Claims
- 1. In an interactive video system having a central control node in bidirectional communication with plural viewer stations that include video display sets operably coupled to interactive station controllers, the central control node delivering video programming over multiple channels to the plural viewer stations and receiving information from the interactive station controllers, the system including a programming guide which identifies a plurality of current programs which are currently being broadcast for viewing and a plurality of future programs which will be available for viewing in the future, the program guide allowing the viewer to navigate through the program guide to focus on and select a program included within the guide, a method of displaying for a viewer a video segment relating to programming included in the programming guide, comprising:
- storing in a memory associated with the central control node of the interactive video system a plurality of video segments, each video segment being associated with at least one of said plurality of future programs available to a viewer from the interactive video system;
- obtaining an indication at a viewer station of the selected program in response to the viewer focusing on the selected program;
- whenever the selected program is one of the plurality of future programs, transmitting the indication of the selected program to the central control node, retrieving from the memory at the central control node in response to the transmitted indication the video segment associated with the selected program, transmitting the video segment from the central control node to the viewer station, and displaying the video segment for the viewer on a video display set simultaneously with the programming guide; and
- whenever the selected program is one of the plurality of current programs, forming the video segment associated with the selected program from the broadcasted programming and displaying the video segment for the viewer on the video display set simultaneously with the programming guide.
- 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising;
- storing in the memory associated with the interactive video system a text description relating to the programming available to a viewer; and
- retrieving from the memory in response to the viewer focussing on the selected program the text description corresponding to the selected program by the viewer from the programming guide and displaying the text description with the video segment for the viewer on the video display set.
- 3. The method of claim 2 in which the text description and video segment are displayed in, respectively, a text description window and a preview display window that are displayed adjacent each other.
- 4. The method of claim 2 in which the text description displayed for the viewer includes an icon indicating a predetermined characteristic of the selected programming.
- 5. The method of claim 4 in which the predetermined characteristic of the selected programming is selectively cued by the viewer.
- 6. In an interactive video system having a central control node in bidirectional communication with plural viewer stations that include video display sets operably coupled to interactive station controllers, the central control node delivering video programming over multiple channels to the plural viewer stations and receiving information from the interactive station controllers, the system including a programming guide which lists a plurality of current programs which are currently being broadcast for viewing and a plurality of future programs which will be available for viewing in the future, the program guide allowing the viewer to navigate through the program guide and focus on a selected program included within the program guide, a memory associated with the interactive video system, comprising:
- programming summary information maintained at the central control node that relates to the selected program and for at least the plurality of future programs includes multi-frame video segments relating to the selected program;
- processor control instructions in response to the user focusing on the selected program which cause the interactive video system to obtain a user selection indication corresponding to selected program;
- processor control instructions in response to the user selection indication which cause the interactive video system to determine whether the selected program is one of the plurality of future programs;
- processor control instructions in response to a determination that the selected program is one of the plurality of future programs which cause the interactive video system to access at the central control node in accordance with the user selection indication summary information relating to the selected program
- processor control instructions in reponse to the user selection indication which cause the interactive video system to determine whether the selected program is one of the plurality of current programs;
- processor control instructions in response to a determination that the selected program is one of the plurality of current programs which cause the interactive video system to generate a video segment associated with the selected program from the broadcast program and associate the generated video segment with the summary information for the selected program;
- processor control instructions in response to which the interactive video system displays the summary information and associated video segments for the viewer on the video display set at the viewer station in a program summary window adjacent the programming guide.
- 7. The memory of claim 6 in which the programming summary information further includes a text description relating to the programming available to the viewer.
- 8. The memory of claim 6 in which the programming summary information further includes a still image relating to at least one of the plurality of future programs available to the viewer.
- 9. The memory of claim 6 in which the programming summary information includes multiple icons corresponding to predetermined characteristics of the programming available to the viewer.
Parent Case Info
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/435,117, filed on May 5, 1995 now abandoned.
US Referenced Citations (11)
Non-Patent Literature Citations (1)
Entry |
"Designing a Broadcast Residential Entertainment Service: A Case Study" Sorce et al. Sep. 10, 1990. |
Continuations (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
435117 |
May 1995 |
|