JP3408750B2 - Video database controller for karaoke - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a karaoke apparatus, and more particularly to a karaoke apparatus characterized by a method of editing and outputting a mood video.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A karaoke device displays and outputs a lyrics image in synchronization with the voice output of the accompaniment music of a karaoke piece. This lyrics image is displayed with a mood image that matches the mood of the music as the background. As a display control method for mood video, there is a method for connecting video materials. This is because long-time videos are stored in a video database, and video material (a part of the long-time video) is appropriately selected and taken out from any storage location in this database, and the video material is played during the playing period. It is a series of mood images that are played back by switching them in sequence and connecting them.

A karaoke device adopting this system generally has the following requirements (A) to (D). (A) Karaoke data of the corresponding song is read from the karaoke database according to the song number registered in the reservation list and processed, and the karaoke accompaniment music and the lyrics image are output as audio and video in synchronization. (B) There is a video database in which a long-time video material prepared for displaying on a display as a mood video during the performance of karaoke accompaniment music is recorded on a large number of disk media. One with one disk drive A
While reproducing one disk medium, another disk drive B prepares to reproduce another disk medium, and the video can be smoothly switched from the reproduction output of the disk drive A to the reproduction output of the disk drive B. (C) Script data for mood video editing is associated with each karaoke piece. In the script data, a set of a disc number that identifies the disc medium to be played in the video database and a playback start address that identifies the playback start position of the disc medium is set along with the progress time of the karaoke accompaniment music. Multiple sets are described. (D) The mood video editing and outputting means reproduces and outputs the video according to the disk number and the reproduction start address of the script data corresponding to the performance of a certain karaoke song, and should perform next before the performance of the relevant song ends. The script data of the karaoke piece is examined, and reproduction is prepared based on the disk number and the reproduction start address described in the script data.

[0004]

The karaoke apparatus is provided with a function of interrupting the performance of a musical piece to be played without finishing the musical piece to the end. One is a function of interrupting the music performance on the way by a user's manual operation. For example, if you notice that the reserved song is wrong,
It is used when the user wants to start playing the next piece of music early, such as when the afterplay portion is long. On the other hand, there is also a function to automatically interrupt the performance. This corresponds to the "2 chorus / fade out" function used in stores that employ a system that charges for each performance of a song. The karaoke device set to use this function automatically ends the musical performances of No. 3 and above with No. 2 and ends them while fading out. The purpose is to increase the number of songs played and increase profits.

In the conventional karaoke apparatus, when the performance is interrupted by the above-mentioned function, the disk drive which is in preparation for reproduction is already loaded with the disk medium for the music which has been interrupted and is scheduled to be reproduced thereafter. ing. Therefore, after returning the medium or the disc medium that was being played back to the original storage location, set the disc medium in which the video first specified in the next scheduled music piece is recorded in the disc drive. I have to do it again. The user has to irritably wait for the time required for this operation. In the case of a karaoke venue that is rented for an hour, the number of songs that can be sung is reduced, and charges are incurred for wasted time. On the other hand, even at a karaoke store that charges for each song and uses the two-chorus fade-out function, the effect of the function cannot be sufficiently obtained. As a result, the number of songs played cannot be significantly increased, and profits cannot be expected to improve.

Therefore, the present invention provides a karaoke apparatus that can quickly display and output the mood image of the next music even if the music is interrupted in the middle of the performance of the music, thereby reducing the wasted time generated during the performance of the music. Is intended.

[0007]

The present invention created to achieve the above object is a karaoke video database control device specified by the following items (1) to (10). (1) Disc storage unit, disc loading mechanism, 2
This is a video database control device for karaoke that controls one disk drive. (2) The disc storage unit stores a plurality of disc media storing video materials. (3) The disc loading mechanism supplies the disc medium from the disc storage unit to the disc drive under the control of the video database control unit. (4) The disc drive reproduces the video material of the disc medium. (5) Based on the reservation list and the script data, the video database control unit performs normal processing and emergency processing when the karaoke piece being played is terminated halfway. (6) Reserved songs are described in order in the reserved list. (7) In the script data, a plurality of sets of disk numbers and reproduction start addresses that identify video materials are described in association with each karaoke song along the time progression of the karaoke song. (8) In the normal process, based on the reservation list and the script data, one of the disk drives plays the disk medium, and the other disk drive prepares to play the next video material to be played back, and the disk is played according to the script data. Switch the drive to switch the image smoothly. (9) In the emergency process, based on the reservation list and the script data, it is confirmed whether or not the disk medium A of the video material to be reproduced next is supplied to the disk drive,
When the disk medium A is supplied to the disk drive, normal processing is performed. (10) When the disk medium A is not supplied to the disk drive, the reproduction start address corresponding to the attribute data of the karaoke piece to be played next is acquired, and the disk drive is made to reproduce the video material. Replace with the first video material.

In the karaoke video database control device of the present invention configured as described above, a plurality of reproduction start addresses correspond to the attribute data, and the disk medium A is not supplied to the disk drive in emergency processing. In this case, it is possible to adopt a configuration in which an appropriate reproduction start address is acquired from a plurality of reproduction start addresses corresponding to the attribute data and the video material is reproduced.

Further, it is possible to adopt a configuration in which even if the disk medium A is not supplied to the disk drive in the emergency processing, the normal processing is carried out when the karaoke music is accompanied by the emergency video disapproval data. .

[0010]

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS === Basic Structure and Operation of Karaoke Device === FIG. 1 shows the structure of a karaoke device in an embodiment of the present invention. The central control unit 11 has a CPU and RA inside.
The karaoke apparatus 1 is a microcomputer including an M and a ROM, and controls and controls the karaoke apparatus 1 by performing data communication with the peripheral components via the data bus 100 and the control bus 110. In addition to the karaoke data for a large number of songs, the hard disk device 12 also stores various data that are searchably associated with the karaoke song IDs (song numbers).
The karaoke data includes accompaniment music generation data described in MIDI format, and lyric characters to be rendered in synchronization with the performance of the accompaniment music and attributes of the characters (display position, display color,
This is a set of lyrics drawing data describing display / erasing timing).

When the central control unit 11 receives an ID input of a requested music piece from the remote control transmitter 17 or the operation panel 18 via the operation control unit 19, the input order and the ID are stored in the RAM in association with each other, and the music piece is stored. Perform performance reservation registration of.
Then, the karaoke data of the corresponding music piece is taken out in accordance with the reservation order. Then, the MIDI data is transferred to the synthesizer 13. The synthesizer 13 controls a built-in sound source according to the MIDI data to generate karaoke accompaniment music. The karaoke accompaniment music is mixed with the singing voice signal from the microphone 15 by the mixing amplifier 14 and output as voice to the speaker 16. On the other hand, a bitmap image corresponding to the lyrics image is developed in the video RAM 20 based on the lyrics drawing data. Furthermore, the video database section 3
By controlling 0, a video signal for an appropriate mood video is output. The video control unit 21 superimposes the mood video as a background video of the lyrics image and outputs the video to the display 22.

The video database unit 30 and the method of controlling the database unit 30 are important requirements of the present invention. The configuration and operation of this video database will be described below in detail.

=== Configuration of Video Database === FIG. 2 shows a configuration diagram of the video database unit 30.
The video database control unit 31, which is the microcomputer main body, is connected to the central control unit 11 of the karaoke apparatus main body 1 and the bus (100, 1,
10) Data communication is performed via the video database 3
0 controls each component. The disc storage unit 32 is loaded / housed with a large number (100 in this embodiment) of DVDs (hereinafter, discs) (Di: i is a number from 1 to 100). MP is recorded on each disc Di for a long time (133 minutes as a reproduction time) prepared to be displayed on the display as a mood image when performing karaoke accompaniment music.
It is recorded as video data encoded and compressed according to the EG2 standard. Two systems of disk drives 33, 34
Drives the disc Di supplied from the disc storage unit 32 by the disc loading mechanism 35 and reads the video data recorded on the disc Di. The input switching unit 36 switches the input of the video data output from the disk drives 33 and 34 to MP the video data from the disk drives (33, 34) of an appropriate system.
Output to the EG2 decoding unit 37. The MPEG2 decoding unit 37 expands and decodes the input video data in real time to reproduce the video signal of the video data.

A disk number i (i is an integer of 1 to 100) is assigned to each of the large number of disks Di, and the disks Di are loaded at predetermined positions in the disk storage unit 32 according to the numbers. Of course, identification data of its own number is also recorded on each disc Di. Further, the video data at the desired data recording position on one disk Di can be accessed by the sector address assigned for each data sector. The desired sector address can be accessed in time units of 1 second or less by designating a time code (minute / second / frame) corresponding to the elapsed time when the video recorded on the disc Di is reproduced from the beginning. . Furthermore, each disc Di
Has a VTS corresponding to "track number search" in CD, and a specific sector address can be accessed by designating a predetermined VTS number. The video database control unit 31 includes the central control unit 11
When the disk number i and the sector address or the VTS number are received from the disk loading mechanism 35, the disk loading mechanism 35 is controlled, and the disk drive (33, 34) of an appropriate system.
The corresponding disc Di is set to and the disc Di is driven to reproduce a desired video material.

=== Operation of Script Data and Video Database === The mood video displayed when a certain karaoke piece is played is
This is a compilation of short-time video materials recorded in a dispersed manner on a large number of discs Di. The video database unit 30 has two disk drives 3
The video materials are smoothly connected by alternately taking charge of the reproduction processing and the preparation for reproduction.

The video material used during the performance of one song is
Specified by script data. The script data is a set in which a disc number and a time code are set, and a plurality of sets are described along with the progress time of the karaoke accompaniment music, and each karaoke song is associated with the song number and stored in the hard disk device 12. ing. In the present embodiment, the performance time of each karaoke piece is divided into three sections, that is, prelude, middle performance, and postlude, and video materials used in these sections are designated. In addition, the video material recorded on the same disc is created in advance so as not to be continuously used. Furthermore, the duration of the prelude and the postlude is basically about 30 seconds, with a maximum of 60 seconds.
It is created to be within seconds. The middle performance is the total performance time, excluding the pre / post performance time. In the middle performance, one or a plurality of video materials are designated according to the time.

When starting the performance processing of a certain karaoke piece, the central control unit 11 takes out the relevant script data from the hard disk device 12 together with the karaoke data. Karaoke data is processed by the above-mentioned route. The script data is transferred to the video database control unit 31. The video database control unit 31 first controls the disc loading mechanism 35 to, for example, the disc drive 33.
A disc Dj (j is a number from 1 to 100) containing video materials used in the prelude section is supplied. further,
Disc Dk corresponding to the middle section (k is 1 to 10 other than j)
0 number) is supplied to the disk drive 34. When the disc Dj is supplied to the disc drive 33 and it is recognized that the video data is ready to be read from the predetermined sector address, the fact is notified to the central control unit 11.
In response to this notification, the central control unit 11 starts the performance processing of the music and causes the video database control unit 31 to start the reproduction control of the video data. The video database control unit 31 controls to switch the video data input system of the input switching unit 36 to the disk drive 33 side. The MPEG2 decoding unit 37 decompresses / decodes the input MPEG2 video data in real time and supplies the reproduced video signal to the video control unit 21.

During the reproduction processing of the video material of the prelude part, the disk drive 34 completes the preparation for reading the video data of the video material of the midplay part. The reading of the video data from the disk drive 34 is started in synchronization with the end timing of the prelude section. At the same time, the input switching unit 36 is switched to the disk drive 34 side. Further, the disc loading mechanism 35 causes the disc Dj mounted in the disc drive 33 to return to the original storage position, and the disc D on which the video material of the succeeding part is recorded.
1 (l is a number from 1 to 100 other than k) is mounted on the disc drive 33 (of course, if the video material for the subsequent performance is located on the disc Dj, the disc Dj is not returned to the original storage location). .

The switching of the video material from the middle playing part to the rear playing part is the same as in the prelude part to the middle playing part. At this time, when the music to be played next in the performance is reserved and registered, the script data of the music is taken out and the recording location of the video material used in the prelude section is acquired. And the disk drive 34
The disc Dk mounted on the disc is replaced with the disc Dm (m is a number from 1 to 100 other than 1) in which the video material used in the prelude portion of the music is recorded (of course, the prelude portion of the music is changed). The location of the video material is disk Dk, Dl
In some cases, there is no need to replace it).

The above is the mood video reproduction control when the music being played is normally ended. In the present embodiment, an emergency picture selection function is provided so that the next music performance can be started without interruption without reloading the disc Di in the "emergency" such as the above-mentioned performance interruption operation or two-chorus fade-out. ing. In addition, it is possible to replace a video image that matches the mood of the music with the video material specified by the script data and play it back. Next, the emergency image selection function will be described.

=== Emergency Video Selection Function === Each karaoke song is associated with attribute data for classifying each song. In this embodiment, music data is classified according to music genre (enka, pop, rock, anime song, etc.), and attribute data is attached to karaoke data. Furthermore, the hard disk device 12 stores a genre / address table that describes the correspondence between the attribute data and the VTS numbers.

The VTS number of each disk Di in the video database section 30 is associated with a specific sector address. That is, also in each disk, a specific sector address is associated with a predetermined VTS number. Further, the video data read out based on the same VTS number of each disc has contents suitable as video material for music of the same music genre. That is, when video data is reproduced from a sector address specified by a VTS number corresponding to a certain attribute data on any disc, a video suitable for the corresponding music genre is displayed and output. Here, the video material specified by this attribute data will be called an emergency video.

When the musical composition is interrupted in the middle of the musical composition for some reason as described above,
The karaoke data of the next music piece to be played is taken out to prepare for performance processing, and the VTS number corresponding to the attribute data in this karaoke data is checked in the genre / address table to find the corresponding VTS number and the corresponding script data. Immediately transfer to the video database control unit 31. The video database control unit 31 checks the script data,
It is confirmed whether or not the disc number for the prelude portion of the next music matches the disc number loaded in the disc drive (33, 34) in preparation for reproduction. When recognizing that the disc numbers are different, the VTS number is designated to the disc drives (33, 34) of the system which was reproducing the image at the time of interruption. When the disk drive receives the notification that it has accessed the sector address corresponding to the specified VTS number, it informs the central control unit 11 that the mood image reproduction is ready and requests the start of the performance process. .

When the performance of the musical composition is started, the disk drive (33, 34) of the system that was in the reproducing process at the time of interruption
Reads the data of the relevant emergency video. While the emergency video at the time of this prelude is being reproduced, the disk drive (34, 33) of the other system completes the preparation for reading the video data of the disk on which the video material for the middle performance is recorded. Therefore, after the middle performance, the video material according to the script data is reproduced. In this embodiment, each emergency video has a reproduction time of 60 seconds. As a result, even if the script data of the song using the emergency video specifies the prelude for the longest time (60 seconds), the video material of the middle performance section is switched to without any discomfort.

=== Exceptional operation === The mood video edited by the script data is composed of "personal appearance" video material in which a specific character such as an original song singer of a karaoke song or an anime song appears. It may have been. For example, there is a case where a mood image is composed of image material such as a concert scene of a former song singer. Of course, it is possible to display an image read out from a certain sector address of a certain disk and reproduced through the performance of one song without replacing the disk. In such a case, if the emergency video reproduction function described above is used, a feeling of strangeness is strong and the mood is destroyed. Correspondingly, the karaoke apparatus 1 has an exceptional operation mode for editing a mood video according to the script data without reproducing the emergency video even when the performance of the music is interrupted.

In addition to the above-mentioned genres, the attribute data of such exceptional musical pieces is attached with a code indicating that the emergency image is not permitted. The central control unit 11 informs the video database control unit 31 that the attribute data of the music piece next to the “emergency time” indicates that the emergency video is not permitted. Based on the notification, the video database control unit 31 edits the mood video of the next music piece to be played in a normal mode that faithfully follows the script data. The central control unit 11 performs control to display a message on the display 22 with the message “Next is the person himself. Please wait for a while” before the performance starts.

=== Others === In the video database unit, two systems of MPEG2 decoding units are provided, two systems of reproduced video signals from each decoding unit are input, and one system is switched and input to the video control unit. It may be configured to allow it. Also, by inserting a video effector (video signal processing unit) in an appropriate signal path,
It is also possible to switch the video while adding special effects such as fade-in / fade-out to the video material.

In the above embodiment, each disc corresponds to only one VTS number for each Di and genre, but a plurality of VTS numbers may correspond to one genre. In that case, an appropriate number may be randomly selected from the VTS numbers corresponding to the genre, or the VTS numbers corresponding to the same genre may be selected in order for each reproduction opportunity of the emergency video. . Of course, it is also possible to manage the history of the reproduced emergency videos so that the same emergency videos do not continue, based on random selection.

Various data (script data, attribute data, etc.) related to the emergency video reproduction function may be data attached to karaoke data or the like, or there is a table associated with song numbers. It may be stored in the hard disk device as another data file. Further, the VTS or sector address may be directly described as the attribute data. The important point is that various data need only be present in an appropriate recording location so as to be searchable based on the ID of the karaoke piece.

Further, in this embodiment, a disc on which karaoke data is recorded (a disc containing only karaoke data,
Alternatively, a disc Di mixed with video data is also stored in the disc storage unit 32. The central control unit 11
When the performance reservation of a certain music is accepted, the corresponding karaoke data is searched in the hard disk device 12, and when there is no karaoke data of the corresponding requested music, the karaoke data is retrieved from a predetermined disk Di and the hard disk device 12 Copy it to. At the time of actually playing a musical composition, designated karaoke data is taken out from the hard disk device 12. Of course, in the above-mentioned video images of the original song singer and the anime character, the accompanying music by MPEG2 audio may be multi-recorded together with the dedicated mood video, and the video and audio may be reproduced by the MPEG2 decoding unit 37.

[0032]

By reading the emergency image from the disk from which the data is being read, the mood image of the next song can be quickly output at the time of interruption. Therefore, the time required for reloading the disc can be eliminated, and the user is not made to waste time. In addition, at a store that charges for karaoke performance on a song-by-song basis, it is possible to increase the number of tunes played and to expect an effect of improving profits. Moreover, 2 choruses
The effect is great when used together with the fade-out function.

By directly describing the specific address where the emergency video is recorded as the attribute data, it is not necessary to rewrite the table when music such as new music is added.

By preparing a plurality of emergency video materials for the same attribute data and selecting them appropriately for each occasion of use, even if a song accompanied by the same attribute data is interrupted continuously, The user does not get tired of repeating the same video.

When the script data designates a video material on which characters such as an original song singer of a karaoke song and an anime song appear, a code indicating that the use of an emergency video is not permitted as attribute data of the song. If it is attached, it is possible to eliminate the discomfort that singers and characters are replaced in the middle.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a karaoke device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a video database unit in the above embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Karaoke device 11 Central control unit 12 Hard disk drive 30 Video Database Department 31 Video database control unit Di DVD 33, 34 disk drive 37 MPEG2 decoding section

Front page continuation (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G01K 15/04 302 G11B 19/02 501 G11B 27/10

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A karaoke video database control device specified by the following items (1) to (10). (1) Disc storage unit, disc loading mechanism, 2
This is a video database control device for karaoke that controls one disk drive. (2) The disc storage unit stores a plurality of disc media storing video materials. (3) The disc loading mechanism supplies the disc medium from the disc storage unit to the disc drive under the control of the video database control unit. (4) The disc drive reproduces the video material of the disc medium. (5) Based on the reservation list and the script data, the video database control unit performs normal processing and emergency processing when the karaoke piece being played is terminated halfway. (6) Reserved songs are described in order in the reserved list. (7) In the script data, a plurality of sets of disk numbers and reproduction start addresses that identify video materials are described in association with each karaoke song along the time progression of the karaoke song. (8) In the normal process, based on the reservation list and the script data, one of the disk drives plays the disk medium, and the other disk drive prepares to play the next video material to be played back, and the disk is played according to the script data. Switch the drive to switch the image smoothly. (9) In the emergency process, based on the reservation list and the script data, it is confirmed whether or not the disk medium A of the video material to be reproduced next is supplied to the disk drive,
When the disk medium A is supplied to the disk drive, normal processing is performed. (10) When the disk medium A is not supplied to the disk drive, the reproduction start address corresponding to the attribute data of the karaoke piece to be played next is acquired, and the disk drive is made to reproduce the video material. Replace with the first video material. 2. The attribute data according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of reproduction start addresses correspond to each other, and when the disk medium A is not supplied to the disk drive in the emergency processing, a plurality of attribute data correspond to the attribute data. An image database control device for karaoke, wherein an appropriate reproduction start address is obtained from the reproduction start address to reproduce the image material. 3. The normal processing according to claim 1 or 2, even if the disk medium A is not supplied to the disk drive in the emergency processing, but the emergency image disapproval data is attached to the karaoke piece. A video database control device for karaoke characterized by being performed.