1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic program guide (EPG) generation apparatus, ad and EPG generation method.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the start of digital broadcasting, the spread of the Internet, and the integration of televisions and computers, opportunities for television users to display an EPG on a television screen or the like and view programs, schedule recordings, and so on have increased in recent years.
Here, EPG stands for “Electronic Program Guide”. An EPG arranges and displays broadcasted programs in a matrix. With this matrix display, for example, the EPG displays channels and times two-dimensionally, and each program that makes up the EPG is displayed in a size proportional to the length of broadcast time of that program, as described in Japanese Patent No. 2838892. In order to make such an EPG more convenient for the viewer, it is desirable to, for example, simultaneously display as many time slots as possible for all channels.
Because the area in which the EPG is displayed is physically limited by the television screen, when as much program information as possible is displayed within that limited area, a sufficient display area cannot be secured for short programs, such as programs that run for several minutes. This results in an abbreviated display, in which only the frame or the like is used for program displays of short programs running for several minutes.
In response to this, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-28244 proposes an invention that alters the cell size of the matrix in accordance with the amount of information of each program in a matrix-type EPG. However, in this case, there are situations where many pieces of program information (channels) cannot be displayed in the display area.
In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-219297 proposes an invention that displays plural short programs collectively in a pop-up display. However, while it is possible to view the short programs through the pop-up display, the user is required to perform operations for displaying/hiding the pop-up display, and thus the usability decreases. Furthermore, the programs hidden beneath the pop-up display cannot be viewed while the pop-up display is active, and thus the original function of the EPG, which is viewing the details of various programs all at once, cannot be realized sufficiently.
In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-194250 proposes an invention that switches between a normal display in which the short programs are omitted and a detailed display in which the short programs are displayed through a user operation. However, the user is required to perform operations in this case as well; furthermore, the display of long programs is partially omitted in order to perform the detailed display, thus defeating the original purpose of the EPG display, which is to display a list of program information.
It should be noted that a method is known in which the program information display is performed after changing the display area, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-169203. However, there is a visual problem that if the area of a program having a broadcast time of less than a set amount of time is changed and the display performed, the program having a broadcast time of less than the set amount of time will in some cases be displayed at a size inconsistent with the ratio of the length of the broadcast time, and thus the length of the program cannot be judged from the size of the program display.
As described above, when displaying an electronic program guide, although display of the time slots of programs can be performed in accordance with the length of the broadcast time, information relating to a program cannot be displayed without being limited by the length of the broadcast time.