VCR with cable tuner control
US5297204A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 10, 1991 |
| Grant date | Mar 22, 1994 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Dec 10, 2011 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04N7/167
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A single remote control transmitter can advantageously control three units including a cable tuner/descrambler, a video recorder/player and a television receiver. One of these three units, preferably the video recorder/player, is a master unit. It receives remote control signals from a hand held remote control transmitter. The master unit is initialized using on screen prompts to learn the remote control signals for the other units which are slaves. The prompts ask the user to operate various controls on the remote control transmitter of the proposed slave unit, while receiving and analyzing the remote control transmissions. This permits the master unit to build a translation table for control of the slave units. The master unit may include a read only memory of remote control codes for a number of possible slave units. The master unit can abort the initialization process if it recognizes the requested remote control transmission is according to one of the remote control codes stored in the memory. The system preferably separates control of the plural processes so that each one of the cable tuner/descrambler, the video recorder/player and the television receiver are employed for on…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.