System and method for providing electronic program guide

1. A system for providing an electronic program guide (EPG) about a plurality of programs supplied through a digital broadcasting system, comprising:

a service information receiver unit receiving service information transmitted from the digital broadcasting system and extracting the EPG information from the service information, and storing the EPG information, wherein the EPG information includes sentence fragments corresponding to listings of information about the plurality of programs;

an EPG processor converting the EPG information stored in the service information receiver unit into speech EPG information, wherein the EPG processor converts the EPG information into characters and forms the same into complete sentences to produce the speech EPG information; and

a speech output unit producing the speech EPG information as speech, wherein the EPG processor classifies the EPG information for each program into higher-order and lower-order information, respectively converts them into higher-order and lower-order speech EPG information, outputs the higher-order speech EPG information to the speech output unit to reproduce it as speech, and selectively outputs the lower-order speech EPG information to the speech output unit in response to the user's request to reproduce it as speech, wherein the higher-order information is a summary description of a corresponding program and the lower-order information is a more detailed description of the corresponding program.

2. A system according to claim 1 , wherein the EPG processor converts the EPG information into colloquial sentences to produce the speech EPG information.

3. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising a user interface through which a user's request is input, and the EPG processor analyzes the request, extracts the information matched with the request by the user from among the EPG information stored in the service information receiver unit, and converts the extracted EPG information into speech EPG information.

4. A system according to claim 3 , wherein the EPG processor includes:

a control and command processor extracting the information matched with the user requests from among the EPG information stored in the service information receiver unit to produce tailored EPG information;

a text converter converting the tailored EPG information into speech EPG information under the control of the control and command processor; and

an interface providing the user's request, applied through the user interface, to the control and command processor.

5. A system according to claim 3 , wherein the EPG processor performs speech recognition by analyzing a user speech signal applied through the user interface and converting the user speech signal into a signal recognizable and to be processed by the EPG processor.

6. A system according to claim 1 , wherein the service information receiver unit includes:

a tuner receiving a digital broadcasting signal transmitted from the digital broadcasting system;

a demodulator demodulating the digital broadcasting signal applied from the tuner to extract stream information;

a demultiplexer separating video, audio, data stream, and service information contained in the stream information from each other;

an EPG generator generating EPG information from he separated service information; and

a storage unit storing the EPG information.

7. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising a graphic output unit displaying the EPG information processed by the EPG processor.

8. A system according to claim 7 , wherein the EPG processor links the EPG information output as speech through the speech output unit to the EPG information displayed through the graphic output unit, and controls the speech output unit and the graphic output unit so that the EPG information may be produced as speech simultaneously while being displayed.

9. A method of providing an electronic program guide (EPG) in a system for providing the EPG on a plurality of programs supplied through a digital broadcasting system, comprising:

(a) receiving service information transmitted from the digital broadcasting system, and extracting the EPG information from the service information to store the EPG information, wherein the EPG information includes sentence fragments corresponding to listings of information about the plurality of programs;

(b) analyzing a user's request and extracting EPG information that meets the user's request from the stored EPG information to produce tailored EPG information and classifying the tailored EPG information for each program into higher-order information and lower-order information, wherein the higher-order information is a summary description of a corresponding program and the lower-order information is a more detailed description of the corresponding program;

(c) converting the higher-order information and lower-order information into higher-order speech EPG information and lower-order speech EPG information, respectively, wherein the tailored EPG information is converted into characters and forms the same into complete sentences to produce the speech EPG information; and

(d) reproducing the higher-order speech EPG information as speech and selectively reproducing the lower-order speech EPG information as speech in response to the user's request to reproduce the lower-order speech EPG information as speech.

10. A method according to claim 9 , wherein the step (c) forms the EPG information into colloquial sentences to produce the speech EPG information.