The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for automatically recording a content such as a television program according to various operations with reference to the preference of users, and also relates to a recording medium and a program thereof.
In digital television broadcasting which has gotten into stride in recent years, EPG information which includes information showing a program title (title character sequence information), information explaining the details of the program and the like are transmitted from the broadcast station together with the video and audio data of the programs. A television receiver of the digital broadcasting correspondence can display an electronic program guide on the screen according to the EPG information.
Furthermore, there is some analog television broadcasting where such EPG information is also transmitted.
In the prior art, users carried out the operation of the video-recording and/or the video-record reservation in order to record the programs for such a television receiver. More specifically, users carried out the operation of the video-recording at the time they found programs they wanted to record or carried out the operation of the video-record reservation at the time they found programs they wanted to record in the electronic program guide while they were channel surfing (channel change operation).
Further, there are some television receivers which have a function in which users can carry out a registering operation of preference information such as program names and keywords such that recording reservations can be performed by searching programs according to the registered preference information. In the case of such television receivers, users sometimes carried out the operation of the video-recording and/or the video-record reservation by finding programs which they wanted to record in the program search result.
However, it takes a lot of trouble and time to carry out surfing of many channels in the digital television broadcasts or to confirm programs of these many channels by the electronic program guide and at the same time, there is a possibility to overlook programs which are desired to be recorded.
Further, in recent years, it has become possible to record a lot of programs on a high-capacity recording medium such as a hard disc, but it also takes a lot of trouble and time if the video-recording operation and/or the video-record reserving operation is performed for each of the individual programs when a lot of programs are intended to be recorded and at the same time, there is a possibility that some programs will be missed (not recorded).
Furthermore, there were inconveniences as shown as (a) to (c) hereinafter in the video-record reservation function according to the preference information such as program names and keywords which were registered by users.
(a) In recent years, the preferences of users have become complicated and diversified. Therefore, it takes a lot of trouble and time to register all the preference information. Additionally, there are not a few cases where the preference cannot be expressed well only by the program names or keywords and in such a case, exact preference information cannot be registered.
(b) If the preference of the users changes in accordance with the lapse of time, the registration operation must be renewed.
(c) There are various operations other than the keyword registering operation in the operations of the users relating to the preference of the programs, but these operations are not reflected on the video-record reservation.
In view of the aforementioned problem, the present invention was made according to a subject in which a content such as a television program can be recorded automatically in compliance with the complicated and diversified preferences of users according to various operations of the users relating to the preference of the content.