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Contents
1. 348 563 564 348 569 600 906 589 725 43 45 49 53 58 141 39 40 48 HO4N 5 445 5 50 56 References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 4 488 179 A 12 1984 Kruger etal 358 181 4 706 121 A 11 1987 Young 358 142 4 751 578 A 6 1988 Reiter et 358 183 4 908 713 A 3 1990 Levine 358 335 5 335 277 A 8 1994 Harvey 380 20 5 357 276 10 1994 Banker et al 348 7 5 523 796 A 6 1996 Marshall 348 589 5 592 551 A 1 1997 Lett et al 380 20 5 596 373 A 1 1997 348 569 5 635 989 A 6 1997 Rothmuller 348 563 5 684 525 A 11 1997 Klosterman 348 906 FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS WO WO 96 09721 WO WO 96 17473 3 1996 6 1996 OTHER PUBLICATIONS US 5 353 131 10 1994 Young et al withdrawn Goldberg A 35 inch Zenith TV premieres StarSight s onscreen guide Video Apr 1995 pp 41 StarSight User s Manual Primary Examiner Sherrie Hsia 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Christie Parker amp Hale LLP 57 ABSTRACT An improved television guide system According to one embodiment of the invention television guide information is provided that includes multiple occurrences of a single show The guide system of the present invention allows the user to identify a show and thereafter identify when the identified show will2. an overlay on one of the sources such as cable source 16 In the preferred embodiment the user displays grid guide 40 by pressing a guide button on remote control 22 Coordinator 14 responds to the initial pressing of the guide button by automatically tuning to the channel or device which carries grid guide 40 or overlaying a grid guide in a current broadcast When the user is done with grid guide 40 the user presses the guide button again or an exit button and coordinator 14 1 automatically returns to the channel or source last viewed by the user or 2 removes the overlay The grid guide designated generally with the reference numeral 40 provides a line up of all channels or a selection of channels 42 along with a description of the shows 44 available on those channels at certain times 46 For example the USA network is showing BATMAN beginning at 2 00 p m A SOAP is shown on NBC from 2 00 p m to 4 00 p m followed by NEWS The information may be sorted and or filtered by for example theme s according to Young et al U S Pat No 4 706 121 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes When multiple sources are used for receiving television channels an overlap of channels sometimes occurs For example both cable and DBS may carry the network NBC but cable may have NBC on channel 6 and DBS may have NBC on channel 7 By having the ability to delete and activate the channels displayed in grid guide 40 the user can deter
3. further embodiments the system may store the request and even if no other instances of the particular show are pres ently in the guide provide alerts to the user when instances of the show are added to the guide The above description is illustrative and not restrictive Many variations of the invention will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon review of this disclosure Merely by way of example the invention has been illustrated primarily with regard to multiple source guide systems but the invention is not so limited The scope of the invention should therefore be determined not with reference to the above description but instead should be determined with reference to the appended claims along with their full scope of equivalents What is claimed is 1 A television guide system for providing television program information for a viewer the system comprising a memory storing viewer selection data and an electronic program database comprising a listing of a plurality of television programs telecast at particular times a display coupled to the memory for displaying at least a portion of the listing in a guide format an input for receiving viewer selection of a television program listing associated with a particular television program and a processor coupled to the memory display and input the processor including logic for storing the viewer selection of the television program listing in the memory and aler
4. In other embodiments the user will mark the show to be placed in a reminder list When the time for the show in the reminder list arises the system will either tune automatically to that show or prompt the user to determine if the user wishes to have the television tuned to that particular channel In other cases the user may use the information for the purpose of recalling that he she wishes to return to the television at that particular time FIG 4 is an overall flowchart illustrating operation of the invention according to one particular embodiment In most cases the operation shown in FIG 4 will be performed under US 6 701 527 B2 7 the direction of software stored on a RAM ROM or other computer readable memory such as memory 28 The data may be stored locally in an external database or in a combination of both In step 401 the system receives input indicating that the user wishes to identify other instances of a particular show At step 402 the system searches for other instances of the particular show beginning at the present time It should be recognized that the user may or may not be in a current time display in a guide when such input is provided For example the user may be scanning a listing of action movies that have been generated based on a theme search and have the cursor on an instance of a particular movie one week in the future When the user activates the when else function the system will in most embodime
5. desired show Additionally the source identifier can be utilized to switch between various devices automatically when unat tended VCR programming is desired Furthermore when US 6 701 527 B2 3 program information is received from multiple satellite sources and a desired channel is selected the present inven tion can in one embodiment automatically move the cus tomer s satellite dish such that the customer receives the desired program from the associated source The present invention then tunes to the correct channel In creating a merged television guide a channel map is created which identifies the channels available on the mul tiple sources and identifies their source For example in the case of DBS local channel implementations a channel map is created with both local cable and DBS channels merged The local channels and the DBS channels are tagged with a source identifier This merged guide information is used by the system to identify when a particular show is to be played even when it is not from the same source as another instance of the same show When the user consumer selects a non DBS channel from the guide the integrated receiver decoder unit IRD box for the satellite switches the IRD to couple the local cable for example to the receiver The system then tunes the televi sion tuner or other tuning device to the required channel If a DBS channel is later selected the system switches the IRD to couple th
6. to the coordinator the coordinator may also contain elements such as an internal tuner a switching device for switching between sources and other components In the embodiment shown in FIG 1 he coordinator is connected to and controls infrared IR emitter s 30 IR receiver 31 is connected to coordinator 14 and receives input from the remote or keyboard 22 to provide the necessary user input to the system IR emitter s 30 can be replaced by for example a hard wired interface a bus interface or an RF transmitter The IR emitter s 30 and or direct connections e g 31 control one or more of IRD box 18 television 12 VCR 13 cable box 16 and other inputs 20 IR emitter s 30 acts as a remote control device by emulating remote control signals of television 12 VCR 13 cable box 16 and or other devices Coordinator 14 can in some embodiments be placed in for example the cable box 16 VCR 13 television 12 a satellite receiver or even the keyboard computer Remote control 22 is a hand held remote controller for controlling coordinator 14 In the preferred embodiment remote control 22 is provided with an IR transmitter which controls the coordinator via IR receiver 31 Other remote controls not shown in FIG 1 can be used for manually controlling television 12 VCR 13 cable box 16 IRD box 18 and other inputs 20 although in a preferred embodiment coordinator 14 performs all the necessary control functions of the system For ex
7. when else screen display button 48 and striking an enter button on the remote control Of course a full keyboard will allow more versatile operation In either event the controller 14 searches the stored schedule information for other occurrences of that particular show As used herein the term particular show refers to a specific movie or other unique show In the case of a series of shows e g the COSBY SHOW the term particular show will refer to a specific segment or episode of that show In the example in FIG 2 the system searches for other occurrences of GONE WITH THE WIND and indicates to the user if when and where GONE WITH THE WIND will be played again The particular show may or may not be shown again on the same source of video Of course a show may also refer to for example an FM radio broad cast as well as a television show FIG 3 illustrates one possible outcome after entering the when else button As shown the movie GONE WITH THE WIND is being played at multiple times in the future Specifically it is currently being shown HBO1 as the user is probably already aware if the screen has been entered from a grid guide generated for the current time In addition the same channel is showing this movie at 11 00 p m on the same day A different channel HBO2 is showing this movie at 11 30 p m on the same day In this particular illustration HBO1 and are provided to the user ove
8. 14 1996 now U S Pat No 5 801 787 BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to the field of television schedule guides and their method of operation More specifically in one embodiment the invention provides a method and apparatus for identifying when a particular show is being broadcast in a television guide system As video entertainment becomes increasingly sophisticated consumers are provided with wider options in video entertainment In addition to conventional broadcast television programs a television viewer may now have access to for example cable television programming digi tal satellite service programming cable stereo broadcast and conventional satellite programming Moreover within each of the various transmission media available to the consumer the number and variety of programs is increasing dramatically While benefitting consumers through greater selection the array of programming available to consumers also presented a certain dilemma Specifically as the number of programs available to the consumer became large the pro cess of selecting which program to view became increas ingly onerous For example a consumer may have access to well over 100 cable television channels If a particular consumer has access to not only cable programming but also other programming such as digital satellite service the process of choosing a program would have been daunting Accordingly new and improv
9. a United States Patent Schein et al US006701527B2 US 6 701 527 B2 Mar 2 2004 10 Patent No 45 Date of Patent 54 75 73 21 22 65 63 51 52 58 TELEVISION SCHEDULE SYSTEM AND METHOD OF OPERATION FOR MULTIPLE PROGRAM OCCURRENCES Inventors Steven M Schein Menlo Park CA US David P Warden Belmont CA US Molly K King Fremont CA US Theresa A Alba Fremont CA US Robert E Russman Pleasanton CA US Assignee StarsightTelecast Inc Fremont CA US Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U S C 154 b by 0 days Appl No 10 256 469 Filed Sep 27 2002 Prior Publication Data US 2003 0028878 1 Feb 6 2003 Related U S Application Data Continuation of application No 10 055 533 filed on Jan 22 2002 now abandoned which is a continuation of application No 09 841 137 filed on Apr 24 2001 now Pat No 6 341 374 which is a continuation of application No 09 344 274 filed on Jun 30 1999 now Pat No 6 247 176 which is a continuation of application No 09 120 704 filed on Jul 22 1998 now Pat No 5 959 688 which is a continuation of application No 08 665 216 filed on Jun 14 1996 now Pat No 5 801 787 Tints bod tse HO4N 5 445 US 725 43 725 49 725 53 725 58 725 141 Field of Search
10. ample as the user adjusts the volume control on remote 22 coordinator 14 emits signals through IR emitter 30 to adjust the volume in television 12 IRD box 18 receives television programs along with other information via in one embodiment satellite dish 32 IRD box 18 and the other sources of television signals each provide program schedule information to the system This program schedule information or guide may also include a channel map that contains the channel information indicat ing which channels are available on that source Information associated with the DBS guide and others is saved in the IRD box receiver s RAM or downloaded to the coordinator 14 Similarly program guide information can be received through cable box 16 other inputs 20 antennae 24 and or through any other transmission medium e g dedicated twisted pair telephone line Each of these sources may also be provided with television schedule data within the signal transmitted by the service provider Coordinator 14 finds and sorts the program guide infor mation available in system 10 Various formats can be used for the television schedule information For example data packets comprising a simple header section and an infor mation section can be received and sorted with other more complex data packet formats or a header with source information can be added In the preferred embodiment coordinator 14 takes the television schedule information from the availa
11. be played again Accordingly the user may more easily select shows for viewing or recordation 1 Claim 4 Drawing Sheets Z U S Patent Mar 2 2004 Sheet 1 of 4 US 6 701 527 B2 085 30 VCR CABLE AIG l U S Patent Mar 2 2004 Sheet 2 of 4 US 6 701 527 B2 FIG 2 U S Patent Mar 2 2004 Sheet 3 of 4 US 6 701 527 B2 GONE WITH THE WIND SOURCE DAY TIME HEIZ ONZO ANZ HBO TODAY 1 00 HBO2 TODAY 1 30 085 WED 5 8 4 00 NBC 5 9 5 00 INTERNET BLOCKBUSTER FIG 3 U S Patent Mar 2 2004 Sheet 4 of 4 US 6 701 527 B2 START 401 402 SEARCH FOR OTHER IN STANCES OF THE PARTICU LAR SHOW 404 DISPLAY OTHER INSTANCES OF THE PARTICULAR SHOW 406 RECEIVE TUNE RECORD CONMANDS FIG 4 US 6 701 527 B2 1 TELEVISION SCHEDULE SYSTEM AND METHOD OF OPERATION FOR MULTIPLE PROGRAM OCCURRENCES CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of application Ser No 10 055 533 filed Jan 22 2002 abandoned which is a continuation of U S Ser No 09 841 137 filed Apr 24 2001 now U S Pat No 6 341 374 which is a continuation of U S Ser No 09 344 274 filed Jun 30 1999 now U S Pat No 6 247 176 which is a continuation of U S Ser No 09 120 704 filed Jul 22 1998 now U S Pat No 5 959 688 which is a continuation of U S Ser No 08 665 216 filed Jun
12. ble source s or a data input line and sorts mixes it For example coordinator 14 may receive program schedule information via the vertical blanking interval in a television channel or via a transponder for the DBS or the Internet and then arrange the information in an organized fashion or perform other operations For example the system may eliminate duplicate channels In an alternative arrangement the sorting mixing of pro gram schedule information is done in a separate location and US 6 701 527 B2 5 then provided to system 10 for example on a simple satellite channel Thus program schedule information which has already been mixed sorted organized etc is received in a format which is ready for display This ready for immediate display format can also be provided in a separate data stream via a different medium or on a televi sion channel FIG 2 is a simplified example of an on screen display of a schedule grid guide that has been assembled from the television guide information This display may be presented on a television screen a personal computer that conducts the overall process or a television sensor display generated by a personal computer In the preferred embodiment after coordinator 14 has collected and sorted all the available program guide information coordinator 14 generates the grid guide set forth in FIG 2 for display on television 12 via for example a direct connection not shown to TV 12 or via
13. e satellite receiver decoder to the receiver The system then tunes the DBS tuner to the selected DBS channel In the case of for example cable and antenna inputs the system switches to the correct video input and then tunes the television tuner to the required channel for receiving the selected source Thus automatic access to multi source television schedule guide information is pro vided While the present invention is illustrated herein primarily in relation to a system in which the merged guide is formed at the user s location it will be understood that this is only for the purposes of illustration and the merged guide may be formed at a remote location such as a cable head end FIG 1 illustrates in simplified form an example of a multisource television schedule guide system 10 with mul tiple sources connected directly or indirectly to a television 12 and or VCR 13 In the embodiment in FIG 1 multi source television program and television schedule guide system 10 operates under the control of coordinator 14 Television 12 and VCR 13 are provided with inputs from cable box 16 and DBS source 18 either directly as illustrated in FIG 1 or via coordinator 14 Other inputs 20 may also be supplied to the television and or VCR directly or via the coordinator 14 A remote control 22 is used by a viewer to tune the television and conduct other operations In alterna tive embodiments a keyboard such as a computer keyboard is used for
14. ed methods of providing program guide information have been developed for display on the television screen of the consumer s television Of particular note the StarSight on screen guide system has proven to be pioneering in the field of on screen guide systems The StarSight system provides not only television listings but also capabilities such as theme searching VCR programming detailed program information and other functionality Recently additional functionality is suggested in such systems See U S application Ser No 08 665 216 incor porated herein by reference for all purposes In one such system guide information from for example disparate sources such as satellite sources and cable sources is com bined to form a unified guide system according to this invention may for example eliminate redundant information from such sources and provide other functionality Significant strides have been made via the StarSight guide system and in fact such guide systems are achieving wide spread acceptance in the television industry As the com plexity of such systems increases however still further functionality is desired 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 50 55 60 65 2 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An improved television guide system is provided by virtue of the present invention According to one embodi ment of the invention multiple occurrences of a single show may be identified for a user For exam
15. input The keyboard may be hard wire connected or wireless In this embodiment cable is provided via cable box 16 and DBS is provided via IRD box 18 Antennae 24 may be used as additional sources of television broadcasts along with cable box 16 IRD box 18 and other inputs 20 In one typical embodiment antenna 24 and cable box 16 would be considered local sources meaning that they likely contain local television broadcasts such as local news broadcasts By contrast DBS sources would not be considered local because they would likely not contain such local content Other inputs 20 can include multiple satellite sources When multiple satellite sources are present coordinator 14 switches between the available satellite sources by automati cally moving the user s satellite dish or switching between satellite dishes In order to automatically move the satellite dish a memory within IRD box 18 or elsewhere tracks the position of the DBS satellite dish in relation to satellite 10 15 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 sources which are available via the DBS satellite dish The IRD box 18 then automatically positions the DBS satellite dish such that the desired satellite source is received by the IRD box 18 Coordinator 14 includes processor CPU 26 and memory typically RAM 28 that serve as the primary devices for operating the system In the case where the various televi sion signal sources are provided
16. mine whether to display one of the NBC channels both of the NBC channels or neither of the NBC channels In an alternative embodiment coordinator 14 may automatically note duplicate network names and delete one of the dupli cates The user may utilize the remote control device to move a cursor or other indicator from position to position in the grid guide The cursor may be indicated by for example coloring the display of the indicated show differently from the rest of the shows In the embodiment shown in FIG 2 the cursor is directed to GONE WITH THE WIND and is indicated by cross hatching In this particular instance the double marks to the left of the display indicate that GONE WITH THE WIND has been playing for some period of time already Accordingly the user may wish to find out if the movie GONE WITH THE WIND is showing at other times such that the user may either automatically record the future presentation of GONE WITH THE WIND automatically tune to the future presentation of GONE WITH THE WIND or simply be aware that GONE WITH THE WIND will be showing at a future time Accordingly the user provides input to the system to indicate that the user would like to know when else the 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 show will be presented This input may be for example provided by pressing a dedicated button on the remote control or by marking a show toggling the cursor to a
17. nts search for all instances of that particular show beginning at the actual present time not the time one week in the future In this manner the user may for example identify when a particular movie is showing in the next few hours even though the user may have his her interest peaked in a particular show based on a listing at a distant date In some embodiments sources are searched in the stored guide information to identify other instances of a particular show The search may be performed locally or externally and may be based on show identity fields or on term based searching or a combination of the two After the other instances of that particular show have been identified a display is generated at step 404 that includes a listing of the other instances of the particular show If none are identified the display can either contain no such listings or indicate specifically to the user that no such listings have been identified Thereafter at step 406 the user may perform any one of a wide variety of functions Commonly the user may toggle down to an instance of the show and strike a record button or otherwise select the show for recordation In other cases the user may simply return to the previous guide listing In still other cases the user may toggle down to an instance of 10 15 20 25 30 8 the show and mark it for a future reminder to be generated for the user when that instance of the show arises In still
18. ple in many digital satellite systems today a particular movie will be played on multiple channels with offset start times The guide system of the present invention allows the user to identify a par ticular show and thereafter identify when the identified particular show will be played again The user may therefore more easily select shows for viewing or recordation Accordingly in one embodiment the invention provides a method of generating television guide information for a viewer comprising the steps of inputting schedule guide information into a guide system receiving user input to identify a particular show in the schedule guide information and identifying for the user other times when the particular show will be shown A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the inventions herein may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the attached drawings BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 is an overall diagram illustrating a television system in accordance with one embodiment of the invention FIG 2 is a typical grid guide used according to one embodiment of the invention FIG 3 is a display provided to the user when the when else feature is utilized and FIG 4 is an overall flowchart illustrating operation of the invention DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention utilizes television schedule guide information which may be obtained f
19. r the same source of television signals in this case a cable service provider Accordingly it is seen that the invention is useful even when only a single source of service is utilized The usefulness of the invention is further expanded when mul tiple sources of television signals are provided In this example GONE WITH THE WIND is also being shown on the next Wednesday at 4 00 p m on a DSS channel as well as on the next Thursday on a conventional antenna network signal NBC Accordingly when a particular show is played at different times the user may make use of this information even when the show is broadcast over different sources of television signals Still other sources of the particular show or information about the show may be indicated For example in FIG 4 the guide indicates an Internet source Toggling to this source may provide the user with a direct Internet connec tion that will for example provide information about the show or download the full show itself Alternatively adver tising about the availability of the show at a video store Blockbuster may be provided After identifying when a show is to be played the user may conduct any one of several operations In a common case the user will toggle the cursor down to a particular instance of the show and strike a record button on the remote control The system will then tune the VCR to the proper program at the designated time and record the show
20. rom one or several sources These sources may include an incoming cable line e g on a coax cable satellite broadcasts a dedicated telephone line e g a twisted pair and any other medium capable of transmitting a signal such as a computer or modem line Although the invention will find wide use in systems with only a single source of television signals such as a Satellite system the invention will be illustrated herein primarily in relation to a system where broadcasts are received from at least two separate sources such as 1 cable and a satellite dish or 2 two different satellites or 3 local cable and digital broadcast sources DBSs or 4 a con ventional antenna and a satellite dish such as a DBS source or 5 one of the above sources and an Internet or other computer source The multi source schedule information is sorted and displayed to the user in an organized fashion as described in greater detail in U S application Ser No 08 423 410 incorporated herein by reference When a user selects a show within a displayed guide the system reads a source identifier associated with that show or channel In the preferred embodiment the system then carries out an automatic switching tuning process that switches the input to the television either RF or video to a source device Exemplary source devices include a DBS a cable box a television tuner an Internet access etc The system then tunes to the required channel for the
21. ting the viewer when the particular television pro gram becomes available from an alternate program source
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