JP2000341627A - Recording device for video and voice signal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a recording device that operability and convenience are improved by allowing a user to execute recording without considering the dead capacity of a storage device. SOLUTION: This device is provided with a storage means 102 which stores an inputted video (moving image) and voice signal, a transformer coder 10 which recompresses the video and voice signal stored in the storage means 102 by making a bit rate smaller than that at the time of storage, and stores it in the storage means 102 for reducing the capacity of the video and voice signal, and a means 101 which controls the compression bit rate in the transformer coder 103. Then, the dead capacity of the storage means 102 for storing the video and voice signal is generated by operating the transformer coder 103 in each predetermined fixed time or at a point of time when it is predicted that any dead capacity is absent in the storage means 102 based on information from reserved recording or the like.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a recording device,
In particular, the present invention relates to a recording device having a function of automatically managing storage capacity.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing an example of a processing procedure for storing audio and video signals (abbreviated as "AV signals") in a conventional recording apparatus. In the recording device, when recording a new AV signal, if there is no free space in the storage device or the medium,
Change to a medium with sufficient free space, or
Alternatively, unnecessary ones of the AV signals stored in the storage device are deleted (step S4 in FIG. 6).

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In a conventional recording device,
When performing a new recording, it is necessary to manually check whether or not there is free space required for the recording, and there is a problem that the procedure required at the time of recording is complicated.

In order to increase the memory capacity by recompressing, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 10-341394 discloses that when a memory capacity is insufficient, a recorded still image is read out and recompressed. An imaging device that replaces an image in the image has been proposed. Also, JP-A-10-198
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 536, when there is no remaining memory for storing a still image, it is determined whether the image data overlaps, and only the area including the overlapping image data ID is decompressed and the duplication process is performed. There has been proposed a configuration of an image processing apparatus that reduces the amount of data by recompressing the data by the compression means.

For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 10-257422 discloses an image recording / reproducing apparatus in which the free space can be expanded even during image recording. There has been proposed a configuration in which data is decoded, a quantization step of a recompression ratio is set, recompression is performed, and the result is stored in a memory.

[0006] However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
In the configuration described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 22-203, since the data is recompressed during storage, the load on the device is increased, and the device is required to have high system performance. Become.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and a main object of the present invention is to enable a user to perform recording without worrying about the free space of a storage device. It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording device that improves the performance and convenience. Another object of the present invention is to provide a recording apparatus that suppresses and reduces an increase in load on the recording apparatus due to the free space creation processing.

[0008]

According to the present invention, there is provided a storage means for storing input video and audio signals, and a method for reading out the video and audio signals stored in the storage means to change a bit rate. Transcoding means for reducing the size of the video and audio signals and storing the video and audio signals in the storage means; and storing the video and audio signals stored in the storage means for a predetermined period of time. Each time, or at the time when it is expected that the storage means will run out of free space, reduce the capacity of the video and audio signals stored in the storage means by operating the transcoding means, And control means for generating free space for storing audio signals.

Further, according to the present invention, when the quality of the video and audio signals stored in the storage means falls below a predetermined quality, the video and audio signals are deleted from the storage means. Means.

[0010] Further, according to the present invention, based on the viewing history information,
After being viewed for a predetermined number of times or more, if an extension request is not set, the apparatus includes means for deleting the video and audio signals from the storage means, or after a predetermined period of time has elapsed, Means for erasing video and audio signals from the storage means.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a recording / reproducing apparatus stores, in a preferred embodiment, a storage unit (102) for storing input video (moving image) and audio signals, and a video and audio signal stored in the storage unit (102). , A bit rate lower than that at the time of storage, and recompression to store the data (storage device 10
2) a transcoder (1) for reducing the capacity of video and audio signals stored in the storage means (102)
03) and a means (101) for controlling the compression bit rate in the transcoder (103), and the video and audio signals stored in the storage means (102) are converted at predetermined time intervals. Alternatively, the transcoder (103) is controlled to operate at a point in time when it is expected that the storage unit (102) will run out of free space based on information such as scheduled recording and the like.
The free space for storing the video and audio signals in 2) is generated.

As described above, according to the present invention, the transformer is provided at predetermined time intervals or at a time when it is expected that the storage means (102) will run out of free space based on information such as scheduled recording. The code (103) is operated to create a free space in the storage means (102), and recompression is performed between recordings, thereby reducing the load on the recording device.

Further, in a preferred embodiment of the present invention, when the compression bit rate of the video and audio signals stored in the storage means (102) falls below a predetermined value, the video and audio signals are stored in the storage unit (102). An audio signal is configured to be deleted from the storage means.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an extension request is set by a user after the video and audio signals stored in the storage means (102) have been viewed a predetermined number of times or more. If not, the video and audio signals may be deleted from the storage means.

Further, the video and audio signals stored in the storage means (102) are erased from the storage means after a predetermined period elapses. Is also good.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a storage means (202) for storing input video and audio signals, and an encoding means for compressing input video (moving images) and audio signals. (204) and decoding means (205) for reading and decoding the video and audio signals stored in the storage means, wherein the signal decoded by the decoding means is recompressed by the encoding means, A transcoding unit (203) for storing the obtained video and audio signals in the storage unit, and a video and audio signal stored and held in the storage unit while controlling a compression bit rate in the transcoding unit. At predetermined time intervals or at a time when it is expected that the storage means will run out of free space, the transcoding means And means for controlling so as to re-compressed (204), may be configured to include.

[0017]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a recording apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, MPEG2 (Motion P
The AV (Audio / Video) stream of the Picture Experts Group 2) is input and stored in a storage device 102 such as an HHD (hard disk drive).

When the free space of the storage device 102 becomes smaller than a predetermined reference value or at a predetermined reference value, or before the AV stream is stored due to recording reservation or the like, the storage capacity may become insufficient in advance. When expected, or when a certain period of time has passed since the storage, the AV signal stored in the storage device 102 is further reduced in bit rate from the time when the AV signal was stored,
The transcoder 103 performs transcoding.

The management of the recompression bit rate in the transcoder 103 is performed by the compression bit rate indicator 101.

The compression bit rate indicator 103 outputs
It holds the current bit rate of the stream, date and time information stored in the storage device 102, and bit rate information at the time of transcoding. For example, at the time of the first transcoding, instruction information such as recompression at 80% of the bit rate of the original video, and at the second transcoding, recompression at 50% of the original video is retained and managed.

In this way, free space is always created in the storage device 102. Storage device 10
The free space 2 is managed by an operating system or the like or its file system. That is, after a free space is created in the storage device 102 by the recompression of the transcoder 103, the management of the free space is managed by a known method in a file system or the like.

The management of the recording reservation and the like is performed by a known recording reservation system (not shown) provided in the control device 104. A timer (system time) in the control device 104
, The current date and time information may be acquired from the storage device 102, and the elapsed time of the AV signal stored in the storage device 102 may be managed.

FIG. 2 shows another embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration when input and output are a video stream of an analog video signal (NTSC).

An analog video input signal composed of an NTSC signal (composite video signal) is converted into a digital signal by an A / D converter 206, compressed at a predetermined bit rate by an MPEG2 compressor 204, and stored in a storage device 202.

When the free space in the storage device 202 becomes equal to or less than a predetermined reference value, or when it is expected that the capacity will be insufficient before storage due to recording reservation or the like, or when a certain period from the time of storage is reached. If it has passed, the AV signal stored in the storage device 202 is converted to MP
The EG2 decompressor (decryption) 205 decompresses (decodes) the data, reduces the bit rate from the previous time, and recompresses the data.
02 is stored again.

In this embodiment, the transcoder 203
With the MPEG2 encoder 204 and the MPEG2 decoder 20
5 is realized. The output of the MPEG2 decoder 205 is converted by a D / A converter 207 into an analog video signal (NTSC).
Signal) and output.

In this embodiment, the bit rate is managed by the compression bit rate indicator 2 as in the above embodiment.
01. The compression bit rate indicator 201
It stores and manages the current bit rate, storage date and time information, and bit rate information during transcoding of the V stream.

In the second embodiment, similarly to the above-described embodiment, when the AV stream is stored at regular time intervals or when the value becomes equal to or less than a predetermined reference value, or before the AV stream is stored by recording reservation or the like. If it is expected that the storage capacity will be insufficient in advance, or if a certain period of time has passed since the storage, the A stored in the storage device 202
A free space is generated by storing the V signal in the storage device 202 with the transcoder 203 lowering the bit rate than the original one. The management of recording reservation and the like is performed by the recording device 20.
Alternatively, information of a known recording reservation system (not shown) connected to the control unit 0 may be used, or a recording reservation management system may be provided in the control device 208. Further, it acquires the current date and time information from a timer (system time) in the control device 208 and manages the elapsed time from the time when the AV signal stored in the storage device 202 is stored.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an example of deleting an AV signal from a storage device when the AV signal stored in the storage device 102 or 202 falls below a predetermined fixed quality. . In the example shown in FIG. 2, the fixed quality (bit rate) serving as the erasure reference is set to 1.5 Mbps (megabits / second).

The bit rate of AV1 is 6 Mbps before transcoding, but becomes 5 Mbps after transcoding. Similarly, for AV2, 5 Mbps becomes 3 Mbps, and AV3 becomes 3 Mb
ps is transcoded to 1.5Mbps. For AV4, the bit rate after transcoding is 0.5 Mbps,
Since it is less than 1.5Mbps, it is deleted from the storage device without transcoding.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a state in which, when a certain AV is viewed and there is no extension request from the user, the AV is viewed from a storage device after the AV has been viewed a certain number of times or more. . Note that history information such as the number of times of viewing is stored and held in an internal memory (not shown) of each of the control devices 104 and 208 in FIG.

In the example shown in FIG. 4, the number of times of viewing as the erasing reference is one. Also, only AV3 has already been viewed twice, and AV3 is instructed to postpone erasure. AV
1, AV2 and AV4 have never been viewed. At this time, if the user views and listens to the AV4 and does not instruct the erasure postponement, the number of viewings of the AV4 is changed to 1, and after the end of the viewing, the AV4 is deleted from the storage device.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining an example of deleting an AV signal from a storage device when a certain AV signal has passed a predetermined period. In the example shown in FIG. 5, the storage period serving as the erasure reference is set to 7 days. AV1, AV2, AV
3 and AV4 are stored in the storage device, respectively.
10 (February 10), 2/13, 2/14, 2/17.

The control devices 104 and 208 shown in FIG. 1 or FIG.
Acquires the current date information from a timer (not shown), and assuming that this is 2/18, AV1 stored in 2/10 is deleted from the storage device since 8 days have passed since the storage. The erasing of the AV signal from the storage device is performed by the control devices 104 and 208 in FIG. 1 or FIG.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The video and audio signals stored in the storage device are output at regular intervals or at a time when it is expected that the free space will be exhausted.
By automatically transcoding to create a free space, the user can perform recording without worrying about the free space of the storage device, and the operability and convenience are improved. Further, according to the present invention, since the free space is created by transcoding at a predetermined time other than the time of recording, the load on the recording device is reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure for storing a conventional recording device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 100, 200 Recording device 101, 201 Compression bit rate indicator 102, 202 Storage device 103 Transcoder 104 Controller 203 Transcoder 204 MPEG2 compressor (encoder) 205 MPEG2 decompressor (decoder) 206 A / D converter 207 D / A converter 208 Controller

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04N 5/928 F term (Reference) 5B060 AA05 AA09 AA14 AC13 DA08 5C052 AA03 AB04 CC11 DD04 GB01 GB07 GC05 GD01 GF04 5C053 FA15 FA23 GA11 GB05 GB11 GB38 HA29 JA21 KA21 KA24 KA25 5D044 AB05 AB07 DE50 GK08 GK10

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A storage means for storing input video and audio signals, and said video and audio signals stored in said storage means are read out, the compression bit rate is changed and stored in said storage means again. Transcoding means for reducing the size of the video and audio signals stored in the storage means, the video and audio signals stored in the storage means, at the time of recording other than at the time of recording, at a predetermined time, Alternatively, at a point in time when it is expected that the storage unit will run out of free space, the transcoding unit is operated to reduce the capacity of the video and audio signals stored in the storage unit, and the video and audio data in the storage unit is reduced. Means for controlling generation of free space for storing signals. 2. The transcoding means according to claim 1, wherein said video and audio signals stored in said storage means are further reduced in compression bit rate from the time when said video and audio signals were previously stored in said storage means. 2. The recording device according to claim 1, wherein the recording device is stored again in a storage unit. And a means for erasing the video and audio signals from the storage means when the quality of the video and audio signals stored in the storage means falls below a predetermined quality. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein
Or the recording device according to 2. 4. A storage means for storing the input video and audio signals, and reading out the video and audio signals stored in said storage means and lowering the compression bit rate from the time point stored in said storage means. Transcoding means for storing video and audio signals in the storage means, and controlling the compression bit rate in the transcoding means, and storing the video and audio signals stored in the storage means in advance of recording, Means for controlling to recompress by the transcoding means at every predetermined time or when it is expected that the storage means will run out of free space. And a free space for storing audio signals. 5. A storage means for storing input video and audio signals, an encoding means for compressing input video and audio signals,
Decoding means for reading and decoding the video and audio signals stored in the storage means, wherein the video and audio signals decoded by the decoding means are recompressed by the encoding means and compressed by the encoding means. Transcoding means for storing the obtained video and audio signals in the storage means, controlling a compression bit rate in the transcoding means, and storing the video and audio signals stored in the storage means at times other than during recording. Means for controlling re-compression by the transcoding means at every predetermined time or when it is expected that the storage means will run out of free space. Recording means for generating free space for storing video and audio signals in the means. 6. A means for erasing the video and audio signals from the storage means when the compression bit rate of the video and audio signals stored in the storage means falls below a predetermined value. 4. The recording device according to claim 3, wherein: 7. When the extension request is not set for the video and audio signals stored in the storage means after viewing the video and audio signals for a predetermined number of times or more based on the viewing history information, the video and audio signals are stored. 4. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: means for deleting an audio signal from said storage means. 8. A video camera according to claim 1, wherein said video and audio signals stored in said storage means are erased from said storage means after a predetermined period has elapsed. The recording device according to claim 1 or 3, wherein: