Patent Application
20060288361
The present invention relates to Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), also known as Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) and, particularly, to enhanced functions for such recorders.
The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. An area where this relationship has been advantageous is that of digital video recording. This has resulted in the emergence of a set top box based upon the PVR, also marketed as DVRs. A description of the PVR and like digital video recorders and their increasing consumer functions as computer controlled “engines” in television set top boxes may be found in: IEEE Spectrum periodical, (IEEE Inc.), New York, N.Y., July 2002, at pp. 26-31. The PVR has many advantages, particularly ease of use to the users in the advance scheduling of television programs to be subsequently sequentially recorded
The present invention relates to a unique function of PVRs with respect to data streams of television programming provided by television service providers, such as cable, e.g. cablevision or satellite television service providers. In order to better appreciate this invention, the background of such cable and satellite services needs to be considered. As the demand for television programming rapidly increased, frequency channels that the Government made available for the presentation of programming by respective television stations also rapidly increased. This led to television service providers that obtained and consolidated the programs transmitted by the respective television stations to be presented to viewers at Government designated frequency channels. The original television stations would transmit at their assigned frequencies either by direct line of sight, cable or through satellites. The television service providers then received the respective program channel signals and consolidated all the data in such transmissions into an integrated data stream representative of an extensive set of television programs being presented on corresponding channels into an unitary data stream that was then compressed and transmitted to the television service provider's subscribers either via satellite or cable. This integrated data stream was encrypted to protect the provider's revenues. The viewer could then receive this integrated data stream and extract any “live” or real-time television program through his conventional television frequency channel tuner. The provider system would extract the appropriate television program data directly from the real-time satellite of cable service provider integrated data stream. The extracted program data would be decrypted and decompressed and the television program would be displayed on a real-time basis on the television set display.
Where the user wished to record a particular television program for future viewing, it would be extracted at its scheduled viewing period from the integrated data stream in the same manner as described, decrypted, decompressed and recorded on disk drives (DVD). Individual programs on their respective channels could still be recorded on a real-time basis by first extracting, decrypting and decompressing.
This, of course, resulted in the current state of the DVR or PVR industry where the user, with an appropriate PVR, could record dozens of broadcast and transmitted television programs for future viewing merely by entering its unique identifier.
Of course, with the great popularity and marketing of PVRs, the industry is continually seeking improved functions for the devices. The present invention provides a significant new function for PVRs.
The present invention expands the function of PVRs to provide a remedy for defective transmissions of broadcast scheduled television programs. It does occasionally occur that defective portions of broadcast television are transmitted and, thus, recorded and stored on the PVRs. This may be due to faults in the original live broadcast or more likely due to defects in the satellite and even cable transmissions distributing the broadcasts to receiving users, particularly users who are subscribers to satellite and/or cable service providers.
The present invention is based on the recognition that with the extensive national networks maintained by service providers wherein each broadcast program already has an unique identifier, and corresponding television programs are broadcast and transmitted to receiving users in different parts of a country or even the world at different times, that it should be possible to locate a television program corresponding to the defectively transmitted television program stored in the PVR at the receiving user, and to replace all or a portion of the stored defectively transmitted television program.
Accordingly, the present invention involves a computer controlled interactive television system comprising receiving apparatus for and storing a transmitted data stream representative of said plurality of television programs of defined duration originally broadcast at defined times comprising apparatus for receiving and storing said transmitted data, a television display in combination with apparatus enabling a user to select the presentation of one of the plurality of stored television programs on the television display, and apparatus responsive to a user selection of a stored program for presenting the selected television program on the television display. This is representative of a standard PVR or DVR operation. The invention then provides apparatus for detecting a defective transmission of at least a portion of a received television program, combined with apparatus, responsive to the detection of the defective transmission of a received television program, for locating another broadcast of the defectively transmitted television program together with apparatus for transmitting a substitute portion of the another broadcasted program corresponding to the defectively transmitted portion, and apparatus for replacing the defectively transmitted portion with said substitute portion in the stored defectively transmitted television program.
The system preferably involves a retransmission or rebroadcast identical with the original of the defectively transmitted program. The system operates particularly effectively where there is apparatus at a service provider for recording at least another broadcast of each of a plurality of television programs identical with an originally broadcasted television program; and the apparatus for locating another broadcast transmits the recorded another broadcast or a portion thereof of a television program identical with the original of the defectively transmitted program as a substitute for the defectively transmitted program.
The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:
Referring to
Now, with respect to
The operations involved in the present invention are controlled by a data processing system under the control of a central processing unit 10, which, in turn, is interconnected to various other components by system bus 12. An operating system 22 that runs on processor 10 provides control and is used to coordinate the functions of the various components of the control system. The OS 22 is stored in Random Access Memory (RAM) 11. The programs for the functions, including those of the present invention, are permanently stored in Read Only Memory (ROM) 13 and moved into and out of RAM to perform their respective functions. In the normal operation for real-time television program playing, the integrated incoming data stream, under CPU control, is applied to broadcast channel extractor 17 that extracts the data representative of the television program scheduled for the channel that the user has conventionally tuned to on a tuner (not shown) and applies the extracted data to decoder 18 where it is decompressed. Also, since the data is likely to be encrypted to commercially protect the provider, encrypted data is optionally put through conventional decryption means 19 and then applied to a conventional television display adapter 28 to be displayed on the user's television set 29.
There will now be considered the recording of the incoming unitary integrated data stream. It is done through a disk drive system via disk drive adapter 21 on disk drives 20 of the PVR or DVR. In the conventional operation of a PVR, the television program scheduled for a given channel at a given time would be extracted by extractor 17, decompressed on decoder 18, decrypted and then stored on the single disk drive provided on the PVR. This individual program would be recorded and, thus, stored on the disk drive either in response to either advance scheduling by the user for such a recording or a user request to record a real-time presented television program. In this environment, sensing apparatus, interrupt sensor 27 may be set up in association with the broadcast channel extractor for sensing unscheduled interrupts in the broadcast including the frequency and duration of such interrupts. Based on the sensed data, a determination may be made as to the length of the defective portion in the stoked defective transmitted broadcast. Then, as will hereinafter be described in greater detail with respect to
Now, with reference to the programming shown in
Now, with reference to the flowchart of
The following is a simplified illustrative set of programming instructions in pseudocode showing how a corresponding television program broadcast may be located and an appropriate portion extracted and substituted for the defective portion in the DVR that received the defective program transmission.
Although certain preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that many changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the scope and intent of the appended claims.
