JP4060278B2 - Karaoke equipment - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a karaoke apparatus, and more specifically, to a karaoke apparatus that displays a mood image on a display when performing accompaniment music of karaoke music.

  Conventionally, in a karaoke apparatus, a mood image displayed on a display during performance of karaoke accompaniment music has been created exclusively for each karaoke piece, such as karaoke package software. This packaged software is provided by recording accompaniment music and mood video with lyrics on a recording medium such as a CD. Therefore, it is possible to display a mood video that matches the style of karaoke music and has a consistent storyline included in the lyrics. However, a dedicated mood video is produced for each karaoke piece, so enormous production time and production costs are required. It is also difficult to quickly provide karaoke software (accompaniment music and mood video with lyrics) corresponding to new songs that are constantly released. Furthermore, in order to cope with a large number of karaoke songs, it is necessary to prepare a large number of karaoke package software, and the recording capacity such as the number of recording media and the space required for the installation location become enormous.

  In contrast to the method described above, video for a long time is stored in a video database, material video (a part of video for a long time) is appropriately selected from any storage location in the database, and the material video is extracted. There is a method of making a series of mood images by sequentially switching and playing them together during the performance period. Along with the popularization of a communication karaoke system that can quickly respond to the release of new songs and can accommodate a huge number of songs with a small storage capacity, karaoke devices that employ this method are now becoming mainstream. By adopting a shared video database system that reuses this shared material video for each karaoke song, it has become possible to significantly reduce mood video production time, production cost, recording capacity, and recording media location. However, if a large number of material videos are randomly used for each karaoke song, the karaoke song style and mood image will not match at all. Therefore, in the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2550423 (conventional example), the shared video database method is adopted, and the music style and mood video are made to match. The details of this technique are as follows.

  Each karaoke piece is accompanied by index information for designating a material video to be used during the performance of the piece. The index information is information “related to performance music”. The information related to the performance music is specifically a genre and is used to classify a huge amount of karaoke music into a plurality.

  The video for a long time stored in the video database is processed in units of material video. This material video is divided into appropriate video expressions such as one scene. This material video is also classified into a plurality of groups according to the genre. Accordingly, each karaoke piece and a predetermined material video group are associated with each other through the genre.

  Also, parameters are attached to the index information. The parameters describe point time data for setting a plurality of video switching points during the performance of the karaoke music piece and video effects at the time of video switching. One video effect is designated for each piece of music.

  When a certain karaoke song is requested, a number of material videos corresponding to the number of video switching points are randomly selected from the material video group corresponding to the genre attached to the music. Further, the order in which the plurality of material videos are reproduced is also set at random.

  When a karaoke piece is played, a continuous video is continuously played until the next video switching time with the recording start position of the first material video as the playback start position. When the time of the first video switching point comes, the next material video is switched by the designated video effect. In this way, the material video is sequentially switched to the mood video during the performance of the music.

  Even now, there should be quite a few karaoke enthusiasts who feel the great attraction of singing along with the mood video produced exclusively for each karaoke song. However, at present when there are more than 10,000 karaoke songs, it is necessary to select a method for reusing material images that are much less than the number of karaoke songs for each song for this reason. The current situation may not be obtained.

  Certainly, in the technology disclosed in the above-described conventional example, the karaoke music of each karaoke music is matched with the mood video by distributing the material video for each genre. However, the scenes that change from moment to moment with the performance of the song and the creation and transfer of the story embedded in the lyrics are completely different for each song. The mood video is developed in a “specific order” in which the “video that fits the image” recalled from time to time during performance matches the story. Nevertheless, in the conventional example, an enormous number of karaoke songs of 10,000 or more and videos for a long time of several tens of hours or more are classified by genres with extremely few numbers. That is, for one of the enormous number of songs belonging to each genre, only a few scene material videos randomly selected from a number of material videos belonging to each genre are appropriately allocated and used within the performance time. ing.

  Even though many material images have completely different contents, all the material images classified only by superficial relevance are treated equally and appropriately selected from them and connected appropriately. Yes. In other words, a mood image is obtained by editing a plurality of material images that are completely unrelated in an order that ignores the context of the preceding and following. Therefore, it can be concluded that the technique according to the prior art cannot completely make the mood video follow the scene change or story development during the performance. In some cases, the image of the music being played and the mood video may not match at all.

  In addition, classifying material videos by genre also means that the number of material videos that can be used for each piece of music is limited by itself. That is, when a music piece of a certain genre is selected, all material videos belonging to other genres are wasted. In addition, even if a new video is added, the probability that this video will be used is low, resulting in only an increase in the amount of data. In this case, it cannot be said that the original purpose of effectively using the recorded video by the shared video database is sufficiently achieved.

  Furthermore, each selected material video is continuously played back to the next video switching point with the recording start position as the playback start position. Even if the time interval between each video switching point and the recording time of each material video are set to the same level, the performance time will differ for each song, so the material video played last will end halfway. . If the mood video suddenly breaks without being immersed in the “end of the song” that ends the song, the singer remains very dissatisfied.

  In addition, there is a problem that the video effect is uniform for each piece of music. The material video that follows the story changes with the optimal video effect from time to time, and the mood video is developed, creating an effect that makes the story in the lyrics of the song stand out. Even if the video effect is changed at each video switching point, it must be said that "video without any context before and after" is cheating with a simple video effect.

  After all, this conventional example is a technology that aims at how to easily assign material video to the increase of music such as addition of new music, and there is a superficial image and mood video in music such as genre. You can only get the effect of not leaving them at all.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a karaoke apparatus that can display a mood image that matches the content of a song that changes during performance while using a material image that is reused.

The karaoke apparatus according to the present invention is specified by the following items (1) to (13).
(1) A karaoke apparatus comprising a video database, a plurality of access means capable of operating in parallel, two video playback means, a display means, a script database, and a control means, playing karaoke music and outputting mood video (2) The video database stores the video data of the digitally compressed and encoded moving image for a long time. (3) The access means corresponds from the video database based on the storage position data provided by the control means. (4) The video playback means decodes and outputs the video data output from the access means. (5) The video effect processing means follows the control of the control means. , From the first video data output from one video playback means, to the second video data output from the other video playback means. (6) The display means displays the video data output by the video effect processing means. (7) The script database is created for each karaoke song. (8) The script information includes a plurality of time data permutations, storage position data associated with each time data, and processing associated with second and subsequent time data in the permutations. Type designation data and processing time designation data are included. (9) The processing type designation data is data for designating the type of video effect processing performed by the video effect processing means. (10) The processing time designation data is the video effect. (11) When the control means plays a karaoke piece of music, the script of that piece of music is specified. Information is extracted from the script database, and the video reading process and the video switching process are performed. (12) The video reading process conforms to the time data in the script information according to the elapsed time from the start of the performance. Control the access means so that the video data corresponding to the storage location data is output from the video playback means. (13) The video switching process follows the elapsed time from the start of the performance and matches the time data in the script information. Control the video effect processing means based on the processing type designation data and processing time designation data in the information

  The material video extracted from the video recorded in the video database according to the script information corresponding to each karaoke song is directly specified at any playback start position without using information related to the song such as the genre and specified. Playback is performed according to the playback time length and the specified order. Therefore, in all karaoke music pieces, only the portion that matches the content that changes from time to time during the performance period can be reproduced as a material video with good timing. As a result, it is possible to display a mood image having a content sufficiently following the time-series change of the music. In addition, all recorded videos in the video database can be used without waste. In turn, even a small amount of video data can be edited into a variety of mood videos. For this reason, it is possible to further reduce the capacity of video data stored in the shared video database.

  Of course, the last material image in the performance period can be freely specified according to the performance time of the music and the atmosphere of the performance end. Therefore, the performance of the music is not finished with the halfway image.

  Also, by providing a plurality of video database access means capable of operating in parallel and a plurality of video playback means capable of operating in parallel, a time lag that occurs when switching the playback of the material video can be avoided. In addition, since it has video effect processing means that inputs video signals from multiple video playback means in parallel and performs appropriate video effect processing, it makes the transition of material video smoother and more natural. It is possible to transfer video according to the content.

  Furthermore, by storing the video for a long time on the optical disc as digital video data that has been compression-encoded, it is possible to access any video data storage location in units of 1 second or less based on the time code of the optical disc, and to perform arbitrary playback. Video data for hours can be taken out. Therefore, it is possible to reproduce the material video that closely follows the subtle story development at a more precise timing.

=== Configuration and basic operation of karaoke equipment ===
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of the karaoke apparatus according to the present invention. The karaoke apparatus 1 has substantially the same configuration as the performance terminal in the communication karaoke system, and its basic operation is also substantially the same. A central control unit 11 including a CPU, RAM, and ROM receives karaoke data distributed from the host device 60 through the telephone line 50 via the modem 23 and accumulates it in the hard disk device 24. When the music selection information input from the remote control transmitter 12 or the operation panel 13 is received via the operation control unit 15, the corresponding karaoke data is extracted from the hard disk device 24. Accompaniment music generation data such as MIDI data in the karaoke data is sequentially transferred to the synthesizer 16, and the generated accompaniment music is mixed with the voice signal of the singer from the microphone 17 by the mixing amplifier 18 and output to the speaker 19. . In addition, the central control unit 11 processes the lyric rendering data in the karaoke data, so that the lyric image synchronized with the accompaniment music is sequentially developed in the video RAM 20 as a bitmap.

  On the other hand, the mood video is stored in the video database 30 in an appropriate data format. The video data playback unit 40 sequentially retrieves and plays back the material video having an appropriate time length from the video database 30 as the playback time, and switches the material video to be connected and edits it into a series of mood videos. . The video signal output from the video data playback unit 40 is combined with the lyrics image by the video control unit 21 and displayed on the display 22 as a mood video with the superimposed lyrics. Next, the mood video reproduction system which is a requirement of the present invention will be described.

=== Mood video playback system ===
(I) Video Database In this embodiment, mood video is recorded on a CD-ROM as video data digitized in the MPEG1 format. A large number of CD-ROMs are prepared in order to cope with video for a long time. Each CD-ROM records video data corresponding to a video of 74 minutes in terms of playback time, as with a normal video CD. Video data at a desired storage location can be specified by a sector address assigned to each data sector of the CD-ROM. A desired sector address is designated by specifying a time code (minute / second / frame <1 second = 75 frames>) corresponding to the elapsed time when the video recorded on the CD-ROM is reproduced from the beginning. It can be accessed in units of time of less than a second (the standard around this is based on the video CD, so a detailed description is omitted).

  Therefore, the material video referred to in the present invention is not designated in units of video expression of one scene or the like, but an arbitrary sector address and the sector address from the video for the recording time recorded on one CD-ROM are used. It is specified by an arbitrary playback time length as the playback start position. As a result, there are virtually countless material images.

(II) Hardware Configuration FIG. 2 shows in more detail the configurations of the video database 30 and the video data playback unit 40, which are the core hardware in the mood video playback system. The video database 30 is composed of three CD-ROM changers 31 to 33 that operate in parallel, and a large number of CD-ROMs that record video for a long time are distributed in these three CD-ROM changers 31 to 33. ing. The central control unit controls the CD-ROM changers 31 to 33 of an arbitrary system, sets an arbitrary CD-ROM stored in the CD-ROM changer to the drive device, and records an arbitrary CD-ROM recorded on the CD-ROM. Read and output material video data.
Further, when the CD-ROM changer that reads the material video data is different from the CD-ROM changer that reads the material video data next, the central control unit replaces the corresponding CD-ROM with the next CD-ROM changer. Set in advance in the drive unit. By doing so, the time lag until the CD-ROM is set in the drive device is absorbed.

On the other hand, the video data reproducing unit 40 includes two systems of MPEG decoders 41 and 42 and a video effect processing unit 43 connected to the output paths of the two systems of MPEG decoders 41 and 42.
The two MPEG decoders 41 and 42 are connected to the output paths of the three CD-ROM changers 31 to 33, respectively. Then, MPEG1 format video data output from the three CD-ROM changers 31 to 33 is input, video data from one of the paths is selected, decoded, and mood video is reproduced. Further, the two MPEG decoders 41 and 42 can also operate in parallel, and are alternately responsible for processing the material video data.

  The video effect processing unit 43 receives the two video signals from the MPEG decoders 41 and 42, and in addition to the switching operation for outputting the one video signal, the video effect processing unit 43 is input in parallel as necessary. Various video effect processing (overlap synthesis, video switching by fade-in / fade-out, wipe, etc.) is added to the video signal of the system, and the video signal after the video effect processing is output. The central control unit controls these hardware in accordance with script information to be described later, and appropriately combines the reproduced material images to edit them into a series of mood images. Next, the script information and the mood video editing process of the central control unit based on the script information will be described.

(III) Script Information The above script information is stored in the hard disk device in association with the music number. Therefore, each karaoke music piece and script information are associated with each other in a one-to-one relationship. Note that each song may be associated with the script information by preparing a karaoke song ID-script ID comparison table or the like. The outline of the script information is shown in FIG. In this script information, a music number, a video switching point, a video effect, and a material video storage location are described. A plurality of video switching points set during the performance period of one karaoke piece are designated by the point time data. This point time data describes the elapsed time from the performance start point in the music. The video effect specifies the type of video effect when the material video is switched at each video switching point, and the required time indicating how long the effect is to be performed. In the present embodiment, the video switching point time described above is a time for starting the video effect processing in consideration of the required time.

The material video storage position is specified by the storage location of the disk and the temporal position in the disk. The disk storage location is specified by the CD-ROM changer ID and the disk number in the changer, and the time position is specified by the minute / second / frame described above. In addition, the storage position of the material video is taken into consideration so that the same CD-ROM changer is not designated between successive video switching points, and here again, the occurrence of the time lag described above is avoided.
The storage location of the disc may be directly specified by the disc ID by preparing a comparison table in which the disc ID attached to each CD-ROM is associated with the storage location in the video database.

  By preparing the above-described script information, the material video used between the video switching points is directly and uniquely designated without using intermediate medium-like information related to music such as a genre. In addition, the playback start position can be specified in units of 1/75 second that is one frame time. Therefore, not only one scene but also a part of the video in one cut can be freely designated as a material video.

(IV) Mood video editing process The central control unit appropriately edits the material video used between the video switching points according to the script information, and edits it into a series of mood videos. FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of the editing process. When a karaoke song is requested, script information corresponding to the karaoke song is read from the hard disk device. When the performance of the music is started, the measurement of the elapsed performance time is also started. Then, it is compared with the time corresponding to the video switching point. Further, according to the material video storage position described at the first video switching point (performance start time), an appropriate CD-ROM changer is controlled and an appropriate CD-ROM is set in the driving device, and the described time position is set. The data is output starting from. Then, the video signal is output by causing the MPEG decoder of an appropriate system to decode the video data in real time. The output video signal is output to the display via the video effect processing unit and the video control unit (101 to 103).

  When the next video switching point time is reached, the next material video data is decoded by an MPEG decoder of a system different from the system that has decoded the material video up to that point. At this time, the video effect processing unit is controlled to perform video switching control while performing designated video effect processing (105, 106). Thereafter, similarly, the video from the designated time position of the designated CD-ROM is reproduced at the designated point time and sequentially switched (107 → 103).

=== Other Examples etc. ===
The script information is stored in the hard disk as data independent of the karaoke data, but can be attached to the karaoke data of each karaoke piece. In addition, a script information CD-ROM may be prepared without storing the script information in the hard disk. In this case, prior to the performance of the music, the corresponding script information is read from the CD-ROM and temporarily stored in the RAM or the like in the central control unit, whereby the mood video can be edited.
In addition, when adding a new song or updating script information, new script information may be distributed from the host device in a timely manner.

  Instead of a plurality of CD-ROM changers, it is composed of one disk tray for storing a large number of CD-ROMs and a plurality of CD-ROM driving devices. A method of taking out and setting in a predetermined CD-ROM drive device may be adopted. One example is shown in FIG. Under the control of the central control unit, the transport device 45 takes out the CD-ROM from the disc tray 34 and sets it in one of the three systems of CD-ROM drive devices 31b to 33b. The transport device 45 sets a CD-ROM from which data is read next in a CD-ROM drive device of another system in advance, thereby eliminating a time lag that occurs when the material video is switched.

The video data is not limited to the MPEG1 format, but may be an MPEG2 or other digital data, or an analog video signal such as an optical analog video disk. It is also possible to provide a video database by an appropriate recording medium for storing signals in the respective data formats, and video playback means for processing the video data in the respective formats and playing mood video. .
Of course, the main body of the karaoke apparatus does not need to be a performance terminal for the communication karaoke system, and it goes without saying that any karaoke apparatus of the type that edits the mood video by the shared video database system may be used.

It is a block diagram of the karaoke apparatus by the Example of this invention. It is a block diagram of the principal part in the mood image | video reproduction | regeneration system in the said Example. It is a schematic structure figure of the script information processed in the said Example. It is the flowchart which showed the mood video editing process which a central control part performs in the said Example. It is a block diagram of the other Example in the said mood image | video reproduction | regeneration system.

Explanation of symbols

1 Karaoke apparatus 11 Central control unit 22 Display 30 Video database 40 Video data playback unit

Claims (1)

A karaoke apparatus comprising a video database, a plurality of access means operable in parallel, two video playback means, a display means, a script database, and a control means, playing a karaoke song and outputting a mood video. ,
The video database stores video data of digitally encoded video for a long time,
The access means reads out and outputs the video data after the corresponding storage position from the video database based on the storage position data given by the control means,
The video reproduction means decodes and outputs the video data output from the access means,
The video effect processing means performs switching from the first video data output from one video playback means to the second video data output from the other video playback means in accordance with control by the control means. Perform video effect processing associated with switching,
The display means displays the video data output from the video effect processing means,
The script database stores the script information created for each karaoke song,
The script information includes a plurality of time data permutations, storage position data associated with each time data, and processing type designation data / processing time designation data associated with second and subsequent time data in the permutation. Including
The processing type designation data is data for designating the type of video effect processing performed by the video effect processing means.
The processing time designation data is data for designating the time required for the video effect processing performed by the video effect processing means.
When playing a certain karaoke song, the control means extracts the script information of the song from the script database, performs a video read process and a video switching process,
According to the elapsed time from the start of the performance, the video readout process controls the access means so that the video data corresponding to the corresponding storage location data in the script information is output from the video playback means in accordance with the time data in the script information. And
The video switching process is a karaoke apparatus that controls the video effect processing means based on the processing type designation data / processing time designation data in the script information in accordance with the time data in the script information according to the elapsed time from the start of the performance.

Images