JP2006331199A - Service determining apparatus and service determining method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform efficient data distribution even in a data distribution environment in which a user has various devices and various contents are distributed from a content server to the user.
A service determining apparatus 10 that determines a communication service for a communication terminal includes a profile information receiving unit 102 that acquires device profile information including device performance information and content profile information including content attribute information. Since the service evaluation unit 105 corresponding to a combination determining unit that determines a combination of a device that performs data distribution and content is provided based on the device profile information and the content profile information, both the device and the content are determined simultaneously.
[Selection] Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a service determination apparatus and a service determination method for determining a communication service for a communication terminal. Note that the “communication service” here broadly means a service that distributes content data (for example, data such as video content and music content) to a communication terminal via a network and outputs the data at the communication terminal.

  Content related to content determination technology, such as content data output control according to the output destination device during remote output, and management of attribute data to control charging for content data output An information management apparatus has been proposed (see Patent Document 1 below).

Further, as a related research on terminal discovery technology, a service discovery method has been proposed that can reliably discover a service providing node in a network that is temporarily formed between a plurality of nodes (see Patent Document 2 below). .
JP 2002-297818 A JP 2003-87265 A

  Up to now, a device determination method for determining a device to which data is to be distributed from a plurality of devices (for example, an apparatus that determines a destination terminal from a plurality of destination terminal candidates in service movement), and a plurality of contents to a terminal capability There has been a content determination method (for example, a device that determines content based on terminal information) for determining suitable content. However, conventionally, devices and contents are considered independently when providing a service, and these are determined in order. For this reason, in a recent data distribution environment in which the user has various devices and various contents are distributed from the content server to the user, it is difficult to perform sufficiently efficient data distribution for the user. It was.

  The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and provides efficient data distribution even in a data distribution environment in which a user has various devices and various contents are distributed from a content server to the user. It is an object of the present invention to provide a service determination apparatus and a service determination method that can perform the above.

  In order to solve the above problems, a service determination device according to the present invention is a service determination device that determines a communication service for a communication terminal, and includes device profile information including device performance information and content profile information including content attribute information. Profile information acquisition means for acquiring, and combination determination means for determining a combination of a device and content for data distribution based on the device profile information and content profile information acquired by the profile information acquisition means Features.

  Also, the service determination method according to the present invention is a service determination method related to determination of a communication service in a communication terminal, in which profile information acquisition step in which device profile information including device performance information and content profile information including content attribute information is acquired. And a combination determining step for determining a combination of a device for delivering data and a content based on the device profile information and the content profile information acquired in the profile information acquiring step.

  According to these inventions, by simultaneously determining both the device and the content based on the device profile information including the device performance information and the content profile information including the content attribute information, the user has various devices and can Efficient data distribution can be performed even in a data distribution environment in which various contents are distributed to users from a content server.

  The service determination apparatus according to the present invention is acquired by a device candidate reduction unit that reduces device candidates for the combination determination and the profile information acquisition unit based on the device profile information acquired by the profile information acquisition unit. Content candidate reducing means for reducing content candidates for determining the combination based on the obtained content profile information, wherein the combination determining means includes the device candidate reduced by the device candidate reducing means and the content candidate reducing means. It is desirable that the combination of the device and the content is determined based on the content candidates reduced by the above. In this case, the number of combinations of devices and contents can be reduced, and the time until the combination is finally determined can be shortened.

  The service determination apparatus according to the present invention includes a device profile storage unit that stores the device profile acquired by the profile information acquisition unit, and a content profile storage unit that stores the content profile acquired by the profile information acquisition unit. Further, the combination determination unit is configured to determine a combination of the device and the content based on the device profile stored by the device profile storage acquisition unit and the content profile stored by the content profile storage unit. Is desirable. In this case, since the acquired device profile and content profile are stored in the service determination apparatus and can be referred to at any time, processing such as receiving the device profile and content profile from the outside of the service determination apparatus via the network becomes unnecessary. Processing time can be shortened and processing efficiency can be improved.

  Further, the service determining apparatus according to the present invention reads out the content determined by the content determining unit that stores the content and the content determining unit from the content storing unit, and the content is determined as the device determined by the combination determining unit. It is desirable to further comprise content transmitting means for transmitting. In this case, since the content can be stored in the service determination device, and the content can be read out and transmitted directly to the device at any time, processing such as receiving content from the outside of the service determination device via the network is unnecessary, reducing processing time and processing Can be made more efficient.

  In the service determining apparatus according to the present invention, the combination determining unit determines combination candidate information of a device that performs data distribution and content based on the device profile information and the content profile information acquired by the profile information acquiring unit. Then, the determined combination candidate information is transmitted to the user terminal, the device / content combination information determined by the user terminal based on the transmitted combination candidate information is received, and data distribution is performed based on the received combination information. It is desirable to adopt a configuration that determines a combination of a device and content. In this case, when the combination candidate information of a plurality of devices and contents is determined by the service determination apparatus, the user can freely select a combination of the devices and contents.

  In the service determining apparatus according to the present invention, the combination determining unit determines combination candidate information of a device that performs data distribution and content based on the device profile information and the content profile information acquired by the profile information acquiring unit. The service information indicating the reproduction state of the content specified by the determined combination candidate information is received from the user terminal, and the combination of the device that performs data distribution and the content is determined based on the service information. desirable. In this case, the combination of the device and the content can be determined according to the content reproduction state.

  According to the present invention, by simultaneously determining both a device and content based on device profile information including device performance information and content profile information including content attribute information, the user has various devices and various types. Efficient data distribution can be performed even in a data distribution environment in which content is distributed from a content server to a user.

  Recently, a single user has a plurality of devices (such as mobile phones and personal computers), and receives data using various devices according to the situation. Regarding content, it is conceivable to distribute various contents according to the user's wishes, such as low quality but high speed distribution and low speed, so high quality data is good. The service determination system according to the present embodiment is a system that determines what content is distributed to what device under such circumstances, and enables efficient data distribution for the user. With the goal.

  FIG. 1 shows a configuration diagram of a service determination system. As shown in FIG. 1, the service determination system includes a service determination device 10, a service provision device 20, a device profile storage device 30, a user presentation device 40, a service provision device 50, a content profile storage device 60, a content storage device 70, and a service. A providing device 80 is provided.

  Among these, the service providing devices 20, 50, and 80 are devices for the user to enjoy the service, and examples thereof include a mobile phone, a PDA, a television, and an information home appliance. In the service providing device 20, the content receiving unit 203 receives the content transmitted from the content transmitting unit 701 of the content storage device 70, and the service providing unit 201 provides a communication service to the user (for example, the service providing device 20). The received content is displayed on the display). Further, service information is transmitted from the service information transmitting / receiving unit 202 to the service determining device 10. The “service information” here is information indicating the playback state of the content provided by the device. For example, the content identifier, elapsed time, application client information (version, etc.), used device information (CPU usage, Memory usage), used network information (type, bandwidth used), and the like. In addition, said CPU usage means the value obtained by multiplying CPU usage rate (for example, 80%) and CPU speed (for example, 2G hertz). FIG. 4 shows an example of service information stored in the service providing apparatus, that is, a description example regarding each element of content identifier, elapsed time, application client information, CPU usage, memory usage, and network usage bandwidth. The timing at which the service information is transmitted from the service information transmitting / receiving unit 202 to the service determination device 10 may be periodically transmitted at a certain time interval (for example, every 60 seconds), or only when the service information changes. May be sent to.

  The other service providing devices 50 and 80 have the same configuration as the service providing device 20, and the content receiving units 503 and 803 in FIG. 1 correspond to the content receiving unit 203, and the service information transmitting / receiving units 502 and 802 The service information transmitting / receiving unit 202 corresponds to the service providing units 501, 801 and the service providing unit 201.

  The content storage device 70 includes a content storage unit 751 and a content transmission unit 701. The content storage unit 751 stores content information. The content transmission unit 701 transmits content to the service providing apparatus.

  The device profile storage device 30 includes a device profile storage unit 351 that stores a device profile including device performance information for each device, and a device profile information transmission unit 301 that transmits the device profile to the service determination device 10. The device profile is device performance information, and includes, for example, CPU processing speed, memory capacity, screen size, network bandwidth, available application clients, location information, and the like. FIG. 5 is a description example of each element of the device profile CPU processing speed, memory capacity, screen size, network bandwidth, and available application client. The device profile information is a markup language CC / PP (F. Reynolds, J. Hjelm, S. Dawkins, and S. Singhal, “Composite Capability / Preference” for describing terminal / user information standardized by W3C. Profiles (CC / PP): A user side framework for content negotiation, “W3C Note http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-CCPP/, 1999.) may be used.

  The content profile storage device 60 includes a content profile storage unit 651 that stores a content profile for each content, and a profile information transmission unit 601 that transmits the content profile to the service determination device 10. The content profile is content attribute information, and includes, for example, a content identifier, a genre, an encoding method, a quality parameter (image size, bit rate), and a service ID. Information specified in the Content ID Forum may be added for convenience (“cIDf Specification Version 2.0,” Content ID Forum, 2002). FIG. 6 is a description example regarding the content identifier, genre, image size, and bit rate elements of the content profile. The service ID is information given to content representing the same content. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the video “video176 × 144.mp4” having an image size of 176 × 144 and the video “video having an image size of 352 × 288” are shown. The three types of content “video352 × 288.mp4” and audio “audio.wav” have the same service ID.

  The user presentation device 40 includes a presentation information reception unit 401 that receives presentation information transmitted from a presentation information transmission / reception unit 106 described later, and a user presentation unit 402 that displays and displays the received presentation information. Further, the user presenting unit 402 has a function of accepting an answer from the user, and returns the answer from the user to the presentation information receiving unit 401. The presentation information receiving unit 401 returns a response from the user to the presentation information transmitting / receiving unit 106.

  Hereinafter, the service determination device 10 corresponding to the service determination device according to the present invention will be described in detail. The service determination device 10 includes a service information reception unit 101, a profile information reception unit 102, a device candidate reduction unit 103, a content candidate reduction unit 104, a service evaluation unit 105, a presentation information transmission / reception unit 106, a service reevaluation unit 107, and a service information reception Unit 108 and service information transmission unit 109.

  In the service determining apparatus 10, the service information receiving unit 101 receives service information related to a communication service from the service information transmitting / receiving unit 202.

  When the service information is received by the service information receiving unit 101, the profile information receiving unit 102 acquires a device profile and a content profile that provide a communication service. For example, service information, device profile information, and content profile information are described using a markup language standardized in W3C.

となる。ここでN = 4 とすると、d(1) は画面サイズを最大値で0〜1 の範囲で正規化した値、d(2) はメモリ容量を最大値で0〜1 の範囲で正規化した値、d(3) はＣＰＵ処理スピードを最大値で0〜1 の範囲で正規化した値、d(4) はディスク容量を最大値で0〜1 の範囲で正規化した値である。それぞれの重みw(1) = w(2) = w(3) = w(4) = 1 である。 Next, when the service information is received by the service information receiving unit 101 and the device profile information and the content profile information are received by the profile information receiving unit 102, the device candidate reducing unit 103 extracts device candidates according to a certain rule. . For example, the certain rule is a rule for extracting a device candidate having a device capability higher than that of the device that is currently reproducing the content. Here, the device capability is obtained by quantifying device performance information, and is determined by using a value obtained by normalizing the size of the screen size, for example. Whether or not the device is currently playing content is determined based on service information when service information is periodically received. For example, as the determination based on the service information, if the service information is acquired from the service providing apparatus, the content identifier is included in the service information, and the elapsed time is between the start time and the end time, the device It is considered that the content is being played. For example, the device capability D is determined because the screen size is large, the memory capacity is large, the CPU processing speed is high, and the disk capacity is large. For example, the device capability D is

It becomes. If N = 4, d (1) is the screen size normalized to the maximum value from 0 to 1, and d (2) is the memory capacity normalized to the maximum value from 0 to 1. The value d (3) is a value obtained by normalizing the CPU processing speed in the range of 0 to 1 at the maximum value, and d (4) is a value obtained by normalizing the disk capacity in the range of 0 to 1 at the maximum value. Each weight w (1) = w (2) = w (3) = w (4) = 1.

となる。ここでM = 1 とすると、c(1) はビットレートを0〜1 の範囲で正規化した値である。重みv(1)= 1 である。 When the service information is received by the service information receiving unit 101 and the device profile information and the content profile information are received by the profile information receiving unit 102, the content candidate reducing unit 104 extracts content candidates according to a certain rule. For example, the certain rule is to extract content having a higher content quality than the content received by the content receiving unit 203 of the service providing apparatus 20. For example, content of the same type as content used for service information is extracted from the content profile. For example, whether or not the content types are the same is determined depending on whether or not the content service IDs are the same. For example, content quality C is

It becomes. Here, if M = 1, c (1) is a value obtained by normalizing the bit rate in the range of 0 to 1. The weight v (1) = 1.

The service evaluation unit 105 selects an appropriate device / content combination that shows the highest evaluation value for the combination of the device candidate extracted by the device candidate reduction unit 103 and the content candidate extracted by the content candidate reduction unit 104. . For example, the evaluation value is given by the product of device capability and content quality. The device capability is obtained by quantifying device performance information and is, for example, the sum of values obtained by normalizing CPU processing speed, memory capacity, disk capacity, and screen size. The content quality is obtained by quantifying the content attribute information and is, for example, the sum of values obtained by normalizing the image size and the bit rate. If there is no device / content pair that shows a higher evaluation value than the device / content combination provided by the service providing apparatus 20, the current device provides the content. For example, the evaluation value is given by the product of device capability D and content quality C. That is, the service evaluation value E is
E = DC (3)
It becomes. If the service with the highest service evaluation value E does not have a service (device and content pair) higher than the evaluation value of the current communication service, the current communication service is maintained.

となる。ここで、e(i) はi 番目の要素に対する評価値である。例えば、画面サイズに対する評価e(i) は、

として与えられる。 Next, another evaluation value determination method will be described. For the evaluation value determination, there are a method of multiplying or summing evaluation values for each element, and a method of obtaining an evaluation value by collecting a plurality of elements. First, a method for calculating the evaluation value for each element and then using the entire product as the evaluation value will be described. The overall evaluation value E is expressed as the product of the evaluation values of all N elements,

It becomes. Here, e (i) is the evaluation value for the i-th element. For example, the evaluation e (i) for the screen size is

As given.

  If there is a device / content pair that shows a higher evaluation value than the current device / content combination, the service evaluation unit 105 stops processing so that it is not executed in parallel, and the service conversion information is sent via the presentation information transmission / reception unit 106. Is transmitted to the user presentation device 40. The combination candidate information is a set of a combination of a device and a content that shows an evaluation value equal to or greater than a certain value, for example, a combination of a device IP address and a content URL. When the user selects a combination based on information in the user presentation unit 402 of the user presentation device 40, the service evaluation unit 105 resumes the process.

  When the service evaluation unit 105 determines a plurality of device / content combination candidates, the service re-evaluation unit 107 inquires service information from the current device for each candidate and re-examines the combination of the device and content. evaluate. For example, the service information used includes a CPU usage rate, a memory usage rate, a disk usage rate, and a screen occupancy rate of another application. For example, if the current CPU usage rate or memory usage rate exceeds a certain value (90%), it is difficult to provide a service with sufficient performance even if the device has any high device performance. And deleting from the device and content candidates. As a result of considering the service information, if the evaluation of the combination of the device and the content is the maximum, the process proceeds to the service information transmitting unit 109.

  When the service reevaluation unit 107 passes a device / content combination candidate, the service information receiving unit 108 inquires of the device about service information. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, when there are a service providing apparatus 50 and a service providing apparatus 80 as device candidates, service information is inquired in turn to each.

  When the service re-evaluation unit 107 determines a combination of device and content considering dynamic service information, the service information transmission unit 109 transmits service information to the determined device. If the service providing apparatus 50 is determined, the service information is transmitted to the service information transmitting / receiving unit 502 of the service providing apparatus 50.

  In the service determination apparatus 10 as described above, the profile information receiving unit 102 corresponds to the profile information acquisition unit according to the present invention, the device candidate reduction unit 103 corresponds to the device candidate reduction unit according to the present invention, and the content candidate The reduction unit 104 corresponds to a content candidate reduction unit according to the present invention, and the service evaluation unit 105, the presentation information transmission / reception unit 106, the service reevaluation unit 107, and the service information reception unit 108 integrally correspond to a combination determination unit.

  Hereinafter, the operation of the service determination system will be described.

  Next, the operation of the service determining apparatus will be described with the service providing apparatus 20 as a mobile device, the service providing apparatus 50 as a PDA, and the service providing apparatus 80 as a personal computer. First, it is provided by a service providing apparatus 20 capable of reproducing content. When a personal computer and a PDA are added as new service providing devices, the service providing device capable of reproducing the content includes a service providing device 20 that is a mobile device and a service providing device 50 that is a personal computer. In such a case, the service determining device 10 determines which of the service providing device 20 and the service providing device 50 provides the content. Here, the first in FIG. 5 is a mobile device (service providing device 20), the second is a PDA (service providing device 50), and the third is a personal computer (service providing device 80). The content provided here is the first “http: //xxxxxx/contents01.mpg” in FIG. In this case, which device and content are determined will be described with reference to FIG. 2 (sequence diagram of the service determination system). The numbers (1) and (2) below correspond to the numbers described in FIG.

  (1) The service providing device 20 starts to acquire content from the content storage device 70 in response to an instruction input from the user to the service providing device 20.

  (2) The service determination device 10 causes the service information receiving unit 101 to receive service information from the service providing device 20 at a fixed period (for example, 60 seconds) or when the content provided from the service providing device 20 changes. Receive. Here, the specific elements of the service information in the service providing device 20 are the content identifier “http: //xxxxxx/contents01.mpg”, the elapsed time is 2 minutes and 20 seconds, the application client is the content player 1, and the CPU usage. Is 1.0 [G Hertz], and the network bandwidth is 64 [K bits / sec].

  (3) Upon receiving service information by the service information receiving unit 101, the service determining device 10 receives a device profile from the device profile storage device 30 by the profile information receiving unit 102. Here, when there are a plurality of service providing apparatuses, it is determined which service providing apparatus should reproduce the content based on the positional relationship between the user's position and the service providing apparatus. For example, a mobile device (only the service providing device 20) exists around the user, and then the user moves with the mobile device (service providing device 20), so that the PDA (service providing device 50) and the personal computer are moved. When moving near the (service providing device 80), in addition to the mobile device (service providing device 20), a PDA (service providing device 50) and a personal computer (service providing device 80) are newly registered as usable devices. And device profiles relating to the PDA (service providing apparatus 50) and the personal computer (service providing apparatus 80).

  (4) Upon receiving the device profile by the profile information receiving unit 102, the service determining device 10 receives the content profile from the content profile storage device 60 by the profile information receiving unit 102. Here, the profile information related to the content indicating the same service ID as the content identifier “http: //xxxxxx/contents01.mpg” is received. Regarding the first to third content information (“http: //xxxxxx/contents01.mpg”, “http: //xxxxxx/contents02.wav”, “http: //xxxxxx/contents03.avi”) in FIG. Get content information.

  (5) When the service determination device 10 receives service information from the service information receiving unit 101 and receives a device profile and a content profile from the profile information receiving unit 102, the device candidate reducing unit 103 sets the following constant rules: Based on this, device candidates are extracted. For example, as a certain rule, a rule of extracting a device having a device capability higher than that of the service providing apparatus 20 as a candidate may be adopted. Here, for example, when the element item of the device capability related to the personal computer shows a larger value than the element item of the device capability related to the mobile device, the personal computer (service providing apparatus 80) is extracted as a device candidate. Similarly, regarding the PDA, when the element item of the device capability related to the PDA shows a larger value than the element item of the device capability related to the mobile device, the PDA (service providing apparatus 50) is extracted as a device candidate.

  (6) When the service determination apparatus 10 receives service information from the service information receiving unit 101 and receives a device profile and a content profile from the profile information receiving unit 102, the content candidate reducing unit 104 sets the following constant rules: Based on this, content candidates are extracted. For example, as a certain rule, a rule may be adopted in which content showing higher content quality than the content “http: //xxxxxx/contents01.mpg” provided by the service providing apparatus 20 is extracted as a candidate. Among the three contents having the same service ID “xxx: yyy: zzz / SSE / contents / 001” in FIG. 3, the contents “http: //xxxxxx/contents02.wav” and “http: // Extract “xxxxxx / contents03.avi” as a candidate.

  (7) When the device candidate is extracted by the device candidate reduction unit 103 and the content candidate is extracted by the content candidate reduction unit 104, the service evaluation unit 105 calculates an evaluation value for the combination of the device and the content. To simplify the explanation here, considering only the bit rate as the content quality, if the bit rate is 0 to 50 [K bits / second], the evaluation value is 0.0, and the bit rate is 50 to 100 [K bits / second]. If the bit rate is 100 to 300 [K bits / second], the evaluation value is 0.8. If the bit rate is 300 to [K bits / second], the evaluation value is 1.0. Considering only the screen size as device performance, if the screen size is 0 × 0 to 400 × 300, the evaluation value is 0.0, and if the screen size is 400 × 300 to 800 × 600, the evaluation value is 0.3. The evaluation value is 0.6 for 800 × 600 to 1152 × 768, 0.9 for the screen size 1152 × 768 to 1600 × 1200, 1.0 for the screen size 1600 × 1200, and the evaluation value calculation formula Is the above-described equation (3), the relationship between the device candidate and the content candidate is as shown in FIG. Here, when a plurality of combination candidates are extracted, a combination having an evaluation value equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold (for example, 0.6) is selected. For example, when the threshold value of the evaluation value is “0.6”, two combination candidates No. 2 and No. 4 are selected in FIG.

  (8) The presentation information transmission / reception unit 106, when it is determined that the content is reproduced by the service providing apparatus in which the current content is reproduced, transmits information regarding the combination of the device and the content to the user presentation device 40, The user presentation device 40 presents information regarding the combination of the device and the content to the user. Then, the combination of the device and the content selected by the user who has received this presentation is received again, and the selected combination is narrowed down as a device / content combination candidate.

  (9) The service re-evaluation unit 107 acquires the current service information from each device that is a candidate combination of the device and the content via the service information reception unit 108. For example, service information is acquired from each of a PDA (service providing apparatus 50) and a personal computer (service providing apparatus 80).

  (10) The service re-evaluation unit 107 determines a combination of the device and the content based on the service information received via the service information receiving unit 108. For example, the combination of the device and the content is determined using the CPU usage rate and the memory usage amount of the service information in FIG. For example, for a certain combination, when the CPU processing speed and the memory capacity are high in addition to the processing related to the content reproduction (for example, both exceed the usage rate of 90%), the processing for omitting the combination from the device and content combination candidates is performed. Do.

  (11) When the service reevaluation unit 107 determines the combination of the device and the content, the service information transmission unit 109 transmits the service information to the determined device. For example, when the combination of No. 4 having the highest evaluation value in FIG. 7 obtained by the service evaluation unit 105 is determined, the service information is transmitted to the device corresponding to No. 4, that is, the personal computer (service providing apparatus 80). The

  (12) When the service information is received by the service information transmission / reception unit 502, the personal computer (service providing device 80) starts acquiring content corresponding to the service information from the content storage device 70.

  Finally, (13) the service providing device 20 ends content acquisition from the content storage device 70 when the content receiving unit 503 of the personal computer (service providing device 80) starts acquiring content.

  Hereinafter, effects related to the embodiment will be described.

  The service determination apparatus 10 receives the device profile and the content profile, calculates a certain evaluation function for each combination of the device and the content using the device profile and the content profile, and performs evaluation. Can be determined simultaneously, and efficient data distribution for the user can be realized.

  In addition, the service determination apparatus 10 includes a device candidate reduction unit 103 that reduces device candidates and a content candidate reduction unit 104 that reduces content candidates, thereby reducing the number of combinations of devices to be evaluated and content. , The time to determine the combination can be reduced.

  Further, the service determination system is provided with the user presentation device 40 that presents information related to the combination of the device and the content to the user, so that the user can select the combination of the device and the content.

  Furthermore, after the service evaluation unit 105 determines a plurality of device and content combination candidates, the service determination device 10 inquires service information from the current device for each candidate, and combines the device and content. Since the service reevaluation unit 107 is reevaluated, the combination of the device and the content can be determined according to the resource information of the dynamically changing device.

  Hereinafter, modifications of the embodiment will be described.

  In the above embodiment, the device profile storage unit 351 that stores the device profile and the content profile storage unit 651 that stores the content profile are outside the service determination device 10, but these are inside the service determination device 10. It may be provided. When provided inside, since the acquired device profile and content profile are stored inside the service determination device 10 and can be referred to at any time, the device profile and content profile are received from outside the service determination device 10 via the network. Thus, the processing time can be shortened and the processing efficiency can be improved. As described above, when the device profile storage unit 351 and the content profile storage unit 651 are provided in the service determination apparatus 10, the device profile storage unit 351 corresponds to the device profile storage unit according to the present invention, and the content profile storage unit. Reference numeral 651 corresponds to content profile storage means according to the present invention.

  In the above-described embodiment, the content storage unit 751 that stores content and the content transmission unit 701 that transmits content are outside the service determination device 10, but they may be provided inside the service determination device 10. When provided inside, content can be stored inside the service decision device 10, and the content can be read out and sent directly to the device at any time, so processing such as receiving content from outside the service decision device 10 via the network becomes unnecessary, Processing time can be shortened and processing efficiency can be improved. As described above, when the content storage unit 751 and the content transmission unit 701 are provided inside the service determination device 10, the content storage unit 751 corresponds to the content storage unit according to the present invention, and the content transmission unit 701 corresponds to the present invention. It corresponds to such content transmission means.

  In the above embodiment, the service information receiving unit 108 that acquires service information including dynamic information of a device and a device used for reevaluation of content exists in the service determination apparatus 10, but the function of storing service information May exist in an external service information storage device having When the service information receiving unit 108 is inside the service determination device 10 as in the above embodiment, after acquiring the necessary minimum service information after the device and content combination candidates are sufficiently narrowed down, The load can be reduced. However, since a service information inquiry to the device is required, it takes a lot of time to determine the combination of the device and the content. On the other hand, when the service information receiving unit 108 is in an external service information storage device, the service information storage device needs to acquire service information of all registered devices, so that there is a large amount in the network. However, since the service determination apparatus 10 does not need to inquire service information to the device, the time required to determine the combination of the device and the content can be shortened.

It is a block diagram of a service determination system. It is a sequence diagram of a service determination system. It is an example of a relationship between a service ID and a content identifier. It is a specific example of service information. It is a specific example of a device profile. It is a specific example of a content profile. It is a specific example of evaluation value calculation.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Service decision apparatus, 101 ... Service information receiving part, 102 ... Profile information receiving part, 103 ... Device candidate reduction part, 104 ... Content candidate reduction part, 105 ... Service evaluation 106, presentation information transmission / reception unit, 107 ... service reevaluation unit, 108 ... service information reception unit, 109 ... service information transmission unit, 20 ... service providing device, 201 ... Service providing unit 202 ... Service information transmitting / receiving unit 203 ... Content receiving unit 30 ... Device profile storage device 301 ... Profile information transmitting unit 351 ... Device profile storage unit 40 ..User presentation device, 401... Presentation information receiving unit, 402... User presentation unit, 50... Service providing device, 501... Service providing unit, 502. ..Content receiver, 60 Content profile storage device, 601 ... Profile information transmission unit, 651 ... Content profile storage unit, 70 ... Content provision device, 701 ... Content transmission unit, 751 ... Content storage unit, 80 ... Service providing device, 801 ... service providing unit, 802 ... service information transmitting / receiving unit, 803 ... content receiving unit.

Claims (7)

In a service determination device for determining a communication service for a communication terminal,
Profile information acquisition means for acquiring device profile information including device performance information and content profile information including content attribute information;
A service determining apparatus comprising: a combination determining unit that determines a combination of a device that performs data distribution and content based on the device profile information and the content profile information acquired by the profile information acquiring unit. The service determination device includes:
Device candidate reduction means for reducing device candidates for the combination determination based on the device profile information acquired by the profile information acquisition means;
Content candidate reduction means for reducing content candidates for determining the combination based on the content profile information acquired by the profile information acquisition means,
The service according to claim 1, wherein the combination determination unit determines a combination of the device and content based on the device candidate reduced by the device candidate reduction unit and the content candidate reduced by the content candidate reduction unit. Decision device. The service determination device includes:
Device profile storage means for storing the device profile acquired by the profile information acquisition means;
Content profile storage means for storing the content profile acquired by the profile information acquisition means,
The combination determination unit determines a combination of the device and content based on the device profile stored by the device profile storage acquisition unit and the content profile stored by the content profile storage unit. Service decision device. Content storage means for storing content;
The service determining apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a content transmitting unit that reads content determined by the combination determining unit from a content storage unit and transmits the content to a device determined by the combination determining unit. The combination determining means includes
Based on the device profile information and the content profile information acquired by the profile information acquisition means, determine device and content combination candidate information for data distribution,
Send the determined combination candidate information to the user terminal,
Receiving device and content combination information determined by the user terminal based on the transmitted combination candidate information;
The service determination apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a combination of a device that performs data distribution and a content is determined based on the received combination information. The combination determining means includes
Based on the device profile information and content profile information acquired by the profile information acquisition means, determine device and content combination candidate information for data distribution,
The service according to claim 1, wherein service information indicating a reproduction state of the content specified by the determined combination candidate information is received from the user terminal, and a combination of a device that performs data distribution and the content is determined based on the service information. Decision device. In a service determination method for determining a communication service in a communication terminal,
A profile information acquisition step in which device profile information including device performance information and content profile information including content attribute information are acquired;
A service determination method comprising: a combination determination step of determining a combination of a device that performs data distribution and content based on the device profile information and content profile information acquired in the profile information acquisition step.

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