JP7467240B2 - Broadcasting Equipment - Google Patents

Description

An embodiment of the present invention relates to a broadcasting device.

A master system in a television broadcasting station is a system that automatically broadcasts television programs according to a preset schedule. Television broadcasting serves as a highly public information infrastructure for society. To fulfill its broadcasting responsibilities, broadcasters are taking measures to prevent broadcast accidents by installing redundancy and alarm functions in the systems that handle broadcast signals.

The master system has the ability to automatically or manually switch over to the redundant system if any problem occurs with the equipment or signals in the active system. The purpose of this is to minimize the duration of a broadcast accident. An alarm detected by equipment in the active system triggers a switchover to the redundant system that is not issuing an alarm. The master system also has the ability to notify an alarm via an automatic monitoring device within the system if there is any abnormality in the video. The system administrator responds to this alarm manually.

In the conventional master system, the automatic switching function by the monitoring device creates a time lag between when an alarm occurs due to some problem and when the switching operation is actually performed. As a result, it was not possible to prevent the broadcast signal with the problem from being output as a broadcast signal during the time lag period.

Incidentally, technology has been proposed for switching broadcast signals that avoids shocking normal services when there is no emergency (for example, Patent Document 1).

JP 2012-182670 A

Even with the technology described in Patent Document 1, if a problem occurs while outputting a main broadcast signal, which is a normal service, it is not possible to prevent an inappropriate broadcast signal from being temporarily output.

The objective is to provide a broadcasting device that can prevent inappropriate broadcast signals from being output due to defects in the video signal or equipment failure, and prevent the occurrence of broadcasting accidents.

The broadcasting device of the present embodiment includes first and second signal processing units having an input signal selection unit for selecting a video signal of the active system or the redundant system from among a plurality of video signals for a broadcast signal duplicated into an active system and a redundant system, a video and audio effect unit for performing effect processing related to the video and audio in the selected video signal, and a subtitle inserter for performing processing to superimpose a video of a subtitle on the video signal that has been effect-processed by the video and audio effect unit , and a video signal after each of the processing by the input signal selection unit, the video and audio effect unit, and the subtitle inserter of the first and second signal processing units. The system comprises a signal monitoring unit which inputs a signal, monitors it including comparison, and monitors whether an abnormality has occurred in the video signal of the current system ; first and second buffering units which hold the broadcast signals of the current system and the redundant system signal-processed by the first and second signal processing units, respectively, and output them with a delay according to the time required for the signal monitoring unit to detect the abnormality; and a signal switching unit which, when the signal monitoring unit detects an abnormality in the broadcast signal of the current system , selects and outputs the broadcast signal of the redundant system output by the second buffering unit instead of the broadcast signal of the current system output by the first buffering unit.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic functional configuration of a master device according to the embodiment. FIG. 2 is a block diagram mainly showing a circuit configuration of a video signal processing unit according to the embodiment. FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing another circuit configuration mainly of a video signal processor and a signal switcher according to the embodiment.

Hereinafter, an embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings.
1 is a block diagram showing a schematic functional configuration of a master unit 10 according to this embodiment. The master unit 10 is located at the final stage of a broadcasting station, and performs signal processing on video signals (including audio signals) duplicated in a working system and a redundant system, and then switches and selects one of the video signals to output.

Specifically, the video signal of the active system is input to the video signal processing unit 11A, which is the first signal processing unit. The video signal processing unit 11A has an internal buffering unit 12A consisting of a buffer memory, and after performing signal processing described below, the signal is held and delayed for a certain period of time in the buffering unit 12A before being output to the signal switching unit 15.

Similarly, the redundant video signal is input to the video signal processing unit 11B, which is the second signal processing unit. The video signal processing unit 11A has an internal buffering unit 12B consisting of a buffer memory, and after performing signal processing described below, the video signal is held and delayed for a certain period of time in the buffering unit 12B before being output to the signal switching unit 15.

In addition, the contents of the video signal processed by the video signal processing unit 11A and the contents of the video signal processed by the video signal processing unit 11B are also read out by the video signal monitoring unit 13 at any time.

The video signal monitoring unit 13 constantly monitors whether the currently used video signal has any abnormality that makes it unsuitable for broadcasting by performing an inspection process that includes comparing the two video signals for consistency. When it determines that an abnormality has occurred, it sends an abnormality notification signal to the control unit 14.

When the control unit 14 receives an abnormality notification signal from the video signal monitoring unit 13, it executes switching control on the signal switching unit 15 so as to switch to the video signal output by the video signal processing unit 11B, which is operated as a redundant system, instead of the video signal output by the video signal processing unit 11A, which is operated as the active system.

Based on the control of the control unit 14, the signal switching unit 15 switches to select either the video signal output by the video signal processing unit 11A or the video signal output by the video signal processing unit 11B, and outputs the selected video signal.

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a detailed circuit configuration mainly within the video signal processing units 11A and 11B in Figure 1.

In the video signal processing unit 11A, the input video signal is processed in the order of input signal selection unit 11A1, video and audio effects unit 11A2, subtitle inserter 11A3, buffering unit 12A, and encoding/multiplexing unit 11A4, and then output to signal switching unit 15.

The input signal selection unit 11A1 selects the video signal of the current system from among multiple video signals, inputs it to the video signal processing unit 11A, and sends it to the video and audio effects unit 11A2.

The video and audio effects unit 11A2 executes effect processing related to the video and audio in the video signal, and sends the video signal after execution to the subtitle inserter 11A3.

The subtitle inserter 11A3 executes a process to superimpose the subtitle video onto the video signal, and sends the resulting video signal to the buffering unit 12A.

The buffering unit 12A holds the input video signal for a preset delay time and then sends it to the encoding/multiplexing unit 11A4.

The encoding/multiplexing unit 11A4 performs encoding and multiplexing processing on the video signal suitable for broadcasting, for example according to the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group)-2 standard, and then sends it to the signal switching unit 15.

In the video signal processing unit 11B, the input signal selection unit 11B1, the video and audio effects unit 11B2, the subtitle inserter 11B3, the buffering unit 12B, and the encoding/multiplexing unit 11B4 each perform the same processing as in the video signal processing unit 11A on the redundant video signal, and the encoding/multiplexing unit 11B4 sends the encoded and multiplexed video signal to the signal switching unit 15.

The video signal monitoring unit 13 monitors, including appropriate comparisons, the video signal after processing by the input signal selection unit 11A1, the video and audio effects unit 11A2, and the subtitle inserter 11A3 of the video signal processing unit 11A with the video signal after processing by the input signal selection unit 11B1, the video and audio effects unit 11B2, and the subtitle inserter 11B3 of the video signal processing unit 11B, and constantly monitors whether an abnormality has occurred in the video signal of the active system. The video signal monitoring unit 13 monitors for abnormalities in the video signal including broadcast outages, noise, poor presentation, incorrect content (broadcast of content not in the broadcast progress table or program guide), etc.

The video signal monitoring unit 13 may use an existing device, for example, the device described in "URL: https://www.dts-insight.co.jp/product/ts//icms-t3/index.html (accessed November 5, 2019)" may be incorporated into the master device 10.

When the video signal monitoring unit 13 detects an abnormality in the video signal of the active system, the video signal monitoring unit 13 notifies the control unit 14 of the abnormality. The control unit 14, which receives the abnormality notification, performs automatic or manual switching control on the signal switching unit 15, and switches the signal switching unit 15 to select and output the redundant video signal instead of the normal active video signal.

The delay time when the video signal is held and then output in each of the buffering units 12A and 12B is preset to exceed the processing time required for the video signal monitoring unit 13 to detect an abnormality in the video signal after processing in the input signal selection units 11A1 and 11B1, the video and audio effects units 11A2 and 11B2, and the subtitle inserters 11A3 and 11B3, and the time required for the video signal monitoring unit 13 to detect an abnormality, notify the control unit 14 of the abnormality, and have the control unit 14 select a switch in the signal switching unit 15.

Therefore, during actual operation, based on the configuration of Figures 1 and 2, when the video signal monitoring unit 13 detects an abnormality in the video signal of the active system and notifies the control unit 14 of the abnormality, and the control unit 14 causes the signal switching unit 15 to select a switch and switch from the active system video signal to the redundant system video signal for output, the redundant system video signal will be switched to and output before the active system video signal with the abnormality is output from the signal switching unit 15, thereby reliably preventing any disruption to the broadcast content.

Note that in FIG. 2, a case has been described in which the buffering units 12A and 12B are located between the subtitle inserters 11A3 and 11B3 and the encoding/multiplexing units 11A4 and 11B4, but this embodiment does not limit the locations of the buffering units 12A and 12B.

Figure 3 is a block diagram showing an example of a configuration in which, instead of the configuration in Figure 2, both buffering unit 12A and buffering unit 12B are placed within signal switching unit 15.

In the figure, an input signal selection unit 11A1, a video and audio effects unit 11A2, a subtitle inserter 11A3, and an encoding/multiplexing unit 11A4 are arranged within a video signal processing unit 11A. The video signals input to the video signal processing unit 11A are processed sequentially, and all of the video signals processed by each unit are also sent to a video signal monitoring unit 13.

Similarly, the video signal processing section 11B is provided with an input signal selection section 11B1, a video and audio effects section 11B2, a subtitle inserter 11B3, and an encoding/multiplexing section 11B4. The video signals input to the video signal processing section 11B are processed sequentially, and all of the processed video signals are also sent to the video signal monitoring section 13.

In the signal switching unit 15, the buffering unit 12A holds the encoded and multiplexed video signal of the active system from the video signal processing unit 11A for a preset time, and the buffering unit 12B holds the encoded and multiplexed video signal of the redundant system from the video signal processing unit 11B for a preset time.

When the video signal monitoring unit 13 has not detected any abnormality in the video signal of the active system based on the outputs of the input signal selection units 11A1, 11B1, the video and audio effects units 11A2, 11B2, the subtitle inserters 11A3, 11B3, and the encoding/multiplexing units 11A4, 11B4, and the control unit 14 has not received an abnormality notification from the video signal monitoring unit 13, the signal switching unit 15 sequentially outputs the video signals held in the buffering unit 12A.

In addition, if the video signal monitoring unit 13 detects an abnormality in the video signal of the current system, the video signal monitoring unit 13 issues an abnormality notification to the control unit 14, and the control unit 14, upon receiving the notification, switches the video signal held in the buffering unit 12A to the redundant video signal held in the buffering unit 12B and outputs it using the signal switching unit 15.

According to the configuration shown in FIG. 3, buffering units 12A and 12B are provided in the signal switching unit 15, which is the final stage of the master device 10, and each holds the video signal after various signal processing has been performed by the video signal processing units 11A and 11B, and switches and outputs one of the held and delayed video signals depending on the detection result of an abnormality, etc. by the video signal monitoring unit 13. Therefore, the video signal monitoring unit 13 can detect abnormalities, etc. in response to all processing performed on the video signal by the video signal processing units 11A and 11B.

As described above in detail, this embodiment makes it possible to prevent inappropriate broadcast signals from being output due to defects in the video signal or equipment failure, thereby preventing broadcast accidents.

In the above embodiment, the video signal monitoring unit 13 was described as monitoring abnormalities in the video and audio processing by the video and audio effects units 11A2 and 11B2, the subtitle video superimposition processing by the subtitle inserters 11A3 and 11B3, and the signal encoding and multiplexing processing by the encoding/multiplexing units 11A4 and 11B4 for each individual video signal in the active and redundant systems, respectively. However, in addition to these signal processes, the video signal monitoring unit 13 may also monitor the addition of information after data broadcasting and EPG (electronic program guide) information are added.

In this way, the video signal monitoring unit 13 performs comprehensive post-signal processing monitoring, which more reliably prevents inappropriate broadcast signals from being output and reduces the occurrence of broadcast accidents.

The above embodiment has been described as being applied simply to the master device 10 at the final stage of a broadcasting station, but more specifically, the invention can be applied to broadcasting stations that broadcast television and internet broadcasts, as well as audio-only radio broadcasts.

Although other embodiments of the present invention have been described, the embodiments are presented as examples and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. These novel embodiments can be implemented in various other forms, and various omissions, substitutions, and modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the invention. These embodiments and their modifications are included in the scope and gist of the invention, and are included in the scope of the invention and its equivalents as set forth in the claims.

10... master device, 11A, 11B... video signal processing unit,
11A1, 11B1...input signal selection section, 11A2, 11B2...video and audio effect section,
11A3, 11B3... subtitle inserter, 11A4, 11B4... encoding/multiplexing unit,
12A, 12B... buffering unit, 13... video signal monitoring unit, 14... control unit,
15...Signal switching unit.

Claims (3)

a first and a second signal processing unit having an input signal selection unit for selecting a video signal of the active system or the redundant system from among a plurality of video signals for a broadcast signal duplicated into an active system and a redundant system, a video and audio effect unit for performing effect processing on the video and audio in the selected video signal, and a subtitle inserter for performing a process of superimposing a video of a subtitle on the video signal that has been effect-processed by the video and audio effect unit ;
a signal monitoring unit that receives the video signals processed by the input signal selection unit, the video and audio effect unit, and the subtitle inserter of the first and second signal processing units, monitors the processed video signals including comparison, and monitors whether an abnormality occurs in the video signal of the current system ;
a first buffering unit and a second buffering unit for holding the broadcast signals of the working system and the redundant system that have been signal-processed by the first signal processing unit and the second signal processing unit, respectively, and outputting the signals with a delay according to a time required for the signal monitoring unit to detect an abnormality;
a signal switching unit that selects and outputs a redundant system broadcast signal output from the second buffering unit instead of the active system broadcast signal output from the first buffering unit when the signal monitoring unit detects an abnormality in the active system broadcast signal;
A broadcasting device comprising: The first and second signal processing units each include an encoding/multiplexing unit that performs encoding and multiplexing processing on a video signal in a manner suitable for broadcasting;
the signal monitoring unit inputs the video signal processed by the encoding/multiplexing unit, monitors it including comparison, and further monitors whether or not an abnormality has occurred in the video signal of the current system.
The broadcasting device according to claim 1 . The broadcasting device according to claim 2 , wherein the first and second buffering units are included in the signal switching unit.