Television – Receiver circuitry – Remote control
Patent
1996-05-22
1998-09-15
Peng, John K.
Television
Receiver circuitry
Remote control
348 55, 348725, H04N 544
Patent
active
058087036
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device to provide an indication to a user of a remote control device that the user is engaging in "channel surfing".
2. Description of the Related Art
A television viewer can today receive a great number of channels on his TV. It is not unusual that the number of channels is 20 or more. When the choice is so varied, the TV viewer often switches between the channels with his remote control in his desire to find other channels with better TV programs.
Switching between channels brings the viewer to another channel believed to be better than the previous one. But after a short while he discovers that the new channel does not offer any better programs and starts to switch channels again. When the switching is repeated several times it is called "channel surfing". The viewer finally ends up surfing instead of actually watching TV.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the invention is to make the viewer stop or reduce surfing.
The inventive device, that has a detector built in, is placed close to the TV set, according to FIG. 1. The detector detects each time the viewer activates his remote control.
When the inventive device (1) has detected a certain number of activations for the remote control (3), during a defined length of time, the inventive device provides an indication that surfing is going on.
The indication can vary depending on how the viewer chooses to be informed that he is surfing. The indication is given by the inventive device (1) for a certain length of time, perhaps a couple of seconds, in the form of: (3), is switched on and makes it impossible to continue surfing during a certain time length.
Depending on which way of signalling the inventive device uses, the inventive device can assume different shapes and forms according to FIG. 2.
When the remote control uses infrared light, the jammer transmitter in the inventive device uses the method to blend or send false signals to the TV set remote control receiver. Since the TV set receives false signals the TV set can not take in signals from the ordinary remote control.
The function of the jammer transmitter is constructed so that the inventive device first gives a warning before the jammer transmitter is activated. Through the warning the viewer is notified that he has approximately 10 seconds to decide which channel he wants to view during the time period that the jammer transmitter is activated. The time length of the period can be relatively long, e.g., 10 to 30 minutes.
Instead of having a certain length of time during which the jammer transmitter is activated, it can be more suitable to have random time length when the jammer transmitter is activated. The time length is randomized each time surfing is detected and can be set from seconds to several minutes. This way, the viewer shall not know in advance when the jammer transmitter will be activated. The viewer shall not be able to determine when it will be possible to start surfing again.
For some viewers, the optical or acoustic indications are not enough to make him stop surfing. In these cases the inventive device is equipped with a reset button which has to be activated to stop the indication. The reset button is designed so that the viewer has to rise from his chair to push it. How long the reset button has to be held down depends on the intended degree of difficulty for the viewer to reset the inventive device. Instead of the above described messages and actions it can sometimes be better to show how frequent the viewer uses the remote control, e.g., a frequency counter.
The frequency counter can be realized as a number of lamps in a bar that are illuminated depending on the frequency of use, or as a numeric value on a display.
Of course, the inventive device can be used for all sorts of equipment that are controlled by a remote control, e.g. radio receivers, CD players or videos, to prevent frequent changes of channels and programs.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 illustrates one
REFERENCES:
patent: 5109222 (1992-04-01), Welty
Murrell Jeffrey S.
Peng John K.
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