit 100 records the digital audio file to which the highlight information is added (S30).

5 is a flowchart illustrating a file searching process using the highlight function of the present invention.

When the user designates the digital audio file through the input unit 200 (s40), the storage unit 100 outputs the designated digital audio file stored in the recording medium to the buffer 460. In addition, the user inputs whether to use the highlight function through the input unit 200 (S42). If there is an instruction not to use the highlight function, the buffer 460 outputs the entire audio data to the signal processing unit 300 so as to convert it into an analog voice signal (S50). On the other hand, if an instruction to use the highlight function is input, the process proceeds to step s44. In step s44, the highlight information detector 420 searches whether highlight information exists in the digital audio file. As a result of the search, if the highlight information does not exist, the entire audio data is reproduced (s50). If the highlight information exists, the process proceeds to step s46. In operation S46, the highlight information detector 420 reads the highlight information and outputs a corresponding signal to the buffer 460. The buffer 460 outputs the data of the highlight portion to the signal processor 300 according to the input signal to convert the data into an analog voice signal (S48). If the digital audio file reproduced in steps s48 and s50 is not the file being searched, the flow is repeated from the beginning, and if the file is being searched, the process ends (s52).

As described above, according to the present invention, an apparatus and method capable of recording / reproducing highlight information on a digital audio file itself can be implemented. In addition, the apparatus and method of the present invention can be used for listening to a desired song search, stored song management, advertising and other parts of the song.

In the above described and described with respect to preferred embodiments of the present invention, the present invention is not limited to the specific preferred embodiment described above, the technical field to which the invention belongs without departing from the spirit of the invention claimed in the claims Anyone of ordinary skill in the art that various modifications can be made, as well as such changes are within the scope of the claims.

Claims (6)

A storage unit for recording / reproducing a digital audio file on a recording medium; A signal processor converting digital audio data of the digital audio file stored in the storage unit into an analog audio signal and outputting the analog audio signal; An input unit for inputting a command for designating a highlight portion of the audio data, recording of highlight information, and reproducing a set highlight portion for executing a highlight function for reproducing a predetermined region of the audio data; And A controller configured to generate the highlight information according to a designation of a highlight part from the input unit, output a signal corresponding to the storage unit to record highlight information in a user extension area of the digital audio file, and read the highlight information; Highlight information recording / reproducing apparatus of a digital audio file comprising a. The method of claim 1, The control unit, A buffer for storing data of the digital audio file read out from the storage; A highlight information detector for detecting the presence of the highlight information in the digital audio file and reading the highlight information; And And a highlight information generator for generating the highlight information corresponding to an external input signal. The method of claim 1, The highlight information, And at least one information about a start point of a highlight portion of the digital audio file and information about a size thereof. A storage step of recording / playing back the digital audio file on the recording medium; A signal processing step of converting digital audio data of the digital audio file stored in the storing step into an analog audio signal and outputting the analog audio signal; An input step of inputting a command for designating a highlight portion of the audio data, recording of highlight information, and playing a highlight portion to execute a highlight function for reproducing a predetermined region of the audio data; And Generate the highlight information according to the designation of the highlight portion in the input step, output a signal corresponding to the storage step to record the highlight information in the user extension area of the digital audio file, and read out the highlight information; And a control step; recording / reproducing the highlight information of the digital audio file. The method of claim 4, wherein The control step, A buffering step for storing data of the digital audio file read out from the storage unit; A highlight information detecting step of detecting the presence of the highlight information in the digital audio file and reading the highlight information; And And highlight information generation step of generating the highlight information corresponding to an external input signal. The method of claim 4, wherein The highlight information, And at least one piece of information on a starting point and a size of a highlight portion of the digital audio file.