WO2005046219A1

WO2005046219A1 - Remote television tune control system and method based on tcpap network

Info

Publication number: WO2005046219A1
Application number: PCT/CN2003/000941
Authority: WO
Inventors: Shitian Tang
Original assignee: Televiewer Systems Ltd.
Priority date: 2003-11-07
Filing date: 2003-11-07
Publication date: 2005-05-19

Abstract

The present invention relates to system and method of control of remote television tune based on TCP/IP network. The system comprises Host module and Client module; the Host module connects television card having television tuner, connects television antenna by the television card; Client module is provided with Client program to playback video/audio data from Host module, transmits control command to Host module by internet. The method comprises: encode step: Client encodes control command; transmit step: transmits encoded data to Host by socket module; decode step: Host receives data transmitted from Client and decodes it; perform step: Host performs corresponding operation according to encoded control command; receive step: Client receives data transmitted from Host by internet; playback step: Client playbacks video/audio data transmitted from Host. The present invention develops new field for usage of television tuner.

Description

TCP / IP network-based remote television tuning control system and method

The present invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a remote television tuning control system and method based on a TCP / IP network. Background technique

With the development of information appliances and multimedia technology, the informatization of household appliances has become an unstoppable trend. In addition, the rapid popularization of network technology has provided a new medium for traditional TV transmission. The Internet, various Internet TVs came into being. Health; the current remote network TV is generally ^ ^ in the program buffer

The principle of (TV Program buffering) is to capture and store the content of TV programs to a hard disk, and the visitors read the data streams of these programs from a remote location for playback. This method has many disadvantages, such as taking up a large amount of hard disk space, Poor performance, such as the inability to tune TV channels. Summary of the invention

The purpose of the present invention is to propose a remote TV tuning control system and method based on the TCP / IP network, so as to solve the shortcomings of poor real-time performance and unable to perform instant tuning in the existing IPTV technology. To this end, the present invention adopts the following scheme:

A remote television tuning control system based on a TCP / IP network, which is characterized by including a host-side module and a client-side module connected through the Internet;

The host-side module is connected with a TV card with a TV tuner, and the TV card is connected to the TV antenna through the TV card, receives and interprets commands sent by the client through the Internet, and performs corresponding operations on the client's TV;

The client module is installed with a client program for playing video / audio data from the host module, and sending control commands to the host module via the Internet;

The host-side module and the client-side module communicate through the TCP / IP protocol. The host-side module further includes:

Socket transceiver module, command encoder / decoder module and DirectShow TV tuning execution unit module;

The socket transceiver module receives a control command from a client module and passes the control command to a command encoder / decoder module; receives video / audio data from an antenna end, and encodes the data and sends it to a client through the Internet End module

The command encoder / decoder module decodes the control command received by the socket transceiver module and triggers the DirectShow television tuning execution unit to execute the corresponding command; and sends the corresponding tuning result feedback information to the socket transceiver module to the Client module; Controls the TV tuner according to the control commands passed by the command encoder / decoder module.

The client module further includes: a television tuner interface simulation module, a command encoder module, and a socket transceiver module;

The television tuner interface simulation module completes the input of user control commands;

The command encoder module assembles the user's control command into a data packet and sends it to the host-side module via the socket transceiver module;

The socket transceiver module sends or receives data from the host-side module via the Internet. The command includes a combination of one or more of channel scanning, channel switching, channel increasing, and channel decreasing.

The television antenna may be a cable television antenna or an ordinary television antenna.

The Internet connection may be a wired connection or a wireless connection.

A remote control method for TV tuning based on TCP / IP network, Microsoft is installed on the host side

The DirectShow program, which communicates with the client through the Internet to control the TV tuner, is characterized by:

Encoding step: The client encodes the control command;

Sending steps: Send the encoded data to the host end via the socket module via the Internet; Decoding step: the host receives the data sent by the client and decodes it;

Execution steps: The host performs corresponding operations according to the decoded control command;

Receiving steps: The client receives the data sent by the ifc host through the Internet;

Playback steps: The client plays the video / audio data sent by the host.

The control command includes one or a combination of channel scanning, channel switching, channel increasing, and channel decreasing.

The method further includes:

Response steps: After the host performs the operation, it sends a response message to the client.

The response message includes a flag indicating whether the execution is successful.

The control command is carried by a separate protocol.

In the method, the connection between the host and the client over the Internet may be a wired connection or a wireless connection.

The host side further performs the following steps:

Initialization steps: Initialize the DirectShow program, and search for the device alias corresponding to the capture card where the TV tuner is located;

Construction steps: Build CaptureBuilder2 and create a video capturer (Filter) map;

Bundle steps: Bundle the device alias corresponding to the capture card with the Filter;

Association steps: Associate the Filter graph with CaptureBuilder2;

Adding steps: Add Filter to the diagram;

Steps for determining the pointer: Find the TV tuner control interface (IID-IAM TV Tuner) pointer from the Filter;

Steps to create a socket: Create a server Socket;

Step of calling the interface pointer: After receiving the TV tuning message from the client, call the TV Tuner control function of the interface pointer put-channel to perform the corresponding tuning action.

The invention provides a remote electric tuning technology solution on an IP network. It has real-time and comprehensive advantages. It enables users to tune the receiver that the host end is connected to a closed-circuit television or antenna to receive. All channels, and not limited by TV system. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

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

2 is a schematic structural diagram of a host-side module according to the present invention;

3 is a schematic structural diagram of a client module of the present invention;

4 is a schematic diagram of a graphical interface of a user-side television tuner emulation according to the present invention;

5 is a schematic diagram of a communication protocol stack according to the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart of a client for remote control in a specific embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart of a host for remote control in a specific embodiment of the present invention. detailed description

The following describes specific embodiments of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, it is a schematic diagram of the connection of a remote television tuning control system based on the TCP / IP network of the present invention.

As can be seen from the figure, the present invention includes two different modules: a host module (Host) and a client module (Client). The host-side module runs on an OS that supports DirectShow 8.0 or higher (generally Microsoft Windows series Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP / 2003 Server or later). It loads the Microsoft DirectShow program. The Microsoft DirectShow provides the function of controlling hardware to directly drive the TV card;

The host-side module has a DirectShow-recognizable TV card, which is connected to a closed-circuit TV or an antenna;

The client module runs on a supported TCP / IP operating system. The operating system can be Microsoft PC Windows series, Unix, Linux, Mac OS, Windows CE, Palm OS, OS9000 and other embedded operating systems. Both the host module and the client module ¾ are connected to the Internet. The connection medium can be wireless or wired, depending on the specific environment and conditions.

For the client module of the present invention, it can be PC, MAC, SUN Workstation, and PocketPC, which need to meet two conditions:

1. The operating system must support the TCP / IP protocol;

2. Must be connected to the Internet, whether wired or wireless;

For the host-side module, it must support DirectX 8.0 or higher, generally Microsoft Windows series (can be Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 or later). It must have a TV tuning device recognized by DirectShow and the device Connected to CCTV or TV antenna. The client module needs to be connected to the Internet. The IP of the host module can be a global IP address or a Π ⁵ address of the local area network. However, only clients in the local area network can access it.

As shown in Figure 2, it is a schematic diagram of the logical structure of the host-side module of the present invention. As can be seen from the figure, the host-side module of the present invention mainly includes: a socket transceiver module, a command encoder / decoder module, and a DirectShow television Tuning execution unit module, where:

The socket transceiver module receives the control command from the client module and passes the control command to the command encoder / decoder module; receives the video / audio data from the antenna, and encodes the data and sends it to the client module via the Internet ;

The command encoder / decoder module decodes the control command received by the socket transceiver module and triggers the DirectShow TV tuning execution unit to execute the corresponding command; and sends the corresponding tuning result feedback information to the client module through the socket transceiver module ;

The DirectShow TV Tuning Unit calls Microsoft DirectShow, and the control command passed by the command encoder / decoder module implements control of the TV tuner.

As shown in FIG. 3, it is a schematic diagram of the logical structure of the client module of the present invention. As can be seen from the figure, it mainly includes a television tuner interface simulation module, a command encoder module, and a socket transceiver module, where: The TV tuner interface simulation module completes the input of user control commands;

The command encoder module assembles user control commands into data packets and sends them to the host-side module via the socket transceiver module;

The socket transceiver module sends or receives data from the host-side module via the Internet.

As shown in FIG. 4, it is a schematic diagram of a user-side television tuner simulation graphical interface according to the present invention. The interface simulation of the user-side television tuner is a television tuner simulation graphical interface, or it may be a pure command string. "12", the client sends a command to the host to switch to 12 channels.

The client module and the host module of the present invention communicate through TCP / IP or UDP / IP, but on top of TCP or UDP, we have added a layer of its own protocol, which can be called CP (Command Protocol as shown in Figure Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of the protocol stack of the present invention, where CP is a layer of protocol over TCP or UDP, and one or more CP data packets can be used as TCP or UDP raw data to be transmitted. ₀

In this implementation column, the fields of the CP are defined as follows:

Baotou structure definition:

struct CPacketHj {

USHORT msgld; 111

USHORT msgLen; 111

ULONG srcAddr; 〃4 Source IP address

ULONG dstAddr; 〃4 Destination IP address

USHORT tranNum; 111 Transaction number

UCHAR * pData; // msgLen-14 Data

};

Message identifier definition:

msgld is a predefined message identifier. For remote control of a TV tuner, the following message identifiers are defined in this embodiment:

#defme REQ— CH— TVCHAN OxlOlB

// Data 0: 0-> AutoTune, l-> Inc, 2-> Dec, 3-> Set II If Data 0 is 3, Data 1 is the channel to be set 0-OxFF

This message is used by the Client to send a TV tuning command to the Host. If the first bit of data is 0, the host performs channel scanning; if the first bit of data is 1, it means to add a channel; if the first bit of data is 2, it means to decrease one channel; if the first bit of data is 3, It means that the current channel is changed to the channel indicated by the second data, and the channel value can be 0-255.

#define RSP_CH_TVCHA OxlOlC

// Data 0: 0 -Ok, 1 Failed

This message is used by the host to send a confirmation message to the client. If the value of the next bit of data is 0, it indicates that the command was executed successfully, and the other values were failed.

Message length definition: msgLen;

This variable is the length of the data packet, and the maximum value is 65500 bytes;

Source address definition: srcAddr;

This quantity is the source IP address. The general format of an IP address is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. We convert each field value to hexadecimal, so that it becomes OxFFFFFFFF, which can be represented by an unsigned long data.

Destination address definition: dstAddr;

This variable is the destination IP address, and its format is the same as srcAddr;

Packet sequence definition: tranNum;

This variable can be used to record the transaction number of the packet so that the receiver can track successful and failed packets.

Data part definition: pData;

This is the data part of the packet, and its length is msgLen-14, 14 is the length of the non-data part header.

As shown in FIG. 6, it is a schematic flowchart of the present invention. As can be seen from the figure, the use of the present invention may include the following steps:

S1: the client encodes the control command; The client module encodes the command to be sent according to the requirements, and the encoding method can use the content described earlier in this embodiment;

S2: Send the encoded data to the host through the socket module via the Internet;

The client module sends the above data to the host via the Internet;

S3: The host receives the data sent by the client and decodes it;

The host end decodes the received data according to the encoding rules to obtain the client's original command;

S4: The host performs corresponding operations according to the decoded control command;

The host performs corresponding operations according to the content of the control command, including content such as channel switching;

S5: The client receives data sent by the host via the Internet;

The host sends the content of the operation after the command is executed to the client through the Internet;

S6: The client plays the video / audio data sent by the host.

As shown in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, they are schematic flowcharts of a specific implementation manner of the foregoing protocol structure according to the present invention. As can be seen from the figure, the detailed process of the host and client processes of a remote TV tuning control may include:

For the client module includes the following steps:

Step one: Initialize the socket and create a client socket for the host-side IP and Port;

Step 2: Create the user interface. If the client wants to play the video from the host, you need to initialize the corresponding player.

Step 3: If the user interacts with the corresponding command control, encode the corresponding command and send it to the host through the socket

For host-side modules include the following steps:

Step 1: Initialize DirectShow, search for the alias of the capture card where the TV tuner is located;

Step 2: Build CaptureBuilder2 and create a Filter diagram;

Step 3: Bundle the device alias corresponding to the digital camera with the video filter (Filter); Step 4: Associate the Filter graph with CaptureBuilder2;

Step 5: Add the video capturer (Filter) to the picture;

Step 6: Find the TV tuner control interface (IID—IAM TV Tuner) pointer from the video capturer (Filter);

Step 7: If all of the above are successful, create a server socket and wait for data from the client; Step 8: If a TV tuning message from the client is received, call the function put_chamiel of the TV Tuner control interface pointer to perform the corresponding tuning action A response message is sent to the client, whose first data bit contains the success or failure of the above action.

The present invention adopts network remote control technology and method, and has the following positive effects:

The operation is simple and flexible, and the introduction of remote control through the network can make the use of the TV tuner flexible and convenient, and get rid of the obstacle of the distance brought by manual control;

To implement the order, the operating platform used in the present invention can be consistent with the platform used in the remote network control in the prior art, and the operating system used is also a commonly used operating system, and there is no need to make much improvement in implementation.

The above descriptions are merely preferred embodiments of the present invention, but the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited thereto. Any person skilled in the art can easily think of changes or changes within the technical scope disclosed by the present invention. Replacement should be covered by the protection scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

Claim

1. A remote television tuning control system based on a TCP / IP network, characterized by comprising: a host-side module and a client-side module connected via the Internet;

The client module is installed with a client program for playing video / audio data from the host module and sending control commands to the host module via the Internet;

The host-side module and the client-side module communicate through the TCP / IP protocol.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the host-side module further comprises: a socket transceiver module, a command encoder / decoder module, and a DirectShow television tuning execution unit module;

The command encoder / decoder module decodes the control command received by the socket transceiver module and triggers the DirectShow television tuning execution unit to execute the corresponding command; and sends corresponding tuning result feedback information to the socket transceiver module to Client module; Controls the TV tuner according to the control commands passed by the command encoder / decoder module.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the client module further comprises: a television tuner interface simulation module, a command encoder module, and a socket transceiver module;

The command encoder module assembles the user's control command into a data packet and sends it to the host-side module via the socket transceiver module; The socket transceiver module sends or receives data from the host-side module via the Internet.

4. The system according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the command comprises a combination of one or more of channel scanning, channel switching, channel increasing, and channel decreasing.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the television antenna is a cable television antenna or an ordinary television antenna.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the Internet connection is a wired connection or a wireless connection.

7. A remote control method for visual tuning based on a TCP / IP network. A Microsoft DirectShow program is installed on the host computer to communicate with the client through the Internet to control the TV tuner. The characteristics include:

Encoding step: The client encodes the control command;

Sending step: Send the encoded data to the host through the socket module via the Internet; Decoding step: The host receives the data sent by the client and decodes it;

Receiving steps: The client receives data sent by the host via the Internet;

Playback steps: The client plays the video / audio data sent by the host.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the control command comprises one or more combinations of channel scanning, channel switching, channel increasing, and channel decreasing.

9. The method according to claim 7, further comprising:

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the response message includes a flag indicating whether the execution is successful.

11. The method according to claim 7, wherein the control command is carried by a separate protocol.

12. The method according to claim 7, wherein the connection between the host and the client through the Internet can be a wired connection or a wireless connection.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the host further performs the following steps:

Association steps: Associate the Filter graph with CaptureBuilder2s;

Adding steps: Add Filter to the diagram;

Steps to determine the pointer: Find the TV tuner control interface (IID—IAM TV Tuner) pointer from the Filter;

Steps to create a socket: Create a server Socket;

Step of invoking interface pointer: After receiving the TV tuning message from the client, call the TV tuner control interface pointer function put_chamiel to perform the corresponding tuning action.