Audio queue management system

AUDIO QUEUE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Field of the invention

The present invention relates to audio broadcasting and more particularly the invention relates to a system and method for an audio queue management system in which a number of system users requests to make a broadcast on a broadcast network are queued in a predetermined sequence.

Background of the invention

A local area broadcast system may be used to relay messages over a broadcast network system for the purposes of relaying information and/or music. One type of local area broadcast system involves a broadcast network from which a multiplicity of system users can access the broadcast network system by simply pressing a button on a microphone or telephone set so as to speak into the device and thereby relay information over the broadcast network. One limitation with this type of system is that as there may be more than one user who wishes to transmit an audio message over the broadcast system at any one time, during periods of heavy traffic wherein a number of system users wish to relay messages on the broadcast network, a bottleneck situation will occur wherein some people cannot gain access to the broadcast system or multiple users attempt to simultaneously use the system.

In circumstances in which system users can not gain access to the broadcast network, delays may occur wherein system users are prevented from expeditiously transmitting audio messages over the network. This can severely limit the efficiency of the operations of a business as a delay results due to a reduction in the rate with which information can be broadcast to the broadcast system. For example, in airports wherein a number of airline companies may wish to broadcast their messages to their customers at any one time and in which the administrator of the airport may in fact wish to transmit an audio message over the system, there is no convenient way in which requests to deliver messages over the broadcast network can be apportioned.

Summary of the invention

It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved audio management system.

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According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an audio queue management system comprising:

an audio broadcast means tor broadcasting an audio signal over a broadcast network:

a plurality of audio input devices connected to said audio broadcast means, each device 5 adapted to receive a request for an audio broadcast from any one of a plurality of system users and to transmit an audio broadcast over said broadcast network:

status indication means provided on each audio input device for indicating broadcast authorisation of an audio broadcast from said audio input device: and a queue sequence means adapted to sequence said plurality of audio broadcast requests initiated from said plurality of audio input devices for broadcast over said audio broadcast means in an ordered manner, wherein in use, said queue sequence means transmits to each status indication means of said plurality of audio input devices, broadcast authorisation for transmission of an audio broadcast over said broadcast network.

In one embodiment of the invention, the status indication means is by way of variable colour change which occurs for each status change and the variable colour change may consists of three different colours for each status change.

In a second embodiment of the invention, the status indication means is by way of a sound which is emitted for each status change. Other embodiments can indicate status changes by the display of information on display devices such as LCD displays or the like.

The status can be any one of the following conditions for broadcast authorisation:

when authorisation of a user to broadcast over said audio broadcast means is permitted;

when authorisation is about to be permitted for a user to broadcast over said audio broadcast means: and when a user is not permitted to broadcast over said audio broadcast means.

Furthermore, each request within said sequence of broadcast requests may be given a priority according to predefined criteria.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of queuing a plurality of audio broadcast transmissions comprising the steps of:

providing an audio broadcast means for broadcasting an audio signal over a broadcast network;

connecting a plurality of audio input devices to said audio broadcast means, each device being adapted to receive a request for an audio broadcast from any one of a plurality of broadcast network users and to transmit an audio broadcast over said broadcast network:

providing a status indication means on each audio input device for indicating broadcast authorisation of an audio broadcast from said audio input device; and queuing in a sequence a plurality of audio broadcast requests initiated from said plurality of audio input devices for broadcast over said audio broadcast means in an ordered manner and wherein each status indication means of said plurality of audio input devices indicates to a user that broadcast authorisation is provided for transmission of an audio broadcast over said broadcast network.

In one implementation of the invent, the audio input devices record the audio message in total and forward the message to a central computer for broadcast in an ordered, queued manner.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an audio terminal for use with the system as defined above, comprising:

a casing;

a speech input means connected to the casing and adapted to record a users speech;

a status indication means provided on the casing and adapted to indicate broadcast authorisation of an audio broadcast from said audio input device.

In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided an audio queue management system comprising:

an audio broadcast means for broadcasting an audio signal over a broadcast network;

a plurality of audio input devices connected to the audio broadcast means, each device adapted to receive a request for an audio broadcast and record associated audio message data from any one of a plurality of system users and to transmit an audio broadcast over the broadcast network;

status indication means provided on each audio input device for indicating broadcast authorisation of an audio broadcast from the audio input device: and a queue sequence means adapted to sequence the plurality of audio broadcast requests initiated from the plurality of audio input devices for broadcast over the audio broadcast means in an ordered manner.

In one embodiment, the audio broadcast means is interconnected to multiple different broadcast networks and the system further includes a broadcast network selection means for selecting one of the multiple broadcast networks for transmission of the audio signal.

Where in the specification the word “comprising” or comprised” is used, unless otherwise stated explicitly, the word is to be interpreted inclusively rather than exclusively.

Brief description of the drawings

Notwithstanding any other forms which may fall within the scope of the present 15 invention, preferred forms of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. 1 shows a schematic illustration of one embodiment of an audio queue management system;

Fig. 2 shows an illustration of a computer display of an application program which 20 would be seen by a user of client computer in the audio queue management system of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 shows a second embodiment of a queue management system; and

Fig. 4 shows a schematic illustration of an audio terminal which is used in the embodiment of Fig. 3.

Detailed Description of the Preferred and other Embodiments

The embodiments herein described provide an audio queue management system in which a plurality of audio broadcast requests are received by a broadcast transmission network.

The broadcast transmission network contains computer code that sequences the received requests and places them in a queue so as that the plurality of users can each make a broadcast over the broadcast transmission network in an ordered manner. The end-user is provided with an indicator of their comment status in the queue.

Referring to Fig. 1. a first embodiment implemented in a computer local are network environment is illustrated. In Fig. 1. there is shown a first embodiment of an audio queue management system 10 in which, for the purposes of description, it is assumed that a common LAN type network is utilised and, in particular a common Microsoft Windows NT (trade mark) network is utilised to operate the system. The LAN network comprises a number of personal computers or client PCs shown by way of illustration as client PCs: 12; 14; 16: and 18. Each of the client PCs has a microphone attached, as shown respectively as microphones: 12A; 14A: 16A; and 18A. Each of the microphones 12A-18A allow an end-user to speak into the microphone, thereby digitally recording an audio signal of their speech digitally recorded via a sound card onto a hard disk provided in each of the client PCs 12-18.

Also connected to the LAN is a supervisor PC 20 who has supervisory access to the audio queue management system as will be explained below.

The LAN is supported by a server PC 22 which is connected to a broadcast network shown schematically as 24 which converts the digital audio data into an analogue audio signal which is amplified and emitted to the local area of the broadcast system 10 by any one of the speakers shown generally as 24.

Referring now to Fig. 2, there is shown a graphical display 29 of a computer screen which would be seen by any one of the client PCs 12 to 18 or supervisor PC 20. The display 29 is generated by an application program (not shown) which is resident on each of the client PCs 12-18 and supervisor PC 20.

The identification of the terminal at display area 28 which illustrates that the screen in this example is client terminal “14”. The display area 30 shows the status of the request that the user of terminal “14” is in at any time and this status request may be any one of the following: “QUEUED”: “STAND-BY; or “SPEAKING”. For the purposes of illustration, an example of one broadcast request made by the user of client terminal 14 will now be described.

When system user of client terminal 14 wishes to request a broadcast transmission over the broadcast network 24, they select “REQUEST BROADCAST” icon 32 on the display 29.

They then speak into the microphone associated with the PC so as to record their request which is initially saved on hard disk. Once the user of client terminal 14 has finished making their speech, they select the “STOP BROADCAST’ icon 36 and their message is completed.

The request and associated audio data is then sent over the LAiN from client terminal 14 to the server terminal 22. The server terminal 22 maintains a “queue list of all the requests which have been made up until that time to the broadcast network 24. A display of the “queue list” is shown on terminal 14 in display area 34.

Reviewing the queue list in Fig. 2, the client terminal 18 is actually speaking over the broadcast system, the client terminal 16 which is second in the queue is on stand-by and the client terminals 14, 12 and 20 have been respectively queued”. A scroll bar on the right hand side of the display area 34 can be used to look at any other terminals which are on the queue list. As can be seen at display area 30, the status field of the display area shows that the request to transmit an audio signal has been queued.

The speaker of terminal 18 is being broadcast via the server PC 22 through the broadcast network 24 which is converting digitised audio signal data received from terminal 18 into an analogue signal which is then amplified and broadcast over each of the speakers 26.

After the client terminal 18 has finished speaking, client terminal 16 which has previously been on stand-by then begins to speak and client terminal 14 then goes to stand-by mode and this change in status is reflected in the display area 30 of display 29. which is shown as “STAND-BY”.

After client terminal 16 has finished speaking, the status display area 30 of the client terminal 14 changes to “SPEAKING” mode indicating that the user's message is being is transmitted over the loudspeaker.

During the time that client terminal 14 is being sent out over the loud speakers, the client terminal 12 has been placed on stand-by and after they have finished speaking client terminal 20 (the supervisor terminal) then goes into speaking mode.

Should at any time one of the users who is on stand-by or in the queued mode wish not to broadcast a transmission, they can select that “CANCEL icon 38 on the display to terminate the request.

At any time during the transmission by any one of the client terminals, priority can be given by the system 10 to an audio message from the supervisor PC 20 who has administrative access to the system and who can override the sequence of signals as shown in the queue list 34.

This is particularly useful for when there is an emergency situation and the supervisor needs to make a broadcast which has priority over that of the queued request from terminals 12-18.

Additionally, although not shown on the display in Fig. 2, the software which runs on 5 the PC may enable any one of the terminals to make “a priority request” in which they may be given priority in the sequence to override the other terminals on the system in order to relay important information.

A second embodiment will now be described. Referring to Fig. 3. there is shown a second embodiment of an audio queue management system 50 which includes a number of audio terminals 52 to 64, and a supervisor audio terminal 66. Each of the terminals 52 to 66 are connected via data bus 61 which connects each of the audio terminals to the broadcast network 68 so that digitised audio data can be transmitted from the audio terminals 52-64 to the broadcast network 68.

A computer is in the form of PC 69 operates the broadcast network 68 which converts the digitised audio signal received from the audio terminal 52 to 66 into an amplified analogue signal which is to be broadcast out of the speakers 70.

Referring to Fig. 4 there is shown schematically a suitable front panel of an audio terminal 80 which is analogous to any one of the audio terminals 52 to 66. The audio terminal 80 has a key pad 82 with digits 0 to 9 and an asterisk and arrow key on the bottom left side and a hash and arrow key on the bottom right side. The column of keys shown at 84 are function keys as will be explained below.

There is also an LCD display 86 which displays a queue list of requested broadcasts from any one of the terminals 52-66, an activation button 88, a microphone 90 and an LED light 92 which is adapted to display three colours; red; amber; green.

In use, the user enters their ID pin number onto the key pad 82 so as to gain access to the broadcast network 68. The PC 69 verifies the ID pin number of the user to gain access to the broadcast network 68.

In order to make a request to broadcast a transmission, the user select the ^,kstart/serve” function key as shown in column 84 and they are queued into the queue list by the broadcast network 68. The PC 69 has an application program provided on it which sequences the requests received by any one of terminals 52 to 66. so that for a plurality of requests, the timing of a broadcast from each of the terminals is queued so that the sequence of broadcasts is made in an ordered manner.

At the time of making the request, the LED 92 is the colour red which indicates to the user that they are not able to talk through the microphone 90 as other broadcast messages are being broadcast through the network 68 to speakers 70. A display 86 can show the queue list of users which have made requests and their order in the queue or any other information which may pertain to the broadcast network system. The queue list can be quite similar to the queue list 34 described in the first embodiment above. The user may scroll up and down the queue list by using the down and up arrows located on the key pad 82.

When the user is next in the sequence list to the user which is currently speaking over the broadcast network system, the LED 92 then goes to an amber colour which indicates to the user that they are on stand-by within the queue and that it is their turn to make their broadcast.

At the time in which the user is to make their broadcast, the LED turns a green colour and the user then selects the talk button 88 and speaks into the microphone 90 so as to make their audio broadcast.

The terminal 80 has a microchip and memory inside it which runs software that converts the speech into digitised speech data. The signal is sent through the data bus 61 to the broadcast network 68 wherein it is converted to an amplified analogue signal before being transmitted through the speakers 70.

At the conclusion of their transmission, the user of the audio terminal 80 releases their finger from the talk button 88 in order to conclude the transmission.

The other functional button such as the page/no show” allows queue information to be shown on the display 86. The clear” function button allows a request to be cancelled or deleted once it has been made from the broadcast system, and the function finish/off function button closes down the terminal when the user has left it so that no unauthorised broadcasting can be made via the terminal.

Various other modified embodiments are also possible. For example, rather then a bus arrangement, a switch arrangement could be provided with a computer system controlling a series of relays and with each microphone independently wired to a Ducker device controlled by the computer system to stream the audio to the speakers. Alternatively, a wireless LAN type environment could be provided utilising, for example, the Bluetooth (RTM) wireless standard.

It will be appreciated that the audio terminals ir. other embodiments of the invention would not necessarily be directed to the audio terminals as depicted in Fig. 4, but may be in other forms such as a telephone handset provided with a LED to indicate to a user the whether it is his/her turn in the queue to speak.

Further modifications are also possible. For example, multiple different output zones or broadcast networks can be providing for outputting the audio broadcast to and a user interface provided for selecting a particular output zone. The selection of zone can be preset or on a case by case basis depending upon requirements.

It would be appreciated by a person skilled in the art that numerous variations and/or modifications may be made to the present invention as shown in the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as broadly described. The present embodiments are therefore, to be considered in all respects to be illustrative and not restrictive.