U.S. patent application number 11/199775 was filed with the patent office on 2005-12-29 for interactive television system.
Invention is credited to Cezeaux, Thomas Edward, Vogel, Derek K..
Application Number | 20050289603 11/199775 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 22987693 |
Filed Date | 2005-12-29 |
United States Patent
Application |
20050289603 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Cezeaux, Thomas Edward ; et
al. |
December 29, 2005 |
Interactive television system
Abstract
An interactive television system is described.
Inventors: |
Cezeaux, Thomas Edward;
(Woodinville, WA) ; Vogel, Derek K.; (Woodinville,
WA) |
Correspondence
Address: |
SIEMENS CORPORATION
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT
170 WOOD AVENUE SOUTH
ISELIN
NJ
08830
US
|
Family ID: |
22987693 |
Appl. No.: |
11/199775 |
Filed: |
August 9, 2005 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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11199775 |
Aug 9, 2005 |
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10039292 |
Jan 3, 2002 |
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60260082 |
Jan 3, 2001 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
725/58 ;
348/E5.105 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04N 21/47 20130101;
H04N 21/42228 20130101; H04N 21/4622 20130101; H04N 21/4755
20130101; H04N 21/4532 20130101; H04N 21/4542 20130101; H04N
21/47202 20130101; H04N 2005/4441 20130101; H04N 21/4316 20130101;
H04N 21/478 20130101; H04N 5/44543 20130101; H04N 21/25891
20130101; H04N 21/8586 20130101; H04N 21/482 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
725/058 |
International
Class: |
G06F 013/00; G06F
003/00; H04N 005/445 |
Claims
1-9. (canceled)
10. A method for highlighting cells of a program guide, the method
comprising: displaying a program guide, the program guide having
cells of a regular size, each cell representing content available
for a time period; receiving a selection of a cell; and in response
to receiving the selection of the cell, identifying a cell for an
adjacent time period of the selected cell that represent the same
content as the selected cell; and highlighting the identified cell
so that both the selected cell and the identified cell are
highlighted simultaneously.
11. The method of claim 10 wherein the regular size indicates cells
of the same width.
12. The method of claim 10 wherein the regular size indicates cells
of the same height.
13. The method of claim 10 wherein the regular size indicates cells
of the same height and the same width.
14. The method of claim 10 including identifying and
highlighting
15. The method of claim 10 wherein the identifying includes
comparing text associated with the selected cell with text
associated with the cell in the adjacent time period.
16. The method of claim 10 wherein the identifying includes
comparing an image associated with the selected cell with an image
associated with the cell in the adjacent time period.
17. The method of claim 10 including suppressing the identifying of
a cell when content of the selected cell is repeated over an
extended period.
18. The method of claim 10 wherein the identifying includes
determining an ending time associated with the content of the
selected cell.
19. The method of claim 10 wherein the identifying includes
determining a beginning time associated with the content of the
selected cell.
20. The method of claim 10 wherein the identifying includes
determining a beginning time and an ending time associated with the
content of the selected cell.
21-58. (canceled)
Description
CROSS-REFERENCED TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional
Application No. 60/260,082 filed on Jan. 3, 2001, which is hereby
incorporated by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND
[0002] The described technology relates generally to program guides
and specifically to improvements for electronic program guides.
[0003] Electronic program guides have been used extensively to
allow users to view programming information for available
television channels and to select which television channel to
watch. Electronic program guides are typically provided by set-top
boxes that are connected to a content feed (e.g., cable or
satellite) and to a television on the other end. Set-top boxes may
access programming information (e.g., channel, title, and start
time) provided through the content feed (e.g., on a designated
channel) and generate a display of that information referred to as
an electronic program guide. Electronic program guides are
generally displayed in a grid format with start time information
displayed horizontally and channel information displayed
vertically. Each cell of the grid may contain the title on the
content. Set-top boxes typically allow a user to use a remote
control to scroll through and select a channel to be watched.
[0004] Although electronic program guides help a viewer to locate
and select a channel that the viewer wants to watch, some
capabilities provided by current electronic program guides are more
difficult than they need to be. For example, current electronic
program guides typically allow a user to view programming
information for days other than the current day. These electronic
program guides, however, may force a user to take multiple actions
to view program listings for another day. Similarly, electronic
program guides typically have different formatted guides for
different types of content. For example, one format may be used for
displaying television programming information, another format may
be used for video-on-demand programming information, and a
different format may be used to display web content information.
Since electronic program guides are typically controlled by remote
controls, navigation from one screen to another can be difficult.
As a result, minimizing the number of navigation steps is
desirable.
[0005] It is well known that some content is objectionable to some
viewers. For example, some viewers may find X-rated movies
objectionable. Some television systems allow users to filter out
such objectionable content so that when the content is selected it
cannot be viewed. Electronic program guides list the titles of such
objectionable content. Some viewers may find even such titles
objectionable.
[0006] It would be desirable to have an electronic program guide
that would minimize problems associated with current electronic
program guides.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0007] FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating components of an
interactive system in one embodiment.
[0008] FIG. 2 illustrates an example interactive program guide that
allows a user to select another day directly from the currently
displayed interactive program guide.
[0009] FIG. 3 illustrates an example interactive program guide that
is display after the user selects another day's button.
[0010] FIG. 4 illustrates an example interactive program guide in
an alternate mechanism for selecting another day of the week.
[0011] FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating an implementation of a
component to generate an interactive program guide in one
embodiment.
[0012] FIG. 6 illustrates an example interactive program guide for
which objectionable information has been filtered out.
[0013] FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating an implementation of a
component that remove information about objectionable content in
one embodiment.
[0014] FIG. 8 illustrates the integration of television programming
information with on-demand programming information on a single
interactive program guide in one embodiment.
[0015] FIG. 9 illustrates an interactive program guide with
regular-sized cells in one embodiment.
[0016] FIG. 10 illustrates an interactive program guide with
regular-sized cells when the user selects a cell.
[0017] FIG. 11 illustrates another example of the interactive
program guide when the user selects a cell of a program that is
longer than 30 minutes.
[0018] FIG. 12 illustrates an example television screen in which
ATVEF information has been embedded.
[0019] FIG. 13 is a flow diagram illustrating a component for
adding ATVEF information to a video stream in one embodiment.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0020] Methods and systems related to an interactive television
system are provided. In one embodiment, the interactive system
provides an interactive program guide ("IPG") that facilitates the
selection of various types of program content. One aspect of the
interactive system allows a user to quickly select the day of the
week for which the interactive program guide is to cover. The
interactive system displays the interactive program guide for one
day and includes a mechanism for selecting from that interactive
program guide another day's program guide. In one embodiment, the
mechanism includes a button for each day of the week. When a user
selects the button, the interactive system displays the interactive
program guide for that day of the week. In another embodiment, the
mechanism includes an indication to select a button on a remote
control to display the interactive program guide for the previous
day or next day. In this way, the user can quickly switch from one
day to another day from the interactive program guide itself.
[0021] Another aspect of the interactive system allows a user to
filter out objectionable information associated with an interactive
program guide. For example, the interactive system may replace the
titles of X-rated movies with an indication that no programming is
available. In one embodiment, the interactive system may provide a
filtering mechanism through which the user can specify filtering
criteria. The filtering criteria may be based on movie ratings,
movie genres, keywords associated with the movie, attributes of the
content, and so on. When generating an interactive program guide
for display, the interactive system determines whether content
meets the filtering criteria. If not, the interactive system
replaces the title of that content on the interactive program
guide. Additionally, the interactive system may apply the filter
criteria to the available channels. If a channel does not satisfy a
filter criterion, then the interactive system may completely remove
that channel from the interactive program guide. For example, the
interactive system may completely remove a channel that shows only
X-rated movies rather than simply replace the titles of the
content. In this way, in addition to the objectionable content
being filtered out, information describing objectionable content
can also be filtered out.
[0022] Another aspect of the interactive system provides an
integrated interactive program guide to display television
programming information and on-demand programming information of
the single interactive program guide. The on-demand programming
information may include video-on-demand programming, accessible web
content information, and other non-broadcast content information.
The interactive system retrieves television programming information
and on-demand programming information and combines the information
into a single interactive program guide. In this way, a user can
access information for different types of programming from a single
interactive program guide.
[0023] Another aspect of the interactive system allows an
interactive program guide to illustrate content duration using
cells of the interactive program guide that have a regular size. In
one embodiment, the cells of the interactive program guide have the
same height and width. Interactive program guides are typically
organized with time slots displayed horizontally and with channels
displayed vertically. The interactive system allows the duration of
content to be illustrated by highlighting multiple cells of a
regular size when any cell of the content is selected. For example,
if each cell represents a 30-minute time slot, then four cells
would be highlighted when one of the four cells of a 2-hour movie
was selected. In this way, although the cells have a regular size,
the irregular length of content can be illustrated.
[0024] Another aspect of the interactive system allows Advanced
Television Enhancement Forum ("ATVEF") information to be
dynamically embedded into video and to be customized to the user.
In one embodiment, the interactive system receives a request to
send a video to a user. The interactive system retrieves profile
information for that user and modifies the video by adding ATVEF
information based on the retrieved profile. The interactive system
then transmits the modified video to the user. The video may be
on-demand video or a broadcasted video. In one embodiment, the
interactive system may analyze close caption information associated
with the video to further identify the ATVEF information that
should be added to the video. In this way, interactivity or
additional information can be added to on-demand or broadcast
videos, and the videos can be customized based on the user's
profile.
[0025] FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating components of an
interactive system in one embodiment. The interactive system
comprises components that execute on content server 105 and set-top
boxes 102. The content server receives content from various content
feeds 101. The content feeds may include pay-per-view movies
transmitted via satellite, television programming transmitted via
cable, and so on. The content server routes content selected by a
subscriber or user to the appropriate set-top box. The set-top
boxes controls the display of the content on the televisions 103.
The set-top boxes responsible provide the interactive program guide
to the user. The set-top boxes may also provide access to various
content sources via the Internet 104. The content server may
include a content store 106 that contains videos that can be
supplied to the set-top boxes on demand. Although not shown, the
content server may contain databases of subscriber information, a
billing component, an authentication component, and so on.
[0026] FIG. 2 illustrates an example interactive program guide that
allows a user to select another day directly from the currently
displayed interactive program guide. The interactive system
displays a program guide for a selected day along with an
indication of an action that the user is to perform to display an
interactive program guide for another day. In this example,
interactive program guide 200 includes television display area 201
and program grid 202. The television display area may display the
content from the currently selected channel as the user browses
through the interactive program guide. The program grid includes
start times 203 displayed horizontally and channels 204 displayed
vertically. The intersection of the start times and channels are
cells 205 that contain the title on the content. In this example,
the width of a cell corresponds to the duration of the content. The
current day field 206 displays the day of the week for the
currently displayed interactive program guide. In this example, the
interactive program guide is currently displayed for Wednesday
January 2. The interactive program guide also includes a
week-at-a-glance row 207. The row contains a button for each day of
the week starting with the current day of the week. When a user
selects one of the buttons, the interactive system displays the
interactive program guide for that day for the same time as
currently displayed.
[0027] FIG. 3 illustrates an example interactive program guide that
is display after the user selects another day's button. The
interactive program guide 300 includes television display area 301
and program grid 302. The interactive program guide has the same
overall appearance as that of FIG. 2. The current day field 306 now
indicates that the currently selected day is Friday January 4th.
The user can select the buttons of the week-at-a-glance row 307 to
view the interactive program guide for other days within the same
week. For example, the user can select the Wednesday button to
re-display the interactive program guide illustrated in FIG. 2.
[0028] FIG. 4 illustrates an example interactive program guide in
an alternate mechanism for selecting another day of the week.
Interactive program guide 400 has the same overall appearance as
interactive program guides of FIGS. 2 and 3. The interactive
program guide 400, however, does not include a week-at-a-glance
row. Rather, the current day field has a next indicator 408 and a
previous day indicator 409 adjacent to it. These indicators
indicate that the user should select the skip forward button of the
remote control to select the next day, and the rewind button of the
remote control to select the previous day. Alternatively, these
indicators indicate to select the fast forward or fast rewind
buttons of the remote control. This alternate mechanism allows a
user to select days outside the current week including the days
before the current day of the week.
[0029] FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating an implementation of a
component to generate an interactive program guide in one
embodiment. The component may execute on a set-top box. In block
501, the component identifies the current date and time from, for
example, a system clock. In block 502, the component generates and
displays an interactive program guide for the current date and time
determined in block 501. In block 503, the component receives user
input selecting a new date. Such user input may be received via
various input devices, in response to the display of various input
controls, or no prompting display. In block 504, the component
generates and displays an additional interactive program guide for
the current time--identified in block 501--on the date selected in
block 503. The component then completes.
[0030] FIG. 6 illustrates an example interactive program guide for
which objectionable information has been filtered out. The
interactive system provides a mechanism for specifying filter
criteria for objectionable material. The filter criteria can be
based on content rating, content attributes, country of origin of
the content, the user's country, and so on. When generating an
interactive program guide, the interactive system retrieves
programming information that includes attributes of the available
content. The interactive system then applies the filter criteria to
each of the available content indicated in the programming
information to determine whether the available content meets the
filter criteria. If it does not meet the filter criteria, then the
content's programming information is omitted from the interactive
program guide. For example, the title of the content of the may be
blanked out or replaced by a title that indicates that "No
programming is available." The interactive system may also
completely omit rows of the interactive program guide whose content
is determined to be objectionable. Thus, the interactive system can
omit objectionable information on a row-by-row basis (e.g., a
channel) or on a cell-by-cell (e.g., content of a channel) basis.
The interactive program guide 600 includes television display area
601 and program grid 602. In this example, the interactive system
determined that the television show that is scheduled to be
broadcast on channel 3 at 12:00 PM did not pass all the filter
criteria. Thus, the title of the program show "All My Children" was
replaced by the title "No programming available." Also, the row for
channel 99 as shown on FIG. 2 has been omitted because channel 99
did not pass all the filter criteria.
[0031] FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating an implementation of a
component that removes information about objectionable content in
one embodiment. The component that removes objectionable content is
passed an indication of the selected day and time for the
interactive program guide, as well as selection criteria for
selecting programs about which to display information, such as
program genres, and parental controls, such as limits on the
content ratings on programs about which information is to be
displayed. Both selection criteria and potential controls may be
configured by a user, or may be set in another fashion. In block
701, the component retrieves the programming information for the
passed day and time. In block 702, the component filters the
retrieved program information in accordance with the specified
selection criteria. In block 703, the component further filters the
retrieved program information in accordance with the specified
parental controls. In block 704, the component generates the
interactive program guide based on the filtered programming
information. In block 705, the component displays the generated
interactive program guide and then completes.
[0032] FIG. 8 illustrates the integration of television programming
information with on-demand programming information on a single
interactive program guide in one embodiment. Interactive program
guide 800 includes a program grid 801. The program grid includes
television programming rows 808 and a pay-per-view row 811. The
program grid also includes on-demand programming information rows
809 and 810. Row 809 includes information related to on-demand
movies that the user has rented, and Row 810 includes information
related to weather forecasting. More generally, the interactive
program guide may contain a row for various types of on-demand
programming such as access to particular web sites. A user selects
rows 809 and 810 to display more information about the on-demand
programming.
[0033] FIG. 9 illustrates an interactive program guide with
regular-sized cells in one embodiment. The interactive program
guide 900 includes program grid 902. The program grid includes
cells 905 all of the same size. In this example, the width of the
cell corresponds to a 30-minute programming slot. Some programs,
however, are longer than 30 minutes. For example, the program "All
My Children" broadcast on channel 3 starting at 12:00 PM is 60
minutes long. Thus, the title is repeated twice in each of the two
regular-sized cells. FIG. 10 illustrates an interactive program
guide with regular-sized cells when the user selects a cell. The
interactive program guide 1000 includes program grid 1001. When the
user selects one of the cells for the content "All My Children,"
the interactive system highlighted all cells associated with that
content. As a result, the user can quickly see the start and end
time associated with that content. One skilled in the art will
appreciate that a cell can be selected in various ways, such as
tabbing from one cell to the next, moving a pointer over a cell,
clicking on a cell, or so on. FIG. 11 illustrates another example
of the interactive program guide when the user selects a cell of a
program that is longer than 30 minutes. In this example, the user
selected one of the cells of channel 99. Since each of the cells
for channel 9 relates to "SportsCenter," the interactive system
highlighted each cell. Alternatively, the interactive system may
determine that "SportsCenter" is continuous and only highlight the
currently selected cell rather than all cells for the content.
[0034] FIG. 12 illustrates an example television screen in which
ATVEF information has been embedded. Television screen 1200
displays a video 1201. The television screen also displays a button
1202. The button 1202 was generated by the set-top box in response
to detecting that ATVEF information was included in a frame of the
movie being displayed. In this example, the set-top box displayed
the button to indicate that the user can buy sunglasses. The movie
happens to include actors who wear sunglasses and part of the
dialogue of the movie discusses sunglasses. In one embodiment, the
interactive system parses the closed caption text to identify
discussion topic of the movie. The end this case, a discussion
topic related to sunglasses.
[0035] Referring to FIG. 1, the content server received the content
from various content sources that may or may not include ATVEF
information or other interactive enhancement information. The
content server may add ATVEF links to content that does not include
them or may modify the ATVEF links on content that does include
them. For example, the content server may have the user's profile
information and may be able to provide ATVEF links that are
customized to the user's profile. So, for example, if a user has
previously purchased a certain brand of sunglasses, then the
content server may replace the ATVEF link indicating to buy
sunglasses with the link indicating to buy a case for the
sunglasses. More generally, the content server that may add ATVEF
links to on-demand video which traditionally does not include any
ATVEF links.
[0036] FIG. 13 is a flow diagram illustrating a component for
adding ATVEF information to a video stream in one embodiment. In
block 1301, the component receives the video stream. In block 1302,
the component analyzes the video stream to determine how the video
stream should be modified with ATVEF information. Such analysis may
include analyzing closed caption information that accompanies the
video stream. Such modification may include the adding of ATVEF
information, or the updating of the ATVEF information previously
added to the video stream. In block 1303, the component modifies
the video stream to insert ATVEF information in accordance with the
analysis of block 1302. In step 1304, the component displays the
video stream as modified in block 1303 and then completes.
[0037] The set-top box and the content server may be computers that
include a central processing unit, memory, and input devices (e.g.,
keyboard or remote control), output devices, and storage devices
(e.g., disk drives). The memory and storage devices are
computer-readable media that may contain instructions that
implement the interactive system. In addition, the data structures
and message structures may be stored or transmitted via a data
transmission medium such as the Internet. Various communication
links other than the Internet may be used such as local area
networks, wide area networks or point-to-point connections.
[0038] From the foregoing, it will be appreciated the various
embodiments of the invention have been described herein for
purposes of illustration, but one skilled in the art will
appreciate that modifications may be made without deviating from
the spirit and scope of intervention. Accordingly, the invention is
not limited except as by the appended claims.
* * * * *