JPH06261316A - Communication conference system among multi-spots - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [Purpose] It is possible to reduce the cost of communication for a multipoint communication conference system that communicates with each other through a group of multiple video terminals installed remotely and a node for multipoint communication. At the same time, the purpose is to be able to display the dialog status of the speaker in an easy-to-understand manner. [Structure] A terminal that participates in a conference to display speakers
Instead of always setting a bidirectional line between 302 to 305 and the multipoint video conference controller 300, set a unidirectional line for people other than those who frequently speak, and control the voice by controlling the voice. Add a two-way line only to the terminal that is recognized, and when the talk ends, transfer the right to speak to the other terminal and disconnect the added two-way line, and set the line to the other talking terminal. Not only the video of the speaker but also the video of the moderator or the former speaker is displayed in a composite manner.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multipoint communication conference system for communicating with each other through a plurality of remotely installed video terminal groups and a node for multipoint communication.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 9A shows an example of a conventional multipoint video conference system, and FIG. 9B shows a configuration example of a conventional multipoint video conference control device.

In FIG. 9 (A), 101, 102, 1
Reference numerals 03 and 104 denote video conference terminals, 110 a digital communication network, and 111 a multipoint video conference control device. In this configuration, each video conference terminal 101 to 104 sets a 64 kb / s digital bidirectional line such as 2B + D with the multipoint video conference control device 111, and exchanges video and audio signals with each other. And hold a teleconference. Here, the digital communication network 110 is a communication network such as an INS net.

The configuration of the multi-point video conference control device 111 is as shown in FIG. 9 (B). In the figure, 201, 202, 203 and 204 are line interfaces, 211, 212, 213 and 214 are video coding /
Decoding units, 221, 222, 223, and 224 are audio encoding / decoding units, 231 is a video switching distribution unit, 232 is an audio addition and distribution unit, 241 is a call control unit, and 242 is a control unit.

In this configuration, each terminal 101-104
And a line interface 201 to 204, a bidirectional digital line of 64 kb / s or the like is set based on an instruction from the call control unit 241.

The video and audio signals from the video conference terminal 101 are separated by the line interface 201, and the video encoding / decoding section 211 and the audio encoding / decoding section 2 are separated.
The video signal is decoded at 21, and the video signal is distributed by the video switching distribution unit 231 based on the instruction from each terminal.
Any of the video signals to 104 is switched. At the same time, the voice addition / distribution unit 232 performs N-1 addition for adding voices other than that of the own terminal. The switched video signal is coded again by the video coding / decoding unit 211 and transmitted to the line interface 201, and the audio signal is coded by the voice coding / decoding unit 221 and transferred to the line interface 201. It is transmitted, multiplexed, and transmitted to the video conference terminal 101.

Similar operations are performed for the line interfaces of the line interfaces 202 to 204. The control unit 2
At 42, based on a conference setting request from the video conference terminal 101, the call control unit 241 is instructed to perform line setting of the other video conference terminals 102 to 104, or depending on the number of terminals participating in this multipoint conference. Voice addition and distribution unit 23
The loss insertion amount of 2 is changed, and the voice addition / distribution unit 232
The speaker detection function based on the audio level monitoring in (1) gives a switching instruction to the video switching distribution unit 231 to instruct the speaker screen to be displayed.

[0008]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As described above,
In the conventional multipoint video conference system, a bidirectional line is always set up between each terminal and the multipoint video conference control device, and a voice signal is output from each terminal not speaking or not being seen. Also, since the video signal is always transmitted to the multipoint video conference control device, there is a problem that the efficiency of use of the transmission line is low. In addition, when switching speakers, only the speaker is displayed, which makes it difficult to understand the dialogue with the moderator and the relationship with the previous speaker.

[0009]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention makes it possible to efficiently use a communication network by utilizing a one-way line of a communication network such as a broadband ISDN and its distribution function. In addition to using the one-way line setting function in the multipoint video conference control device, the utterance control function is introduced to control the allocation of the person who speaks, and the speaker is displayed or the moderator or previous speaker is displayed. The combined display effectively uses the one-way line to display the dialog status of the speaker.

[0010]

In the multipoint communication conference system of the present invention, when the speaker is displayed, the bidirectional line is not always set up between the terminals participating in the conference and the multipoint video conference control device, but the person who frequently speaks. In addition to setting a one-way line, additionally setting a bi-directional line only for the terminal that is allowed to speak by controlling the speech, and when the speech ends, transfer the speaking right to other terminals and additionally set The two-way line is disconnected and the line is set up on another speaking terminal, so that not only the video of the speaker but also the video of the moderator or the previous speaker is displayed compositely.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of a connection configuration with a communication network in a multipoint video conference according to the present invention. Hereinafter, description will be given with reference to the drawings.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 300 is a multipoint video conference control device, 301 is a digital communication network, and 302 and 30.
3, 304 and 305 represent video conference terminals. here,
Video and audio signals are bidirectionally transmitted and received from the video conference terminal 303 and the video conference terminal 304 to the multipoint video conference control device 300.
2 and the video conference terminal 305 only receive the video and audio signals from the multipoint video conference control device 300. Regarding the data signal, a bidirectional packet line is set between each of the video conference terminals 302 to 305 and the multipoint video conference control device 300, and bidirectional communication is possible as necessary. .

FIG. 2 shows a configuration example of the multipoint video conference control device 300 according to the present invention.
6, 307, 308, 309 are line interfaces, 3
11, 312, 313, 314 are video encoding / decoding units, 321, 322, 323, 324 are audio encoding / decoding units, 331, 332, 333, 334 are data transmitting / receiving units, 341 is a call control unit, 342 is a control unit, 351 is a video switching distribution unit, 352 is an audio addition distribution unit, and 353 is a statement control unit.

In the configuration of FIG. 2, the call controller 341
Using the layer 3 extension of the SDN call control protocol,
As shown in FIG. 1, a bidirectional line is set up between the digital communication network 301 and the video conference terminals 303 and 304, and a unidirectional line is set up between the video conference terminals 302 and 305. Interface 30
7, 308 and line interfaces 306, 309
Then, it is multiplexed / demultiplexed into each media of video, audio and data.

Therefore, the video signals from the video conference terminals 303 and 304 are separated by the line interfaces 307 and 308, decoded by the video encoding / decoding units 312 and 313, respectively, and the video switching distribution unit 35.
After being switched in 1, the video encoding / decoding units 311 and 3
It is encoded by 12, 313, 314, multiplexed with other signals by the line interfaces 306, 307, 308, 309, transmission encoded, and transmitted to each terminal.

On the other hand, the video conference terminals 303 and 304
The voice signal from the line interface 307 and 3
08, and the audio encoding / decoding units 322 and 3 are separated.
After being decoded in 23, they are added in the audio addition and distribution unit 352, and the added signals are subtracted from the added signals to the video conference terminals 302 and 305, and their own audio signals are subtracted from the added signals to the video conference terminals 303 and 304 ( N-1 addition) is performed by the speech encoding / decoding units 321, 322, 323.
324, and the line interfaces 306 and 30 are encoded.
7, 308 and 309 are multiplexed and transmitted to each terminal.

Also, the video conference terminals 302 and 305.
When making a comment such as a question, the comment request command is sent as a data signal to the multipoint video conference control device 300, and the line interfaces 306 and 30 are transmitted.
After separating in 9, the data transmission / reception units 331 and 334 perform protocol termination, the utterance control circuit 353 selects either the video conference terminal 302 or 305, and this is transmitted to the control unit 342, and the terminal in which the utterance is admitted Then, the call control unit 341 sets up a bidirectional line for video and audio.
Further, the selection result is also transmitted to the voice addition / distribution unit 352, and the voice encoding / decoding unit 321 or 324 issues a voice signal addition instruction.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the configuration of the voice addition / distribution unit. In the figure, 361, 362, 363, 364 represent subtraction circuits, and 365, 366, 367, 368 represent loss insertion circuits corresponding to the number of communication points. Further, 369 indicates an adder circuit.

For example, when there are N lines of voice signals to be added, Log (N-
1) Insert a dB loss. Because of this, as a voice addition method, N-adding is performed by excluding the N addition and the voice from the self terminal by the full addition unit from each terminal.
Take the method of adding one. As a method of using this voice addition, N-1 addition is performed for terminals with a bidirectional line set, and N (full) addition is distributed to terminals with a one-way line set without speaking. To do.

From the terminal for which the speech request is accepted,
The video signal of the speaker is transmitted from the camera, switched by the video switching distribution unit 351 of the multipoint video conference control device 300, and distributed to each terminal including the speaking terminal. It should be noted that since a bidirectional video line is set for the speaker's terminal, the user's video can be displayed, or the video of another terminal can be switched and displayed.

FIG. 4 shows an example of line setting. Figure 4 (A)
Indicates a case where both the video conference terminals 302 and 305 have issued a request for speech, which is indicated by a broken line. Video conference terminals 303 and 304 and multipoint video conference control device 3
A bidirectional line (solid line) is set between 00 and 00. On the other hand, only one-way lines are set for the terminals 302 and 305, and the same information is transmitted (distributed) to the terminals.

In FIG. 4B, the multipoint video conference control device 300 selects the video conference terminal 3 among the two speech requests.
The request of No. 05 is selected and the bidirectional line to the video conference terminal 305 side is additionally set. Here, since the original distribution line is still set on the side of the video conference terminal 305, it is necessary to switch this to the newly set voice line during speech. The newly set voice line is N-1 in the multipoint video conference controller 300.
It has been added.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the speech control circuit 353. In the figure, reference numeral 371 represents a speaking right granting unit, and 372 represents a monitoring period counter. In response to a plurality of utterance requests, the monitoring period counter 372 periodically checks the presence / absence of requests, confirms the utterance end state, sends a utterance enable signal to the data transmitting / receiving unit 334, and sends it to the call control unit 341. Then, the control unit 342 is instructed to newly issue an instruction to add line settings to the speech terminal 305, the video switching distribution unit 351 and the voice addition distribution unit 352.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the configuration of a video switching / distributing unit for reducing and synthesizing video according to the present invention. 401, 4 in the figure
Reference numerals 02, 403, and 404 represent reduction units, 411 represents a matrix switch unit, and 412 represents a screen control unit. The matrix switch unit 411 in the figure shows a state in which the video conference terminal 305 is speaking after acquiring the floor.

Video encoding / decoding units 311, 312, 3
The video signal decoded from 13, 314 is as it is,
Alternatively, every other pixel in the horizontal and vertical directions is taken by the reduction units 401, 402, 403, and 404, thinned to 1/2 and sent to the matrix switch unit 411. Based on the control from 412, the timing of the gate switch is adjusted and combined.

For example, in the composite signal to the video conference terminal 302, the video signal from the video encoding / decoding unit 314 is directly gated (corresponding to the gate of a black box), and the video encoding / decoding unit 311 is used. Is video coded with.
In addition, as a composite signal to the video conference terminal 303, a video signal obtained by thinning out the video signal from the video encoding / decoding unit 313 by the reduction unit 403 and a video signal from the video conference terminal 305 are directly combined positions on the screen. Are gated at a timing corresponding to, are encoded by the video encoding / decoding circuit 312, and are transmitted to the video conference terminal 303. Similarly, regarding the video conference terminals 304 and 305, the screen of the moderator of the video conference terminal 303 and the video conference terminal 305, respectively.
The matrix switch unit 41 displays the composite screen of the speakers of the previous conference and the screen of the previous speaker of the video conference terminal 304.
The timing of the 1 gate is adjusted.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the combination timing of the gates of the matrix switch section 411. This figure shows the timing of combining the reduced screen of the video conference terminal 304 with the normal screen of the video conference terminal 305 when displaying on the video conference terminal 303. As shown in the figure, the composition is performed at the timing corresponding to the small screen portion for each line of each field.

FIG. 8 shows an example of video screen display on each terminal. In the video conference terminal 302, the normal screen of the speaker of the video conference terminal 305 is displayed as shown in FIG. At the conference terminal 303, a screen in which the small screen of the previous speaker of the video conference terminal 304 is combined with the screen of the speaker of the video conference terminal 305 is displayed as shown in (B), and at the video conference terminal 304, (C). As shown in, a screen in which the small screen of the speaker of 305 is combined with the normal screen of the moderator of the video conference terminal 303 is displayed, and in the video conference terminal 305, the previous message of the video conference terminal 304 is displayed as shown in (D). Are displayed.

In this way, when a teleconference is held between a plurality of remote videoconference terminals, the utterance control is performed except for the participants who frequently utter, and only the terminal that has acquired the right to speak is newly interactive. While setting the video and audio line of
Efficiently by synthesizing the screen of the speaker as it is, or reducing and synthesizing the images of other moderators and former speakers, while allocating the voice by adding N-1 or N. You will be able to proceed to the meeting.

In the above example, the display example of the speaker, the composite display of the video of the previous speaker reduced with the speaker, the composite display of the video of the reduced speaker with the moderator, and the display example of the previous speaker are shown. However, when combining two or more reduced screens in the same screen,
Shifting the position on the screen or changing the size of the reduced screen can be easily realized by changing the timing adjustment of the matrix switch unit 411 based on an instruction from the screen control unit 412.

[0031]

As described above, the number of people who frequently speak is limited to a few people in a normal conference, and the majority of the people are listeners in many cases. It is possible to effectively use the lines of, the cost of communication can be reduced, and the use efficiency of the communication network can be improved.

Further, by combining and displaying the speaker image and the previous speaker image by the utterance control, the substantial participants can be displayed, and the communication complexity can be efficiently advanced without the complexity of the display due to the screen switching. be able to.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a multipoint video conference according to the present invention, which is an example of a connection configuration with a communication network.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a multipoint video conference control device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a voice addition / distribution unit.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of line setting according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a speech control circuit.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a video switching distribution unit.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a combination timing of video signals of the matrix switch section according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a video screen display on the video conference terminal according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a conventional multipoint video conference system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 300 multipoint video conference control device 301 digital communication network 302 to 305 video conference terminal 306 to 309 line interface 311 to 314 video encoding / decoding unit 321 to 324 voice encoding / decoding unit 331 to 334 data transmitting / receiving unit 341 Call control unit 342 Control unit 351 Video switching distribution unit 352 Voice addition distribution unit 353 Statement control unit

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (72) Masami Kinoshita Masami Kinoshita 1-chome, 3-1, Asahigaoka, Hino-shi, Tokyo Inside the Toshiba Hino Plant, a company of formula company (72) Inventor Toshiyuki Nakaji 1-3-1, Asahigaoka, Hino, Tokyo Stock Company Toshiba Hino Factory

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A multimedia line including a plurality of video, audio and data is set between a plurality of video conference terminal groups and a processing device for multi-point communication conference, and the video conference terminal group and the multi-point communication conference are set. Between the video processing devices, the video signal from the camera of one of the video conference terminals is switched and distributed, and the audio signal from the microphone of the video conference terminal is added and processed to be distributed. In the communication conference system, means for setting unidirectional and bidirectional lines between the video conference terminal group and the processing device for multipoint communication conference; and the television in the processing device for multipoint communication conference. A voice adding / distributing means for fully adding and distributing the voice signals of the conference terminal group, an N-1 adding / distributing means for adding and distributing voices other than the own terminal, and a case where the terminal of the videoconference terminal group has a request to speak. To,
A means for detecting the request for speech, a statement control means for notifying whether or not the request for speech is possible to one or more video conference terminals selected from the detected request for speech, and a request for speaking. Means for setting up a bidirectional line to the video conference terminal, and means for notifying and adding the voice of the video conference terminal for which a speech request is possible to the voice addition and distribution means and the N-1 addition and distribution means. A means for receiving a speech end notification when the speech ends and controlling the call so as to disconnect the added bidirectional line and restore the original line setting; and a video signal of the speech terminal and the video conference terminal group. And a pixel of one signal in the image of the immediately preceding speech terminal is thinned out and reduced, and these video signals are combined and distributed to the video conference terminal group. Multi-point-to-point communication conference system according to claim Rukoto.