|Numéro de publication||US7406702 B2|
|Type de publication||Octroi|
|Numéro de demande||US 09/942,690|
|Date de publication||29 juil. 2008|
|Date de dépôt||31 août 2001|
|Date de priorité||22 janv. 2001|
|État de paiement des frais||Payé|
|Autre référence de publication||EP1225717A2, EP1225717A3, US8045710, US20020097879, US20080273705|
|Numéro de publication||09942690, 942690, US 7406702 B2, US 7406702B2, US-B2-7406702, US7406702 B2, US7406702B2|
|Cessionnaire d'origine||Hitachi, Ltd.|
|Exporter la citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Citations de brevets (33), Référencé par (10), Classifications (41), Événements juridiques (3)|
|Liens externes: USPTO, Cession USPTO, Espacenet|
The present invention relates to a method for broadcasting contents such as visual images and audio sounds, as well as to a receiver for receiving the contents broadcast by that method.
Contents such as visual images and audio sounds (i.e., net information excluding added data), to be telecast or transmitted by radio conventionally over such media as cables or radio waves, are broadcast and received simultaneously. In that setup, when to broadcast programs is determined solely by the transmitting side, and the media band width is monopolized by the contents being transmitted. If any contents are desired to be broadcast a plurality of times, the entire contents must be transmitted as many times.
If the contents are visual images that are digitally compressed, they still require a broad bandwidth for transmission. One way to ease the monopoly of the media by transmission of such huge data involves having digitally compressed and encrypted contents stored on a suitable storage medium (e.g., DVD) that may be distributed illustratively by mail while broadcasting only a decryption key for eventual decryption of the contents (as proposed by Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application, publication No. 11-213553). The decryption key may be acquired by subscribers only.
The proposed way of distributing contents requires that users as subscribers receive both encrypted contents and a decryption key to decrypt the received contents. The users may play back the contents whenever they want and however they want it. Unlike conventional broadcasting, the contents in general are not reproduced by the receiving side at any specific time dictated by the broadcasting side.
To simultaneously broadcast and receive contents requires securing a broad band width for transmission, as mentioned above. Meanwhile, digitizing contents makes it possible for the distributing party to adopt, besides the above-described use of storage media, various rational means of distribution such as dividing the contents into a plurality of narrow band widths for transmission, and transmitting the contents on a narrow band width over an extended period of time. In such cases, simultaneity is lost. Still, the distributing party (i.e., the broadcaster) has numerous contents that the broadcaster wants to be received at predetermined times by the receiving side. Conventional techniques have so far been incapable of embracing such rational means of distributing contents while meeting the requirement for the contents to be viewed and/or heard in any intended time.
Where the same contents are to be broadcast a number of times, it may be desirable to transmit the contents only once before their repeated, predetermined playback so that they may utilize a broad band width as efficiently as possible. However, broadcasting arrangements offering these features have yet to be implemented by conventional techniques.
It is therefore a first object of the present invention to overcome the above and other deficiencies of the prior art and to provide a broadcasting method and a broadcast receiver whereby contents are broadcast and received without being viewed on the spot by the receiving side, so that the broadcast contents are later viewed at a time predetermined by the broadcasting side.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a broadcasting method and a broadcast receiver whereby broadcast contents are protected against being viewed at any time other than the predetermined time by the broadcasting side.
The first object may be achieved according to one aspect of the present invention, which provides a broadcasting method comprising the steps of: broadcasting contents along with a begin store command in a first time period, the begin store command causing the contents to be stored onto a storage medium at a receiving side; and broadcasting a play command in a second time period subsequent to the first time period, the play command causing the contents stored on the storage medium to be retrieved therefrom for audio and visual playback.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a broadcast receiver comprising: a receiver for receiving contents broadcast in a first time period along with a begin store command causing the contents to be stored, and a play command broadcast in a second time period subsequent to the first time period, the play command causing the stored contents to be retrieved for playback; a storage medium for storing the contents received; and a processor for storing the contents onto the storage medium in accordance with the received begin store command and for retrieving the contents from the storage medium for playback in accordance with the received play command.
The second object may be achieved by preferably implementing a broadcast receiver wherein the contents broadcast in the first time period may be encrypted, wherein the play command broadcast in the second time period may include a decryption key for decrypting the encrypted contents, and wherein the processor may retrieve the encrypted contents from the storage medium and decrypt the retrieved contents for playback. In the preferred setup, the processor may further store the received decryption key into a memory and delete the decryption key from the memory after decrypting the encrypted contents using the decryption key.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in view of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments in conjunction with accompanying drawings.
Preferred embodiments of this invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Illustratively, satellite broadcasting is implemented in a setup where most of the available channel band width is allocated to a telecast and the rest of the band width is used to permit a plurality of data broadcasts. In that setup, the remaining band width is further divided into parts for the multiple broadcasts, so that each band width part is significantly narrow. Such a narrow band width, however, is sufficient for each data transmission.
In the time period A, the encrypted content 100 is received by a constantly operating receiver and stored on a storage medium at the receiving side. The stored content 100 is retrieved in accordance with each play command in the sub data 101 broadcast in a subsequent time period. The retrieved content 100 is played back while being decrypted.
The time at which to broadcast the sub data 101 on the content 100 is predetermined by the distributing party (broadcasting side). That means the content 100 is played back by the receiving side only at the time designated beforehand by the distributing party. At any other time, the encrypted content 100 is protected against unauthorized decryption and playback because play commands are not distributed.
It is possible to broadcast the play command as part of the sub data 101 a plurality of times in the time period B. This allows the content 100 to be played back as many times using the broadcast play commands. That is, the content is broadcast only once while the distributed content may later be played back as many time as designated.
Below is a detailed description in sequence of how contents are typically distributed and received.
The contents 100 are encrypted in step 201 using a different encryption key for each content. For example, a content Ci is encrypted by use of an encryption key KEi unique to the content Ci. That encryption process generates an encrypted content KEi(Ci).
The receiver 402 is a satellite broadcasting receiver. However, this invention is not limited to satellite broadcasting but may be applied to various broadcasting systems such as terrestrial broadcasting, communication satellite broadcasting, and CATV. In keeping with any of such setups that may be adopted, a terrestrial broadcasting receiver, a communication satellite receiver or a set-top box may be utilized.
The audio visual output device 403 is made up of an amplifier and speakers if the content is composed only of audio data. The output device 403 may further include a monitor or other suitable display unit if the content is made up of visual data.
The content storage device 410 may be any one of such devices as a hard disc drive (magnetic disk drive), a DVD-RAM/RW drive and a flash memory. The memory 411 is typically implemented in the form of a DRAM. The program storage device 412 may be any one of such devices as a hard disc drive, a flash memory and a ROM.
The process in step 301 of receiving and storing the encrypted content, shown in
An encrypted content KEi(Ci) 503 received following the identifier 502 is then stored onto the content storage device 410 (in step 604). At this point, the correspondence between the identifier CRID(Ci) and the content KEi(Ci), which will be needed later in decrypting and playing back the content, is determined by this embodiment establishing CRID(Ci) as the name of a file in which to store KEi(Ci). That is, the identifier CRID(Ci) is stored as directory information on the content storage device 410.
The encrypted content KEi(Ci) is stored continuously until an end store command 504 is received (in step 605). Upon receipt of the end store command 504, the processor terminates the process of receiving and storing the encrypted content 100 (in step 606).
The process in step 302 of receiving a play command and the process in step 303 of decrypting and playing back the encrypted content, shown in
Based on the identifier CRID(Ci) 703, the processor identifies and retrieves the encrypted content from the content storage device 410 (in step 804). With this embodiment, the file having a file name of CRID(Ci) 703 is an encrypted content file. The processor then decrypts the encrypted content using the decryption key KDi 704 held in the memory (in step 805) and outputs the decrypted content to the audio visual output device 403 (in step 806). After the output, the processor deletes the decryption KDi 704 from the memory (in step 807).
Where the processing above is performed, the receiver has only the encrypted content 100 retained therein at any time except at a predetermined playback time, whereby the content is protected against unauthorized decryption and reproduction. For playback, a play command, an identifier CRID(Ci) 703 and a decryption key KDi 704 need only be broadcast. That means a narrow band width is sufficient for the purpose.
After viewing a content, a user may want to purchase that content. In that case, the user may buy only the decryption key KDi 704 over a suitable network.
Although the embodiment above has been described as distributing contents by utilizing all band widths dedicated to data broadcasts, this is not limitative of the invention. If the contents to be sent are not large enough in data size to occupy the entire band widths, only those band widths commensurate with the data size may be employed. The invention is not limited to using data broadcasts; it may also be implemented by utilizing spare time periods in TV and radio broadcasts.
As described and according to the invention, an encrypted content is transmitted in a time period such as midnight when ordinary broadcast contents are not distributed, so that the encrypted content is stored and later decrypted for playback by subsequent transmission of text information of a limited data size, a play command, an identifier for identifying the content in question, and a decryption key. This method allows contents to be broadcast using a narrow band width and played back in a sequence and in a manner predetermined by the distributing party.
Where the same content such as a commercial is to be broadcast a number of times during a given broadcast time period, the content need only be broadcast once for storage, followed by a play command, a content identifier and a decryption key transmitted as many times as desired.
Because the decryption key is transmitted exactly when the content corresponding to the key is to be played back from storage and because the key is deleted the moment the playback is terminated, the content is enjoyed only during the time period predetermined by the distributing party and not in any other time period. This feature protects contents against unauthorized decryption and playback.
If users wishes to purchase a content, they need only buy in a suitable manner a decryption key corresponding to the content in question.
While the present invention has been described above in conjunction with the preferred embodiments, one of ordinary skill in the art would be enabled by this disclosure to make various modifications to this embodiment and still be within the scope and spirit of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
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|Classification aux États-Unis||725/25, 455/26.1, 348/E05.007, 725/63, 348/E07.063|
|Classification internationale||H04N21/61, H04N7/167, H04N21/458, H04N5/44, G06F21/10, H04N21/433, H04H20/42, H04H20/00, H04H60/04, H04H60/23, H04N5/76, H04L9/00, H04B1/16, H04H60/16, G06F21/24, H04N5/91|
|Classification coopérative||H04H20/42, H04H60/23, H04H20/40, H04H60/16, H04N7/165, H04N21/63345, H04N21/6543, H04H60/04, H04N21/4331, H04N21/26241|
|Classification européenne||H04N21/262C4, H04N21/6543, H04N21/433C, H04N21/6334K, H04N7/16E3, H04H20/42, H04H20/40, H04H60/16, H04H60/23, H04H60/04|
|27 juin 2006||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: HITACHI, LTD., JAPAN
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:HASEGAWA, TAKASHI;REEL/FRAME:017859/0290
Effective date: 20010830
|28 déc. 2011||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|11 mars 2016||REMI||Maintenance fee reminder mailed|