GB2414322A

GB2414322A - A user configurable television decoder with a remote control

Info

Publication number: GB2414322A
Application number: GB0411238A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Paul Fellows
Original assignee: AMINO COMM Ltd
Current assignee: AMINO COMM Ltd
Priority date: 2004-05-19
Filing date: 2004-05-19
Publication date: 2005-11-23
Also published as: GB0411238D0

Abstract

A system for controlling a television decoder (e.g. a set top box) includes the steps of selecting a button on a remote control and assigning an action to be carried out by the television decoder in response to the pressing of the button. The action is stored in the memory of the decoder. Actions may be selected from a menu and may relate to loading given URLs.

Description

24 1 4322 Method of Controlling a Television Decoder and Television

Decoder Adapted to carry out the method This invention relates to a method of controlling a television decoder using a remote control hand set and a television decoder adapted to carry out the method, and relates particularly to the use of a set top box as a television decoder.

Set top boxes are electronic devices which receive television or other signals and convert these into a form suitable for display on a television. Commonly, set top boxes are used to allow digital television channels to be displayed on analogue televisions and to enable access to encrypted television channels. Typically a set top box receives a large number of digital television signals, some of which may be encrypted. The set top box converts one of the digital television channels selected by the user mto a suitable form for display on a local television and provides the converted signal to the television for display. Typically the local television will be auk analogue television and the converted signal provided by the set top box Will be an analogue signal. The conversion process includes decryption of an encrypted television signal if necessary. A set top box can also be used to allow access to access controlled digital television channels by a digital signal suitable for display by the digital television.

Operation of the set top box is usually controlled by the user using a conventional remote control hand set. Typical functions which can be controlled using the remote control hand set are switching on and off, and changing volume and the television channel displayed.

Commonly the remote control hand set will control both the set top box and the associated television displaying the selected programming, but it is also possible to have separate remote controls for the set top box and television. Conventionally, m order to change the display of a desired television channel using a numerical keypad on the remote control device. The set top box responds to this number by providing the corresponding numbered television channel to the television for displaying.

Conventionally, the buttons on a remote control hand set used to control a digital set top box are used to control the operation of the set top box based on the pre-deDmed manufacturers installed functions. Even so called "universal" remote control hand sets have a manufacturer defined function associated with each of the buttons on the remote control hand set. Such universal remote control hand sets are universal only in the sense that they are able to control a wide range of different manufacturers devices.

Set top boxes are electronic devices generally having significant data processing capability.

Accordingly a number of arrangements have been proposed in which a set top box can access further services beyond television. For example, it has been suggested that a set top box should, in addition to providing access to television channels offer access to the internet, video on demand systems, streaming music and multi cast television. These services are usually to be provided for a display to one or more local televisions associated with the set top box but in some circumstances alternative arrangements such as optionally providing streaming music to speakers which are not associated with a television may be desired.

Currently, m order to access these various services the action required from the user will vary depending upon the particular service. Generally, television channels can be selected lor display as discussed above by pressing the corresponding channel number on the remote control hand set. However, in order to access other forms of services a user typically needs to access a series of menus allowing them to choose the service they wish to access.

Accordingly, although a set top box has the capability to allow a user to access and to select through their televisor what other means a wide range of services, accessing the full range of services can be time consuming and inconvenient for the user. Controlling access to many services and interaction with services will require the user to navigate through a number of menus or type in information, with the menus required being different for different services and this will usually require complex and non-intuitive use of the remote control hand set buttons.

As a result, access to services can be difficult and time consuming.

The present invention was made to overcome this problem, at least in part.

In a first aspect, this invention provides a television decoder comprising a user selection means, a memory means and a remote control signal receiving means, in which; the user selection means is arranged to allow a user to select an action to be carried out by the television decoder in response to a received remote control signal, the memory means is arranged to store the selected action and when the remote conkol signal receiving means receives said remote control signal the television decoder is arranged to respond by reading the selected action stored in the memory means and carrying out the selected action.

In a second aspect, this invention provides a method of controlling a television decoder comprising the steps of: selecting a button on a remote control handset; assigning an action to be carried out by the television decoder in response to pressing of the button; recording the assigned action in a memory device of the decoder; receiving a signal that said button has been pressed; reading the assigned action from the memory device; and carrying out the assigned action.

The invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic figures, in which; Figure I shows a remote conkrol hand set suitable for use with the invention; and Figure 2 shows an example of an on screen function selection menu used in the invention.

Accordingly to the present invention the set top box is able to assign a user defined function to each remote control hand set button.

A conventional remote control hand set emits a unique signal when each of the hand set buttons is pressed.

As is well known, a set top box, or other controlled device is able to receive and identify the signals and will respond to each different received signal by carrying out the manufacturers assigned function of the associated hand set button.

According to the present invention the set top box has a memory device allowing the function to be carried out in response to a received remote control hand set button signal to be changed and stored so that a user defined function is carried out by the set top box in response to each received button code instead of the manufacturers assigned function.

For example, a set top box system may have access to the internet, video on demand, music and multi tasked television. The set top box is controlled by a standard remote control hand set 1 as shown in figure 1 which is used to send commands to the device, which in turn are responded to by the set top box to control different aspects of the service which are presented to the user. The buttons are labelled with their function, for example numbers, channel change up and down, volume up and down, play, stop, pause etc. Typically, a user is presented with a service where multicast or broadcast television channels are accessed by pressing number buttons O to 9 on the remote control hand set. Pressing a single button, for example 1 to 5, might change the channel to one of the terrestrial broadcast channels BBC 1, BBC2, ITV etc. Alternatively, or additionally 20r 3 digits may be used to select tv channels, for example 101 for BBC 1 or 301 for a pay per view movie channel. In order to control video on demand or similar services a set of media control buttons such as play, stop, pause, fast forward and rewind are provided. In addition, there are volume control buttons and there may be further functional buttons depending on the manufacturers preferences.

In the illustrated example the remote control hand set also includes a sound mute button, and a set of move left, right, up and down buttons and a OK button to allow movement through and selection from on screen menus and for playing games.

It should be understood that the present invention is not limited to this particular arrangement of buttons or button types or hand set and that the illustrated hand set is shown by way of example only to allow the invention to be explained.

Conventionally, the set top box includes means for receiving coded signals transmitted by the remote control hand set when the hand set buttons are pressed and means for decoding the signals to identify the button which has been pressed. The identity of the button which has been pressed is then used by the set top box controller, either alone or in combination with the identities of other buttons which have been pressed, to determine the requested action. When the requested action has been identified the controller carries it out.

It should be understood that although the function of each button in a conventional remote control hand set is fixed the action taken in response to each button may depend on which other buttons have been pressed. For example, when the number buttons are used to select television channels the button presses may be interpreted as one, two or three digit numbers depending upon the time which elapses between button presses.

The advantage of the present invention is that instead of the meaning of each button signal being fixed the meaning assigned to each button signal may be user defined.

According to the present invention, in order to allow the remote control button functions to be used and defined the set top box contains a memory device which stores the possible button signals and the corresponding user assigned meanings or actions. Preferably this memory device stores the meanings in the form of a look up table of received remote control hand set button signals and corresponding meanings or actions. By linking the remote control hand set buttons to meanings or set top box actions which are recognised by the set top box and allowing the user to redefine these meanings or actions use of the present invention means that the user is no longer limited to the remote control hand set interface options defined or specified by the manufacturer.

The actions which can be assigned to the remote control buttons will include any of the standard button actions. For example the actions could include a "next channel" action in s response to which the set top box wild move to the next higher numbered channel in its internal channel list from the presently displayed channel and display it. Similarly, a "previous channel" action would be responded by the set top box moving to the next lowest numbered channel on its internal channel list to the presently displayed channel and then displaying it.

However, the buttons can also be assigned functions which would not normally be found as assigned functions of the remote control hand set buttons as actions. For example, a button could be assigned a "go to (URL) " action where the set top box responds to the button signal by accessing the programming at the defined URL. This programming could be a web page, mu]h media resource from the internet, a local multicast, a video on demand server, or any other accessible and displayable resource.

Thus, in the present invention, assigning the "URL" action as a meaning to a particular remote control hand set button allows a user to directly access the programming or content at a URL without requiring]abonous working through menus and typing addresses and similar actions required conventionally to access non television programming resources.

A further possibility is to have some of the remote control hand set buttons carrying out a similar action to the actions originally defined by the manufacturer but with changed and user gettable variable parameters. For example, instead of the "volume up" action instructed by pressing the volume up button acting conventionally to increment the volume up by one setting, an action "volume up x" could be assigned to the volume up button where x is the number of volume increments or steps by which the volume has Increased for each push of the button by the user.

Further, a single button could have multiple actions assigned to be carried out together in response to pressing of the button. For example a single button could be assigned the action of both accessing a specific television channel and also setting the volume to a specific volume, such as go to BBC 1 at volume 5. This can be useful because different television channels, or other services, can have different base volume settings. As a result, changing from one service to another can result in an abrupt change in the sound volume. The facility to set the volume level used when changing to a new service or channel can prevent this.

Further, it is preferred that the assignment of actions to buttons should be extended so that sequences combinations of multiple buttons can have actions assigned as well as Individual buttons. An example of this is that in practice, in order to allow the button functions to be easily remembered, users will be able to use the numerical buttons marked O to 9 to carry out "go to" actions accessing specified television channels or content at other types of U1RL.

However, many users will wish to define more then ten such "go to"actions. Accordingly, the use of two, three or more number codes input by pressing multiple numerical buttons within a preset time can be used to access any desired number of television channels and resource locations and allow this to be easily memonsed. Where such multiple button programming Is allowed it will be understood that any of the possible functions defined for a single button could instead be canned out in response to a multiple button sequence.

As explained above, in the present invention the set top box includes a memory device storing the possible signals which may be received when buttons are pressed on the remote control hand set together with the corresponding user defined action to be carried out by the set top box in response to each signal. However, as explained above the memory device can also store combinations of two or more buttons pressed in succession and actions to be carried out by the set top box in response to these button combinations or sequences.

A preferred method of carrying out user assignment of actions to the buttons is to place the set top box in a button action designation mode. This placing of the set top box in a button action designation mode can be carried out by any desired method. Preferably, the button action designation mode is selected by using the set top box to access a settings menu controlling various settings including the remote control button action designation.

When the set top box has been placed in the remote control button action designation mode the user can press any desired button. A menu can then be displayed by the set top box identifying the selected button and the current action assigned to the button, that is the action to be carried out by the set top box when that button is pressed. Further, the menu shows a listing of possible actions which can be assigned to the button. The menu is controlled and displayed by the set top box. However, the menu will usually be displayed on a television connected to the set to box.

A typical menu displayed by the set top box is shown In figure 2.

The user can then move through the menu and select a new action to be assigned to the button by using buttons on the remote control hand set assigned for moving or scrolling through menus and selecting from menus. Further, some actions may require additional information to be mput to complete the definition of the selected action. For example, where a "go to" action is selected so that pressing the button will cause the set top box to access content from a particular URL, it will be necessary to input or select the IgRL address or identity.

Other actions having a variable element will require the variable to be defined. In the examples given above the "volume up x" action will require the number of volume steps by which the volume is to be increased for each press of the button to be defined. Similarly, to set an action which would select a particular URL and starting volume will require both the URL and the starting volume to be defined.

As explained above, the set top box can respond to button sequences in additional to single buttons and it is preferred that the present invention allows actions to be assigned to both individual buttons and button sequences. In general a set top box will respond to a series of button presses as a sequence instead of a series of individual button presses if the buttons pressed are buttons which may form a sequence and the time elapsing between successive button presses is less than a predetermined threshold. In a conventional set top box only the numerical buttons 0 to 9 can form a sequence and this can be used to form two or three digit numbers if necessary to allow all of the available television channels to be accessed. In the present invention any buttons could in principle form a sequence so that if a series of button presses are made separated by a time delay below the time threshold the set top box will check whether the buttons correspond to a stored defined sequence and then respond to them as either a series of separate button presses or a sequence as appropriate.

Accordingly, if a series of buttons are pressed in the action assignment mode the set top box will display the action selection menu identifying the button sequence instead of a single button. An action can then be assigned to the button sequence in the same way as a single button.

Preferably, the set top box will also allow the threshold compared to the elapsed time between button presses to determine whether they potentially form a sequence or a series of separate button presses to be set by the user.

The necessary timers and comparators to allow the time elapsed between successive button presses to be compared to a threshold are provided in conventional set top boxes. Accordingly it is not necessary to describe this in detail.

In the above description of the present invention it is suggested that all of the buttons on the remote control hand set may have their assigned actions changed and reassigned by the user.

This is not essential alla is possible for only some of the buttons to have assigned actions which are changeable by the user and other buttons to have fixed predefined actions.

It is preferred for the set top box to store the original manufacturer defined functions of the buttons, or the buttons having changeable assigned actions, in addition to the current set of user defined actions so that set top box can be reset to the original manufacturers settings if desired.

Optionally the set top box may allow the actions assigned to the remote control hand set buttons to be locked. For example the input of a PIN number or similar code may be required before the button action designation mode can be entered and the actions assigned to the remote control hand set buttons changed. This may be desirable in practice in order to prevent children scrambling the actions assigned to the remote control hand set buttons.

The set top box may also be arranged to store multiple sets of remote control hand set button assigned actions so that different users can separately save their individual preferred options.

In this case the set top box will provide a sign on facility allowing the user to identify themselves. The set top box will then respond to this identity by switching to the appropriate set of assigned actions. Preferably this option can be used together with the locking option described above.

In the examples discussed above the application of the invention to a set top box is discussed.

The invention is also applicable to other types of television decoder in addition to set top boxes.

In the description pressing buttons on the remote control hand set and the set top box responding to such button pressing are referred to. It will be understood that this is intended to refer to the set top box sensing and responding to signals emitted by the remote control hand set when the buttons are pressed.

Claims

Claims 1. A television decoder comprising a user selection means, a memory

means and a remote control signal receiving means, in which; the user selection means is arranged to allow a user to select an action to be carried out by the television decoder m response to a received remote control signal, the memory means is arranged to store the selected action, and when the remote control signal receiving means receives said remote control signal the television decoder is arranged to respond by reading the selected action stored in the memory means and carrying out the selected action.
2. A television decoder according to claim I, m which the memory means is arranged to store the selected action by replacing a previously stored action.
3. A television decoder according to claim 1 or claim 2, in which the television decoder is arranged to allow multiple actions to be selected, stored and carried out in response to a received remote control signal.
4. A television decoder according to any preceding claim, in which the remote control signal receiving means is arranged to detect sequences of remote control signals and the television decoder is arranged to allow actions to be selected, stored and carried out in response to a sequence of received remote control signals.
5. A television decoder according to any preceding claim, in which the television decoder includes said memory means for storing actions to be carried out by the television decoder in response to a first set of received remote control signals and a memory means storing a second set of received remote control signals and only the actions to be carried out in response to the first set of received remote control signals can be selected by the user selection means.
6. A television decoder according to claim 5 in which the actions to be carried out in response to the first and second sets of received remote control signals are stored in the same memory means. 4 1
7. A television decoder according to any preceding claim in which the television decoder includes a memory means storing default actions to be carried out in response to the first set of received remote control signals and the television decoder is arranged to replace the stored selected actions with the default actions in response to a reset instruction.
8. A method of controlling a television decoder comprising the steps of: selecting a button on a remote control handset; assigning an action to be carried out by the television decoder in response to pressing of the button; recording the assigned action in a memory device of the decoder; receiving a signal that said button has been pressed; reading the assigned action from the memory device; and carrying out the assigned action.
9. A method according to claim 8, in which the step of recording the assigned action replaces a previously assigned action.
10. A method according to claim 8 and 9, in which multiple actions are assigned, recorded, read and carried out for said selected button.
11. A method according to any one of claims 8 to 10, in which multiple button sequence is selected, assigned an action and recorded and the assigned action is read and carried out when a signal that said button sequence has been pressed is received.