Program network specific information for TV or radio

[0002] This application is a Continuation of application Ser. No. 07/678,570 filed Mar. 28, 1991.

[0003] The present invention relates in general to broadcast communications and in particular to apparatus and methods for increasing the information available on a certain broadcast at a certain time.

[0004] In its early days, television consisted of a few major stations with one educational station thrown in for good measure. When one was out of town on business or visiting a relative, finding the desired program was not difficult due to the limited selection available. The expansion of the cable television industry has vastly changed the amount and the quality of the television programming available to the viewing public such that finding the desired program may be time consuming and difficult. Finding what station is broadcast on what channel is the first stumbling block. Unless one is familiar with all the shows broadcast on a particular channel or is willing to watch a channel until it takes a station break, this task could prove formidable. To only make things more frustrating, every time one changes a channel, this task must be repeated.

[0005] In a somewhat similar manner, sports fans are oftentimes frustrated because the broadcast station does not show the score of the sporting event often enough. Sports fans may be flipping through the sporting events trying to get an update on all the scores, only to be disappointed by the seemingly purposely sluggish manner in which the stations post the scores. In addition, money is oftentimes wagered upon sports scores, which increases the allure of a constant score update system.

[0006] Most televisions only display the channel number of the selected channel. Some also display the time. Recently, several televisions have come on the market which allow the user to program in up to four characters of information describing the channel. This information, such as station call letters or the network, is printed on the screen with the channel number when a channel is selected. However, a special television is necessary to provide this function.

[0007] Thus, a need has arisen for a way of harnessing the huge array of public programming into a stand-alone user friendly entertainment system. Such a system would provide network and/or show title information at a minimum. Such a system should be inexpensive and be capable of being integrated into present communications transmitters and receivers.

[0008] Some televisions are already equipped to strip and display text or other icon information, i.e. Close Captioning for the Hearing Impaired. As used herein, icons include any text strings or other symbolic items. The present invention improves on this idea, wherein some descriptors, in the form of text for a title or numerals for a sport score, of the displayed show be broadcast with the show, and then displayed either on the television display or on a separate display. One simple method of broadcasting these descriptors could be to imbed the descriptors in the Close Caption text and mark it with special characters. Then, the close captioning equipment could be used to strip the descriptors for display on all receivers. Receivers for the hearing impaired could display both. In this manner, program or station specific information could be displayed on the same screen as the program being broadcast or on a separate display.

[0009] In the drawings:

[0010] FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a first embodiment of this inventions communications system.

[0011] A system which provides not only the communication signal but also some additional information about that signal or the source of that signal will be described first, followed by a description of the operation of such a system.

[0012] Referring first to FIG. 1, a transmitter is shown generally at 10. Transmitter 10, and a receiver 12 operate cooperatively to convey information from the operator of transmitter 10 to the user of receiver 12. In a preferred embodiment, transmitter 10 is a standard broadcast television station or the distributing point of a cable television network. Receiver 12 in the preferred embodiment is a home television set. Television transmission and reception techniques are well known generally in the art, and therefore the specifics will not be described herein.

[0013] Transmitter 10 transmits the standard communications signals, associated with the selected communications format. This standard communications signal may comprise an associated signal carrying some network or program specific information. In the standard case of television, transmitter 10 would output the standard signals associated with the television broadcast format, and an associated signal carrying some network or program specific information. The associated signal could be imbedded in closed-caption text and marked with special characters to be stripped from and displayed separately from the standard closed-captioning text. Further, it should be noted that the associated signal does not need to be transmitted continuously with the communications signal, but may be periodically broadcast such as in discrete increments of time. Or, the user of the television set may determine when this network or program specific information is to be displayed by pushing a button on the remote control, similar to the button currently available on some remote controls which displays the time. Another configuration would be for the receiver to turn on automatically ion the middle of the night for about a minute to receive the next days network or program specific information, which would be broadcast by the broadcasting station.

[0014] Communication signal 14 is provided to an input 18 of radio frequency (RF) section 20 of receiver 12. In a standard airborne broadcast system, communications signal 14 would be provided to input 18 via antenna 17. In a cable transmission system, communications signal 14 would be provided to input 18 via a direct cable connection (not shown). In a fiber-optics transmission system, communications signal 14 would be provided to input 18 via a direct fiber-optic cable (not shown).

[0015] Radio frequency section 20 may be any one of a number of systems known in the art. In general, RF section 20 would contain amplifiers and filters necessary to provide receiver 12 with a sufficiently low noise figure and restricted band width such that communications signal 14 can be discerned from extraneous signals and noise also appearing at input 18.

[0016] An output 22 passes an amplified communications signal 14 to an input of an intermediate frequency section where the frequency of the communications signal 14 is converted down to a frequency at which the signals can be more easily processed, then processed to produce the end products of video and audio. The video portion of the communications signal 14 then enters a “text stripper” 24 which strips the entire icon string 26 and the picture 28 from the video signal. The picture 28 is then sent to processor 32. The entire icon string 26 is separated into the close caption text 30 and the remaining icons 36 at the “descriminator” 34. The close caption text 30 is then sent back to the processor 32 which will add the close caption text to the picture in the standard manner.

[0017] The present invention operates in a manner somewhat similar to the addition of close caption text to a T.V. picture. Referring again to FIG. 1, the remaining icons 36, leaving discriminator 34, go to a “decoder/processor” 38. Here the additional information is decoded from all remaining icons, stored in a function specific memory, and displayed either on the television screen or to another display. The additional information is stored such that the keypad of a remote control or a serial or parallel link is suitable for requesting a specific type of information to be displayed. The decoder/processor may be designed such that when a channel is changed, the specified additional information is instantaneously displayed. The memories may be RAM, ROM, EPROM, EEPROM or others and may contain the broadcast station source, the title of the program being broadcast or the score of the game being broadcast to name a few.

[0018] The prior art television function has been described which allows a viewer to program in up to four characters describing the channel to be displayed with the channel number upon the channel being changed. If a viewer was to buy a new T.V., programming in 60 cable T.V. stations would prove to be a formidable task. A second embodiment of the invention is to have a serial or parallel link installed in the television that would allow the television microprocessor talk to an external computer. An external computer, at an appliance store, could have a stored data base for all the channels of all the cable systems within, for example, 100 miles of the store. Then, when a customer purchases a T.V., he could request that the store “download” a particular area, and all of the channels received in that area could be stored in the memories within the television.

[0019] It will be appreciated that applications for this concept are numerous. In radio, for example, the station call letters could be stored in memory to be displayed dependent upon a frequency counter recognizing a change in frequency.

[0020] A few preferred embodiments have been described in detail hereinabove. It is to be understood that the scope of the invention also comprehends embodiments different from those described, yet within the scope of the claims.

[0021] For example, color display devices can be raster-scanned cathode ray tubes or other raster-scanned devices; devices that are not raster-scanned and have parallel line or frame drives; color printers, film formatters, or other hard copy displays; liquid crystal, plasma, holographic, deformable micromirror, or other displays of non-CRT technology; or three-dimensional or other devices using nonplanar image formation technologies.

[0022] The term “microcomputer” and “microprocessor” as used herein are synonyms. The phrase “processing circuitry” comprehends ASICs (application specific integrated circuits), PAL (programmable array logic), PLAs (programmable logic arrays), decoders, volatile and non-volatile memories, non-software based processors, or other circuitry, or digital computers including microprocessors and microcomputers of any architecture, or combinations thereof. Words of inclusion are to be interpreted as nonexhaustive in considering the scope of the invention.

[0023] Internal and external connections can be ohmic, capacitive, direct or indirect, via intervening circuits or otherwise. Implementation is contemplated in discrete components or fully integrated circuits in silicon, gallium arsenide, or other electronic materials families, as well as in optical-based or other technology-based forms and embodiments. It should be understood that various embodiments of the invention can employ or be embodied in hardware, software or microcoded firmware. Process diagrams are also representative of flow diagrams for microcoded and software based embodiments.

[0024] While this invention has been described with reference to illustrative embodiments, this description is not intended to be construed in a limiting sense. Various modifications and combinations of the illustrative embodiments, as well as other embodiments of the invention, will be apparent to persons skilled in the art upon reference to the description. It is therefore intended that the appended claims encompass any such modifications or embodiments.