Loading patent…
AssigneeFujitsu Limited
InventorsYouko Suzuki, Hiroyuki Hatta, Mamoru Udagawa, Hiroshi Niimi, Masayuki Ozawa, Kenji Tanaka
Estimating the term…
A video information server system which makes it possible for a party to remotely control any of a plurality of video information server apparatuses holding a plurality of types of video information different in type from each other through a communication network and thereby easily obtained desired video information, the system being provided with a video information server center including a plurality of video information server apparatuses and a center control equipment for selecting one of these apparatuses in accordance with a request from a request terminal and sending the video information of the request and the central control equipment being provided with a common management file for recording various data for converting requests from terminals compatible with all of the plurality of video information server apparatuses into requests corresponding to the individual apparatuses.
A video information server system comprising
A video information server center provided with a plurality of different video information server apparatuses which hold a plurality of types of video information and can be controlled by control signals from the outside and a center control apparatus which controls the video information server apparatuses through a switching control mechanism, selects one of the plurality of video information server apparatuses in accordance with a request from a request terminal to receive video information, and sends from the selected video information server apparatus the requested video information to the request terminal, wherein
A request terminal comprised of a data communication unit for connection through a communication network to a video information server center provided with a plurality of different types of video information server apparatuses and a common management file enabling control of these plurality of video information server apparatuses in a compatible manner and
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
Drawings are temporarily unavailable. Open the PDF at USPTO
No related US applications are recorded in the indexed filing history.
End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content…: for…
Transmission or handling of upstream communications: direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
Transmission or handling of upstream communications: handling of requests in head-ends
Pictorial communication
Term ended 6 Dec 2015 (estimated)
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video information server system and to a video information server center and request terminals constituting the same.
Video on demand (VOD) is being developed as one of the main multimedia services for the home. A VOD service would enable a home user to obtain any video information he or she desires immediately in real time at his or her request terminal.
The above object and features of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a view of the basic configuration of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a first part of a more specific view of the basic configuration shown in FIG. 1;
Before describing the embodiments of the present invention, the related art and the disadvantages therein will be described with reference to the related figures.
FIG. 17 is a view showing a first example of a video information server system of the related art. FIG. 18 is a view showing a second example of a video information server system of the related art. In these figures, reference numeral 3 is a video information server apparatus for holding video information. This video information server apparatus 3 is designed to be operated remotely from the outside by a computer (request terminal) 1, such as a PC. Accordingly, the computer 1 is connected to the video information server apparatus 3 through a serial port 5 provided at the computer 1.
A user desiring video information utilizes a mouse or keyboard to select from various commands shown on a video display unit (not shown) provided with the computer 1 so as to obtain the desired video information. The video information server apparatus 3 may be a video cassette player, a video disk player, a tuner, etc. If the apparatus 3 is a video cassette player, for example, the commands like "playback", "fast forward", "rewind", "pause", "stop" are shown on the screen of the video display unit as words or icons. The user selects the suitable command from these to obtain the desired video information.