Electronic program guide and text channel data controller
US5579055A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 7, 1993 |
| Grant date | Nov 26, 1996 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 7, 2013 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04N7/0888
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A data controller which manages the flow of text and electronic program guide (EPG) information to a cable television viewer. The data controller of the invention receives text and EPG information from one or a plurality of authorized data sources via a communications link, processes the received data in its internal database manager to perform data compression and the like, and then provides this text information to the viewer under control of the head end controller. In a preferred embodiment, the text data is formatted on a screen basis into transactions of a predetermined length and the EPG data is formatted on a program basis into transactions of the same length. The transaction are then inserted into the vertical blanking interval of a channel to which the corresponding text or electronic program data has been assigned. At the viewer's television tuner, the text data and/or EPG data is extracted from the vertical blanking interval and mapped to a virtual channel of the viewer's television tuner for display. The viewer's television tuner includes an EPG memory in which the EPG data may be stored to allow the viewer to scroll forward and backward through the stored EPG. The vie…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.