Method and apparatus for providing electronic program guide information from a single electronic program guide server

Description Submit all comments and votes

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to receiving information from a single service provider and, more particularly, it relates to obtaining an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) containing TV schedule information for substantially all terrestrial broadcast TV stations, substantially all cable TV companies, substantially all satellite TV delivery services, substantially all telco TV delivery services and substantially all other types of available TV service to the home from a dedicated Electronic Program Guide Server (EPGS) and providing this information to a viewer.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Currently, television receivers in North American homes are able to obtain Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data through the Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) of NTSC signals. These are carried on a specific terrestrial channel (typically a local Public Broadcast Service (PBS) station) or on a specific cable TV station. Starsight Telecast.TM. is one provider of a VBI EPG service and typically charges a fee of $6 per month.

The television receiver includes special hardware and software designed or licensed by Starsight to the various television manufacturers. The format of the transmission is proprietary as is the hardware and software used in the television receiver to decode and display the information. The data rate of the data transmission is 960 bps. The EPG data signal contains information for every cable system and terrestrial TV station in the area covered by the PBS station resulting in a great portion of the received data being of no use to the viewer. This system has a drawback in that, given the slow communications speed and the amount of data sent, it may take as long as 12-24 hours for a particular user to obtain a complete data set.

Acquisition of the EPG data is accomplished only if the television receiver is tuned to the specific channel that carries the transmission. Typically, this requires the television receiver be tuned to the provider channel (i.e. PBS) while the television is not in use, such as overnight.

Another system for providing EPG data through the VBI is planned by Gemstar. However, these broadcasts will be provided by the networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS and their affiliates. This system has the drawback that the networks will only provide their own respective programming information. Therefore, the viewer will be required to select each and every channel over a period of time in order to build up a collection of schedules for all of the television stations of interest.

Other service providers, such as DirecTV.TM., Primestar.TM. and Echostar.TM., also provide EPGs through special transport packets in the digital data stream of the signal. This same approach will be used by Digital Cable and Wireless Cable services (MMDS).

With the increased popularity of PCs and the advent of the Internet, certain companies now provide EPGs over the Internet. These EPGs are accessible by computers and the information is displayed on the computer display monitor. Information provided by these services include the program schedules for the major terrestrial stations as well as cable networks.

The data presented by the Internet services are described in graphical form, such as HTML. The PC simply displays the EPG in the way it was sent from the Web Site. This system has a drawback in that the graphical format adds excessive overhead and the attendant throughput problems associated with such large blocks of data. The intelligence for responding to subscriber requests for day/date specific TV schedules, the graphical form in which it is displayed, the sorting abilities, etc. are under the control of the Web Server.

Another conventional system, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,476 to Yee, provides information to a viewer via a television receiver display. In this conventional method the digital data is superimposed on the analog video signal at the video signal source. When the video signal is received by the television receiver, the digital data, which appears as low-level noise in the received image, is extracted and stored in a memory for selective access and display of the data. In this conventional method, the decoder may be internal or external to the television receiver.

In another conventional system, information is provided to the viewer by obtaining data via a link. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,578 to Reiter et al. In this system the video signal from the antenna or cable TV source is received and demodulated. The data is then converted into video data and mixed with the demodulated video signal received from the antenna or cable TV input. Finally, the combination of video data and demodulated video signal is re-modulated and sent to the input of the television receiver for further processing and display to the viewer.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention overcomes the above mentioned disadvantages by providing a method and apparatus for requesting, receiving, processing, and providing information containing substantially all of the television information for a region from a dedicated EPG server to a television viewer. First, a television receiver requests the information by accessing a local information provider via a communications link. The specific requested information is downloaded by the server to the television receiver via the communications link and is separate and distinct from video information received by the television receiver. The information provided by the server is minimally formatted and does not contain any graphical information. The received information is processed, formatted, and provided to the viewer for display on the television receiver screen.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the selection of displayed information is made by the television receiver.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the selection of displayed information is made by the EPGS.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the communications link is a telephone.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the communications link is a cable television line.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the EPG is aurally provided to the viewer via an audio system.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a memory is used to store the processed information for later retrieval and display or annunciation to the viewer.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the EPGS information is requested at a predetermined time based on either subscriber information or a randomly assigned time determined by the EPGS at initial subscription.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the information is decoded and displayed by using the closed caption device contained within the television receiver.

According to a further aspect of the present invention, the information is displayed in the foreground of the video image or superimposed on the video image.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the request for information includes a viewer profile created at the time of viewer subscription and subsequently updated as needed.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the viewer profile includes viewer programming preferences, viewer address, and viewer telephone area code and exchange information.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the EPGS uses the telephone exchange and area code of the viewer in order to determine the channels that are available to the viewer, through cable television services for example, as well as channel assignments.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the request for information is made using predetermined menu selections by the viewer.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the menus are created by the EPGS based on the viewer profile.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the menus are created by the television receiver.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the menus are customized by the viewer.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the television receiver provides additional service information to the EPGS, such as direct satellite broadcast systems, telephone subscription services, etc., to which the user is linked.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the viewer requests information for a specified period of time.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the information provided to the viewer contains program ratings, summaries, and capsule reviews.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the information provided by the EPGS contains time data for updating or resetting the internal clock of the television receiver.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention is best understood from the following detailed description when read in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a high level functional block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a first exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a high level functional block diagram of another exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 4.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention provides for requesting, receiving, processing and displaying Electronic Program Guide (EPG) information to a television viewer. The present invention requests program information from an Electronic Program Guide Service (EPGS), receives the requested information, and processes and displays the information to the viewer. The information obtained includes substantially all of the TV related information of interest to the viewer. This information is based on the entire country, a region such as the North East or South West, a Tri-state area, or a collection of cities in an area determined by the viewer's location. Examples of such information are terrestrial broadcast TV schedules, satellite service TV schedules, cable company TV schedules, telco delivery service TV schedules, as well as program ratings, summaries, capsule reviews, and the like.

FIG. 1 is a high level block diagram of the present invention. Television receiver 100 requests EPG information from EPGS 108 through television receiver interface 104 connected to EPGS interface 110 via communications link 106. The requested information is obtained from EPGS database 112 and transmitted from EPGS 108 through EPGS interface 110 over communications link 106 to television receiver interface 104 within television receiver 100. The information is then processed and displayed to the viewer on display 102.

It should be noted that the communication link may be for example, a telephone link or a cable system service link. The communication link is not limited to these examples, however. In the exemplary telephone link, an interface including a modem with a communication speed of 28.8 kpbs, for example, may be used. This data rate is significantly higher than the data rate of convention vertical blanking interval (VBI) based systems. The exemplary user interface initiates communication with the server and controls the communications process.

The request for EPGS information may be made on demand by the viewer or at a predetermined time. The predetermined time may be selected by EPGS 108, for example, when a subscriber initially sets up the service, in order to avoid communication delays, and stored in a Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) (not shown) within television receiver 100. This predetermined time is typically during late evening or early morning hours when communication traffic is reduced, although any time of day may be used. In the event that television receiver 100 loses track of time, for example, due too a loss of power for an extended time, EPGS 108 may update the clock (not shown) contained in television receiver 100 when the data from the next data request is received, or television receiver 100 may attempt to connect to EPGS 108 automatically at power-up whenever standby power has been lost.

FIG. 2 shows exemplary signal flow and control within television receiver 100. Processor 220 initiates and controls interface 204 to request information from EPGS 108 over communications link 206. When EPGS 108 responds with the requested data, interface 204 sends the data to processor 220. Processor 220, which, in this example, is part of the Closed Caption circuit (not shown), decodes and formats the data into RGB data for display. A/V switching circuit 228 is switched to connect the RGB data containing the formatted EPG data to the Video IF (VIF) 222. VIF 222 combines the received information in RGB format, as provided by the closed caption circuit, with the video RGB received from tuner 218 and forwards this combined video to Video Control Jungle (VCJ) logic circuitry 226 for display on the television receiver screen. VCJ logic circuitry 226 controls the timing of the insertion of the generated text into the active video. Processor 220 may also contain or be connected to a memory (not shown) which holds the formatted data for display on the television receiver screen. The use of a memory allows the information to be downloaded and stored as encoded data for future use instead of being displayed as it is received. Processor 224 also controls the display of the on-screen control functions of the television receiver, such as volume level, channel number, color, tint, brightness, contrast, etc.

Processor 224 controls the display of the decoded information on the television receiver display. The information may be displayed, for example, superimposed on the video image data or independent of any video image data. The information may be shown on one or several lines at a time and may scroll vertically or horizontally if desired. The information may be placed in an area selected by the viewer, for example, such as at the bottom of the display. The color of the displayed inf