WO2006088460A1 - Navigation de canal en canal sur un televiseur a syntoniseur atsc integre - Google Patents

Navigation de canal en canal sur un televiseur a syntoniseur atsc integre

Info

Publication number
WO2006088460A1
WO2006088460A1 PCT/US2005/005106 US2005005106W WO2006088460A1 WO 2006088460 A1 WO2006088460 A1 WO 2006088460A1 US 2005005106 W US2005005106 W US 2005005106W WO 2006088460 A1 WO2006088460 A1 WO 2006088460A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
signal processing
processing device
channel
digital
device receives
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/US2005/005106
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Rajeev Madhukar Sahasrabudhe
Original Assignee
Thomson Licensing
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Thomson Licensing filed Critical Thomson Licensing
Priority to PCT/US2005/005106 priority Critical patent/WO2006088460A1/fr
Priority to US11/884,494 priority patent/US20080172699A1/en
Priority to PCT/US2006/005470 priority patent/WO2006089022A1/fr
Publication of WO2006088460A1 publication Critical patent/WO2006088460A1/fr

Links

Classifications

    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N5/00Details of television systems
    • H04N5/44Receiver circuitry for the reception of television signals according to analogue transmission standards
    • H04N5/50Tuning indicators; Automatic tuning control
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/41Structure of client; Structure of client peripherals
    • H04N21/426Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof
    • H04N21/42607Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof for processing the incoming bitstream
    • H04N21/4263Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof for processing the incoming bitstream involving specific tuning arrangements, e.g. two tuners
    • H04N21/42638Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof for processing the incoming bitstream involving specific tuning arrangements, e.g. two tuners involving a hybrid front-end, e.g. analog and digital tuners
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/41Structure of client; Structure of client peripherals
    • H04N21/426Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof
    • H04N21/42692Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof for reading from or writing on a volatile storage medium, e.g. Random Access Memory [RAM]
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/43Processing of content or additional data, e.g. demultiplexing additional data from a digital video stream; Elementary client operations, e.g. monitoring of home network or synchronising decoder's clock; Client middleware
    • H04N21/435Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/43Processing of content or additional data, e.g. demultiplexing additional data from a digital video stream; Elementary client operations, e.g. monitoring of home network or synchronising decoder's clock; Client middleware
    • H04N21/438Interfacing the downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. retrieving encoded video stream packets from an IP network
    • H04N21/4383Accessing a communication channel
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/47End-user applications
    • H04N21/482End-user interface for program selection
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/80Generation or processing of content or additional data by content creator independently of the distribution process; Content per se
    • H04N21/83Generation or processing of protective or descriptive data associated with content; Content structuring
    • H04N21/84Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N5/00Details of television systems
    • H04N5/44Receiver circuitry for the reception of television signals according to analogue transmission standards
    • H04N5/46Receiver circuitry for the reception of television signals according to analogue transmission standards for receiving on more than one standard at will
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/41Structure of client; Structure of client peripherals
    • H04N21/426Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to the area of channel navigation on receivers.
  • television stations may simulcast. That is, stations may simultaneously broadcast their programs on two channels allotted for their use by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Each of the two channels will encompass 6 MHz of bandwidth and need not be contiguous.
  • FCC Federal Communications Commission
  • One of the two sources will be the channel currently assigned to the station for NTSC analog broadcasts and the other will be for station use for HDTV digital broadcasts. It is, however, likely that viewers will regard the transmissions as one source/channel because the same program is carried simultaneously on both channels.
  • Analog broadcasting may be off-air or cable.
  • Signal processing devices produced during this transition period usually have two tuners.
  • Signal processing devices may include, but are not limited to, set top boxes (STBs), video cassette players and recorders (VCPs and VCRs), digital video disc players (DVDs) as well as televisions (TVs).
  • STBs set top boxes
  • VCPs and VCRs video cassette players and recorders
  • DVDs digital video disc players
  • One of the tuners and corresponding signal processing circuitry/module(s) is for receiving and processing HDTV signals and the other tuner and corresponding signal processing circuitry/module(s) is for receiving and processing NTSC analog signals.
  • the user has to first select inputs/tuners to view the digital channel lineup and then manually tune to the channel he/she is looking for.
  • Some manufacturers of digital (ATSC) receivers have tuners that have the capability to tune to both analog as well as digital channels using the same tuner or at least to populate the channels found in case there are two tuners into one comprehensive channel list. In this case the digital channels will be in the channel lineup with the analog channels.
  • the digital channels are listed in the channel line-up according to their pseudo channel number.
  • the pseudo channel numbers were created by the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) primarily to make channel number entry easy for digital channels, but that cannot be achieved until all of the broadcast becomes digital. Also the digital channels have pseudo channel numbers that are only two digits e.g.
  • digital channel 13-1 could have a pseudo channel number 46, and in the absence of the above invention, after having tuned to the digital tuner/input the user could enter the pseudo channel number instead of the actual main and sub-channel numbers for a channel. It is obvious that since the pseudo channel numbers do not relate in any way to the digital channel number and/or the analog channel number for a particular broadcaster, the user would have to remember the pseudo channel numbers for all the digital channels available to him/her.
  • NTSC off-air analog
  • the user might remember that the same broadcast is available in high definition. Since he/she does have a high definition signal processing devices he/she might as well view the broadcast in HD quality rather than standard definition (SD) quality, so the user/viewer may wish to select the ATSC signal source/channel.
  • the user switches the signal processing device's tuners/inputs from the analog tuner (NTSC) to the digital tuner (ATSC) the channel the signal processing device tunes to is either the first channel/signal source in the list of digital channels or the last signal source/channel that was tuned to when the user was watching a digital broadcast. Now the user has to navigate to locate the correct/equivalent digital broadcast by changing channels to tune to the correct digital channel.
  • Yet another prior art method of changing a channel/selecting a signal source is to directly tune to the desired channel number by, for example, using a remote control device.
  • the first problem being the digital channel numbers have two parts namely - a main channel number and a sub-channel number. If the tuner does not support data broadcasts then the sub-channel number can be a two digit number such as 13-02, where 13 is the main channel number and 02 being the subchannel number.
  • the broadcasts are both analog as well as digital this represents an inherent difference in the channel entry method for the two sources with the digital channel number entry requiring entries for both the main as well as the sub-channel numbers.
  • This invention solves the problems discussed above by taking the user directly to the digital channel from the same broadcaster when the user selects tuners/inputs from analog to digital.
  • This invention offers an easy and intuitive way for the user to navigate through the available analog channels as well as digital channels when it is not possible to have both analog and digital channels in one channel list. The user is not required to remember the pseudo channel number nor the main and sub-channel number for a digital channel. To tune to a particular signal source/digital channel the user simply needs to select an analog channel and switch inputs/tuners to select the corresponding digital channel.
  • the signal processing device would automatically identify the digital channel from the same broadcaster as the analog channel the signal processing device was tuned to prior to the user changing the tuner/input and directly tune to that channel.
  • the signal processing device is able to automatically determine if the associated digital channel/signal source is available or not because all the channels found for both the analog and digital spectrum will be stored in non-volatile memory (NVM).
  • NVM non-volatile memory
  • the signal processing device menu system has an option where the user sets his/her preference for the channel tuned to after the analog- to-digital or digital-to-analog tuner/input switch so as to tune to the channel from the same broadcaster or to the last tuned channel.
  • the method and apparatus of the present invention allow a user to select one of an analog signal source and a digital signal source in a signal processing device, wherein the signal processing device compares an analog channel number with a digital channel list, determines based on results of the comparison if a corresponding digital broadcast is available, and, if available, stores a corresponding digital channel number and selects the corresponding digital channel determined from the digital channel list in response to a command from a user.
  • analog off-air broadcast to cease totally is going to take a long time and users will have to unnecessarily live with the difficulty in use of their signal processing devices and other consumer electronics (CE) devices that can tune to both analog and digital off-air broadcasts today.
  • CE consumer electronics
  • FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary implementation of the present invention.
  • FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of implementing the present invention.
  • the present invention is directed to an interface by which the user/viewer can institute a change from an analog broadcast to a corresponding digital (HDTV) broadcast if such a broadcast is available.
  • NTSC analog channel numbers include a major channel number followed by the minor channel number 0. Users/viewers are, however, not aware of this and only use the major channel number for a NTSC analog channel. All ATSC digital HDTV channel numbers corresponding to NTSC analog channels have minor channel numbers of 1 or greater. For example, for NTSC analog channel 13, which is technically 13-0, has corresponding ATSC digital HDTV channels (if available and being broadcast) of 13 -1, 13-2 etc.
  • FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary implementation of the present invention.
  • a signal processing device 100 manufactured/produced during the transition period has two tuners and two corresponding sets of signal processing circuitry.
  • One tuner and corresponding set of signal processing circuitry 105 is for receiving and processing NTSC analog signals.
  • the other tuner and corresponding set of signal processing circuitry 110 is for receiving and processing ATSC digital HDTV signals.
  • Each tuner and corresponding set of signal processing circuitry receives off-air/cable signals as input.
  • Each tuner and corresponding set of signal processing circuitry 105,110 is also in communication with the signal processing device's microprocessor 115.
  • the signal processing device's microprocessor is further in communication with the signal processing device's non-volatile memory 120.
  • Non-volatile memory is used to store the channels list(s) as well as the software to implement the present invention.
  • Each tuner and corresponding set of signal processing circuitry 105,110 may also be in communication with the signal processing device's display engine 125, which may also drive display screen 130 of the signal processing device.
  • the signal processing device's microprocessor 115 also receives information/commands from an infrared (IR) receiver 135, which is controlled by an IR remote control device 140.
  • IR infrared
  • the user/viewer controls the switching between analog and digital channels via the IR remote control device 140.
  • the user also controls the switching between analog and digital channels by using the buttons on the front panel of the receiver but most users/viewers today rely on the IR remote control device.
  • FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method 200 of implementing the present invention.
  • the signal processing device determines if it is currently tuned to an NTSC analog channel at 210. If the signal processing device is currently tuned to an NTSC signal source/channel then the signal processing device compares the currently tuned NTSC channel number with the ATSC digital HDTV channel list, which may be in non-volatile memory at 215. The comparison is made, for example, by comparing the closed captioning information the receiver receives for a NTSC analog channel and an ATSC digital HDTV channel.
  • the signal processing device could use any of the data that is carried in the vertical blanking interval (VBI) to perform the comparison in order to identify the corresponding ATSC digital channel for an NTSC analog channel.
  • VBI vertical blanking interval
  • the VBI carries information such as V-chip ratings, time and day, program information, electronic program guide (EPG) information, and second audio program (SAP) if available.
  • the signal processing device Upon receipt of such a command, the signal processing device to select the corresponding ATSC digital HDTV channel using the information, which may be in the non-volatile memory at 235. If no command to select the corresponding ATSC digital HDTV channel is received then the signal processing device remains tuned to the NTSC analog channel as indicated at 240. The signal processing device then returns to 210 when the user/viewer changes to another NTSC analog channel.
  • the present invention may be implemented in various forms of hardware, software, firmware, special purpose processors, or a combination thereof, for example, within a mobile terminal, access point, or a cellular network. Preferably, the present invention is implemented as a combination of hardware and software.
  • the software is preferably implemented as an application program tangibly embodied on a program storage device.
  • the application program may be uploaded to, and executed by, a machine comprising any suitable architecture.
  • the machine is implemented on a computer platform having hardware such as one or more central processing units (CPU), a random access memory (RAM), and input/output (I/O) interface(s).
  • the computer platform also includes an operating system and microinstruction code.
  • the various processes and functions described herein may either be part of the microinstruction code or part of the application program (or a combination thereof), which is executed via the operating system.
  • various other peripheral devices may be connected to the computer platform such as an additional data storage device and a printing device.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
  • Circuits Of Receivers In General (AREA)

Abstract

L'invention concerne un procédé et un appareil permettant à un utilisateur de sélectionner une source de signal analogique ou une source de signal numérique dans un dispositif de traitement de signaux. Ce dispositif de traitement de signaux compare un numéro de canal analogique avec une liste de canaux numériques, détermine, en fonction du résultat de la comparaison, si une diffusion numérique correspondante est disponible, et, en cas de disponibilité, enregistre un numéro de canal numérique correspondant et sélectionne le canal numérique correspondant déterminé à partir de la liste de canaux numériques, en réponse à une instruction d'un utilisateur.
PCT/US2005/005106 2005-02-16 2005-02-17 Navigation de canal en canal sur un televiseur a syntoniseur atsc integre WO2006088460A1 (fr)

Priority Applications (3)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
PCT/US2005/005106 WO2006088460A1 (fr) 2005-02-17 2005-02-17 Navigation de canal en canal sur un televiseur a syntoniseur atsc integre
US11/884,494 US20080172699A1 (en) 2005-02-16 2006-02-16 Channel Navigation on Integrated Atsc Tuner Tv Set
PCT/US2006/005470 WO2006089022A1 (fr) 2005-02-16 2006-02-16 Navigation sur un ensemble de chaines sur un poste de television a syntoniseur atsc integre

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
PCT/US2005/005106 WO2006088460A1 (fr) 2005-02-17 2005-02-17 Navigation de canal en canal sur un televiseur a syntoniseur atsc integre

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2006088460A1 true WO2006088460A1 (fr) 2006-08-24

Family

ID=34960961

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US2005/005106 WO2006088460A1 (fr) 2005-02-16 2005-02-17 Navigation de canal en canal sur un televiseur a syntoniseur atsc integre

Country Status (1)

Country Link
WO (1) WO2006088460A1 (fr)

Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5461427A (en) * 1994-06-28 1995-10-24 Thomson Consumer Electronics, Inc. Television receiver having the capability to associate any HDTV and any NTSC channel
US5790202A (en) * 1996-05-15 1998-08-04 Echostar Communications Corporation Integration of off-air and satellite TV tuners in a direct broadcast system
US6483547B1 (en) * 1998-03-03 2002-11-19 General Instrument Corporation Transmission signal ID for analog television broadcasts
US20030179320A1 (en) * 1999-03-26 2003-09-25 Kim In Hoon Apparatus and method for auto channel searching of video display apparatus
US6741293B1 (en) * 1999-05-20 2004-05-25 Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Digital and analog broadcast receiver, and digital and analog broadcast reception and output method
US20040158874A1 (en) * 2003-01-27 2004-08-12 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha Broadcast reception apparatus, broadcast reception method, program, and storage medium

Patent Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5461427A (en) * 1994-06-28 1995-10-24 Thomson Consumer Electronics, Inc. Television receiver having the capability to associate any HDTV and any NTSC channel
US5790202A (en) * 1996-05-15 1998-08-04 Echostar Communications Corporation Integration of off-air and satellite TV tuners in a direct broadcast system
US6483547B1 (en) * 1998-03-03 2002-11-19 General Instrument Corporation Transmission signal ID for analog television broadcasts
US20030179320A1 (en) * 1999-03-26 2003-09-25 Kim In Hoon Apparatus and method for auto channel searching of video display apparatus
US6741293B1 (en) * 1999-05-20 2004-05-25 Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Digital and analog broadcast receiver, and digital and analog broadcast reception and output method
US20040158874A1 (en) * 2003-01-27 2004-08-12 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha Broadcast reception apparatus, broadcast reception method, program, and storage medium

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