Patent · US Expired

Protocol and procedure for automated channel change in an MPEG-2 compliant datastream

US6078594A · kind A · utility

70Cited by
15References
16Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 26, 1997
Grant dateJun 20, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 26, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04N21/4384
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method of changing the channels in a digital video and audio receiving system. The method includes receiving and decoding the encoded digital video and audio in a decoder, where the input is a multi-channel, time division multiplexed digital video and digital audio datastream. The datastream contains many Programs, each of the Programs includes a video packetized elementary stream, and an audio packetized elementary stream, each of which, in turn, contains a packet header, and packet data. The channel change method is a process of changing input channels from an old channel datastream to a new channel datastream with a minimum of latency. The method includes setting appropriate flags to request the channel change, acknowledging the requests, flushing buffers, muting audio output and/or freezing video output, and activating a data request line for new channel bitstream data.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.