System and method for subscriber interactivity in a television system

What is claimed is:

1. System apparatus for providing interactive services in a subscription television system comprising:

a system network controller for controlling the interactive services, the system controller particularly comprising:

controller memory for storing subscriber terminal identification data, transaction identification data and transaction return data,

a processor, coupled to said controller memory, for generating a transaction having interactive transaction data and transaction identification data, for correlating received transaction return data with at least said transaction identification data and for calculating summary data therefrom,

a first transmitter, coupled to said processor, for transmitting said transaction to terminal apparatus, and

a first receiver for receiving transaction return data from terminal apparatus,

a video signal source for transmitting a video signal to the terminal apparatus, and

terminal apparatus, coupled to the first transmitter and the video signal source, for receiving the video signal, the interactive transaction data and the transaction identification data, the terminal apparatus particularly comprising:

data input circuitry for receiving transaction return data,

terminal memory for storing pay-per-view data and said transaction return data associated with said transaction identification data,

a terminal controller, coupled to said data input circuitry and said memory, and

a data return transmitter for returning said associated transaction return data and said transaction identification data to said first receiver of the system network controller,

said terminal controller for determining completion of entry of transaction return data for a particularly identified transaction and, immediately after data entry completion, initiating data return by the data return transmitter.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said system network controller is part of a program source of said subscription television system.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said system network controller is part of a headend of said subscription television system.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said subscription television system comprises a central office coupled to at least one headend, wherein said system network controller is part of said central office.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction identification data comprises a template number and transaction return data comprises subscriber entered data associated with said template.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said subscriber entered data comprises polling data.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein said subscriber entered data comprises gambling data.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein said video signal source transmits an educational television program and said transaction return data comprises responses to questions associated with said educational television program.

9. The system of claim 1, said terminal apparatus further comprising a display controller responsive to said terminal controller for overlaying said template over a received video signal.

10. The system of claim 1, said terminal further comprising a real time clock, wherein said transaction identification data identifies said transaction as one requiring the collection of transaction return data at a particular real time of day and data entry completion is signaled by said real time of day.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein said transaction return data comprises channel and data stream viewing data.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein said transaction return data comprises energy management data.

13. The system of claim 1, said data input circuitry is coupled to an alarm sensing device, said transaction identification data identifies an alarm service.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein data entry completion is signaled by the occurrence of an alarm.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein said video signal source transmits video images of items offered for sale, said transaction identification data comprises an item number and data entry completion is signalled by the occurrence of receipt of all of complete item description, quantity and price data associated with subscriber identification data.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein said video signal source transmits video games, said transaction identification data at least identifies the video game.

17. A method for providing interactive services between a central source and a subscriber terminal of a subscription television system, comprising the steps of:

generating a transaction having interactive transaction data and transaction identification data at said central source;

downloading said transaction to said subscriber terminal;

determining completion of entry of transaction return data for a particularly identified transaction;

communicating said transaction return data and said transaction identification data to said central source; and

correlating received transaction return data with at least said transaction identification data at said central source.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising the step of:

calculating summary data at said central source according to said correlating step.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising the steps of:

generating a second transaction at said central source according to said summary data; and

downloading said second transaction to said subscriber terminal.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein said central source is a program source of said subscription television system.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein said central source is a headend of said subscription television system.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein said subscription television system comprises a central office coupled to at least one headend, wherein said central source is said central office.

23. The method of claim 17, wherein the transaction identification data comprises a template number and transaction return data comprises subscriber entered data associated with said template.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein said subscriber entered data comprises polling data.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein said subscriber entered data comprises gambling data.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein said transaction return data comprises responses to questions associated with an educational television program received by said subscriber terminal.

27. The method of claim 17, wherein said subscriber terminal comprises a real time clock, said transaction identification data identifies said transaction as one requiring the collection of transaction return data at a particular real time of day and data entry completion is signaled by said real time of day.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein said transaction return data comprises channel and data stream viewing data.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein said transaction return data comprises energy management data.

30. The method of claim 17, wherein said subscriber terminal comprises data input circuitry coupled to an alarm sensing device, said transaction identification data identifies an alarm service.

31. The method of claim 30 wherein data entry completion is signaled by the occurrence of an alarm.

32. The method of claim 17, wherein said transaction identification data comprises an item number of items offered for sale in a program received by said subscriber terminal and data entry completion is signaled by the occurrence of receipt of all of complete item description, quantity and price data associated with subscriber identification data.

33. The method of claim 17, wherein said transaction identification data at least identifies a video game received by said subscriber terminal.

34. A method of communicating interactive information between a central source and a subscriber terminal of a subscription television system, the method comprising the steps of:

downloading a template screen along with a template identifier from said central source to said subscriber terminal;

storing said template screen and said template identifier in an interactive buffer within said subscriber terminal;

selectively generating on-screen character and graphics displays in place of or overlaid on the composite video signal according to said template screen stored in said interactive buffer;

determining that a viewer has entered a selection or a timeout period has expired;

generating return path data according to said selection by the viewer; and

communicating said return path data together with said template identifier to said central source via a return path communication link.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein the template screen includes interactive fields which represent one of blank fields which may be completed by the viewer and choices from which the viewer can make selections, said method further comprising the step of designating that one or more of the interactive fields is to be uniquely displayed.

36. The method of claim 34, wherein said central source is a program source of said subscription television system.

37. The method of claim 34, wherein said central source is a headend of said subscription television system.

38. The method of claim 34, wherein said subscription television system comprises a central office coupled to at least one headend, wherein said central source is said central office.

39. A subscriber terminal for communicating interactive information between a central source and the subscriber terminal for use in a subscription television system, comprising:

means for receiving a template screen along with a template identifier from said central source;

means for storing said template screen and said template identifier in an interactive buffer;

selectively generating on-screen character and graphics displays in place of or overlaid on the composite video signal according to said template screen stored in said interactive buffer;

means for determining that a viewer has entered a selection or that a timeout period has expired;

means for generating return path data according to the selection by the viewer; and

means for transmitting said return path data together with said template identifier to said central source via a return path communication link.

40. The subscriber terminal of claim 39, wherein the template screen include interactive fields which represent one of blank fields which may be completed by the viewer and choices from which the viewer can make selections, said subscriber terminal further comprising means for designating that one or more of the interactive fields is to be uniquely displayed.

41. The subscriber terminal of claim 39, wherein said central source is a program source of said subscription television system.

42. The subscriber terminal of claim 39, wherein said central source is a headend of said subscription television system.

43. The subscriber terminal of claim 39, wherein said subscription television system comprises a central office coupled to at least one headend, wherein said central source is said central office.

Description Submit all comments and votes

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part application of, firstly, U.S. application Ser. No. 08/220,626, filed Mar. 28, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,632, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 07/983,909, filed Dec. 2, 1992, now abandoned, and secondly, this application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 07/983,910 filed Dec. 2, 1992, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,571, and is related in subject matter to U.S. application Ser. No. 08,229,805 entitled "Subscription Television System and Terminal for Enabling Simultaneous Display of Multiple Services" and Ser. No. 08/230,144 entitled "Per-Per-View Electronic Programming Guide," filed concurrently herewith.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to the field of subscription television systems and, more particularly, to a system and method for providing interactive services in such systems.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In the late 1970's, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, among others, participated in a number of trials of interactive telecommunications services between subscribers, equipped with special videotext terminals. Each terminal included display apparatus and telecommunications apparatus for permitting the trial of a number of such services where money was charged a subscriber and the desirability and economic advantages of the services studied. One problem facing the continued efficacy of such services was the limited amount of bandwidth allocated to standard voice-grade telecommunications lines. The more popular services that were trialed included, for example, the playing of games. However, because of the bandwidth limitations, the complexities of the games trialed were severely limited and resulted in subscribers becoming dissatisfied with the games offered. Consequently, the trials have been subsequently criticized in the press as technology and not market driven. There has been expressed the concern that the market data realized from those early trials was inaccurate and the trials themselves perceived to be failures.

Perhaps the longest-lived and most successful progeny of those trials have been the so-called bulletin board services. These bulletin board services-have grown in popularity as the personal computer population has grown. However, it is now perceived that these more narrow bandwidth services, such as bulletin board services, are but one of many services that can be offered through larger bandwidth facilities available in the near technical horizon. Coaxial cable bandwidth for cable television services now reaches, if not exceeds, one giga-Hertz or hundreds of 6 mega-Hertz cable television channels. Moreover, with the advent of video and audio compression, data compression and the decreasing expense of memories, the interactive information services boundaries are only limited by the imagination.

Besides interactive gaming and bulletin boards trialed in the 1970's, there were trials of burglar alarm services, home energy management services, travel reservations services, news information services and home shopping services to name but a few of the limited bandwidth services trialed. Certainly, the home shopping services were bandwidth limited to primarily limited text or graphical depictions of items offered. On the other hand, with the advent of home shopping television channels, the advantages of wide bandwidth facilities to demonstrate the products or services offered have been proven. Television has become a highly advantageous delivery system.

In the art of cable television systems, what previously has been characterized as a set top terminal with limited tuner and descrambling capabilities is soon becoming a home communications terminal including user friendly, processor controlled on screen displays for offering such services as advance video cassette recorder programming, sleep timing, parental control, pay-per-view, favorite channels and some limited messaging capabilities.

Moreover, with the advent of so-called impulse pay-per-view services, a cable television subscriber now has the opportunity to presubscribe to future pay events, the charge reporting being accomplished utilizing telephone or cable return lines. Exemplary of the art of telephone return are phone processing systems described by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,003,384, 5,157,716 and 5,270,809, incorporated herein by reference as to any material deemed essential to an understanding of the present invention. Data return technology for a data return channel over the television cable, be it coaxial or optical, are described by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,142,690, 5,155,590, and 5,225,902, likewise incorporated by reference.

Also, on-screen display technology for cable television terminals has progressed significantly over the years since the 1970's. For example, Scientific-Atlanta Inc. of Atlanta, Ga. first designed and implemented a cable television system for hotel or institutional situations having on screen display control features. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,991,011, 4,994,908, 5,053,883 and 5,077,607 and pending application Ser. No. 07/960,261 filed Oct. 13, 1992 describe the downloading of screen command data from a headend to a terminal, the selective choice of audio and overlay of text data on video or plain colored background at a terminal, and real time of day on screen display. In the satellite art, Scientific-Atlanta also pioneered the transmission of a template to subscribers where subscriber supplied data may be entered to complete the template as described by U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,775. Other pending applications of Scientific-Atlanta related to on screen display control include Ser. Nos. 08/072,291 and 08/073,404 filed Jun. 7, 1993 directed to a subscriber terminal permitting reprogramming of display information and attributes thereof from a headend of the described cable television system.

Finally, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,890,321 and 5,247,364 and pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/983,766 filed Dec. 1, 1992, describe various so-called in-band and out-of-band means for transmitting data and commands from a headend to subscriber terminals. For example, by in-band is meant the transmission of data within the video television channel comprising both audio and video carriers. The data may be transmitted as amplitude modulation of the audio carrier, hereinafter in-band audio data, or in the video signal during unused portions thereof such as data channels of an M.P.E.G. compressed video data stream or the vertical or horizontal blanking periods of an analog television signal. Coordination of in-band and out-of-band data is provided at a headend of a cable system by a headend controller ("HEC") described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,160.

In fact, the cable television terminal of the future will be programmed and reprogrammed from the headend of the system via external memory modules, plug-in adapted to be received by the terminal or via downloading of software updates over the cable (or fiber) as described by U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 07/983,909 and 07/983,910 filed Dec. 1, 1992.

Despite and perhaps as a result of the need in the art to improve upon these known ways and means for providing interactive services, there has yet to have been realized a coherent solution to the technological problem of providing a single system and method for realizing the majority of interactive services possible with newly available wide bandwidth technologies. Moreover, there is an opportunity to more greatly utilize the opportunities available from the existent technologies inherent in known on screen display controllers of terminals of such systems.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The problems and limitations of the known and described systems of the background of the invention are overcome by the principles of the present invention whereby each transmitted transaction from a central source to the subscriber of a subscription television system has an associated transaction identifier uniquely associated with that transaction. Moreover, a unique series of transaction identifiers may be reserved for transactions initiated from or by the subscriber or their home communications terminal. In the case of a downloaded template screen to be completed by the user, the transaction identifier becomes a template identifier. In the event of a request for viewing statistics data, the transaction identifier may be related to the time of the collection of such data and the category of data collected such as channel number and text or electronic program guide data stream number.

The on screen display of a template requiring response is completed via remote control command. Such template display can be utilized for the implementation of educational services, for example, templates which ask questions about a recently viewed program testing the viewer's acquired knowledge. The entered data is returned over telephone or the serving cable (fiber) return channels to the program source where it is tabulated. An addressed data message can then be initiated providing personal scoring, while a globally addressed template could be displayed describing how the general population of subscriber viewers responded to the questions asked.

In that regard, the present invention has utility for voting or polling of subscribers. For example, the subscriber may be requested to express their present preference for a presidential candidate, the votes tabulated and reported to the subscribers. In the same manner as with the educational application of the present invention, the data may be returned for tabulation via the serving cable or via telephone lines.

Thus, and in accordance with the present invention, a system for providing interactive services in a subscription television system comprises a system network controller for controlling the interactive services. The system controller particularly comprises controller memory for storing subscriber terminal identification data, transaction identification data and transaction return data, a processor, coupled to said controller memory, for generating a transaction having interactive transaction data and transaction identification data. The processor also correlates received transaction return data with at least said transaction identification data and calculates summary data therefrom. A first transmitter transmits the transaction to terminal apparatus, and a first receiver receives transaction return data from terminal apparatus. A video signal source transmits a video signal to the terminal apparatus. The terminal apparatus, which is coupled to the first transmitter and the video signal source, receives the video signal and the transaction identification data. The terminal apparatus particularly comprises data input circuitry for receiving transaction return data, terminal memory for storing the transaction return data associated with the transaction identification data, a terminal controller, coupled to the data input circuitry and the memory, and a data return transmitter for returning the associated transaction return data and the transaction identification data to the first receiver of the system network controller. The terminal controller determines completion of entry of transaction return data for a particularly identified transaction and, immediately after data entry completion, initiates data return by the data return transmitter.

Moreover, a method of communicating interactive information between a central source and a subscriber terminal of a subscription television system comprises the steps of downloading template screen data along with a template identifier from the central source to the subscriber terminal, storing the template screen data and the template identifier in an interactive buffer within the subscriber terminal, selectively generating on-screen character and graphics displays in place of or overlaid on the composite video signal according to the template screen data stored in the interactive buffer, determining that a viewer has completed entry of data or a timeout period has expired, generating return path data according to the completed data entry, and communicating the return path data together with the transaction identifier to the central source via a return path communication link.

Other features of the system and method of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description thereof.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a detailed block schematic diagram of an interactive subscription television system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of one of the interactive subscriber terminals 14 shown in FIG. 1.

FIGS. 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D, 3E, 3F, 3G, 3H, 3I, 3J, 3K, and 3L illustrate examples of template screens used in connection with the interactive processes of the present invention.

FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate a method of communicating interactive information using the template screens of FIGS. 3A-3L.

FIG. 5A illustrates the interactive display obtained from a virtual channel composed of video #1 and text stream #3.

FIG. 5B illustrates the interactive display obtained from a virtual channel composed of video #3 and text stream #1.

FIG. 5C illustrates the interactive display obtained from a virtual channel composed of video #4 and text stream #2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 is a detailed diagram of an interactive subscription television system according to the instant invention. The system of FIG. 1 is intended to serve as an example and should not be construed as limiting the invention. A central control center 10 orchestrates the operation of the subscription television system. Central control center 10 is often associated with the central office of a multi-service operator and may communicate with and control multiple headends, such as headend 12. Headend 12 provides a subscription television service to a local area, for example, a city or a group of cities, or towns.

A subscriber terminal 14 is also shown and may be located in a subscriber's home or business location 70. Subscriber terminal 14 is coupled to video cassette recorder (VCR) 18 and television 20. It should be clear that the subscriber terminal 14 can also be coupled directly to the television 20 (not shown). Information may be communicated between central control center 10 and headend 12 by any known means including telephone networks, satellite transmissions, optical fibers, coaxial cable, other transmission lines, telecommunication apparatus, etc. or any combination of known means. Headend 12 may be coupled to subscriber terminals 14 of a plurality if subscribers via a subscription television distribution system 58, for example coaxial cables, satellite, optical fibers, telecommunication apparatus, or other known means or combinations of known means.

Central control center 10 includes a system manager 22 that directs the other components of central control center 10. System manager 22 is a PC/based computer system having a processor and memory for providing a graphical user interface that allows an operator to generate addressable control transactions that are downloaded to the subscriber terminals 14 of the subscription television service. The addressable control transactions may be directed to terminal operation, pay-per view, and messages. The addressable control transactions may also include menu screens and interac