Television – Basic receiver with additional function
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-13
2001-11-20
Luu, Matthew (Department: 2672)
Television
Basic receiver with additional function
C348S423100, C348S564000, C348S568000, C348S569000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06320623
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates in general to television receivers and in particular to a device which receives video and/or audio material and automatically displays in the picture in-picture (PIP) a particular program based on some event occurring in the program.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A television feature called PIP allows a television viewer to view a main television program while monitoring (typically in a small “window”) another PIP program. When an exciting event occurs in the PIP program, the viewer can swap the program being viewed in the main display with the program being viewed in the PIP. The problems with such a system are that the viewer cannot monitor the audio information in the PIP, and in addition the PIP occupies a portion of the main display which is quite annoying to a viewer watching on the program information in the main display.
For viewers without PIP, many will switch from a favorite channel to another channel while waiting for some event to occur on the favorite channel. It is typical, for example, for a viewer to switch back and forth between a football game and some other programming while there is little action in the football game, but many times a touchdown is missed without the viewer even knowing it.
In previously known television receiving devices aimed at solving these problems, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,585,865, the televisions monitor the program content of a channel by relying on additional data which is transmitted with a television signal, such as the data received from the Extended Data Service (EDS). In this prior art television receiver a user selects a particular genre of programming that he/she would like to view such as “Sports”. The EDS data is then extracted from the incoming video signals and compared to the genre selected by the viewer. If a match is found on a particular channel the television tuner is switched to this channel.
The problems associated with such a system is that it requires “program type” data, which indicates the type of program e.g.“Sports” “Movie” “News” etc.), to be transmitted in addition to the video signal. The user therefore must rely on the broadcasters to agree to transmit such “program type” data. Even if there is an agreement among broadcasters to transmit this data, such a monitoring system does not permit a user to monitor data on a user defined basis and more importantly the user cannot monitor events occurring in the video signal or in the audio signal but only events occurring in the EDS data. In particular the user cannot monitor information occurring within the program such as when a favorite sports figure's name is mentioned during a program, whether it is during a sporting event or simply on the news. Similarly, it is known to detect header information in the transmitted signal for various purposes, but to date a user has been unable to define what information the user would like to detect in the video signal or audio signal.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a television receiver and method of detecting particular events occurring in a video and/or audio signal and automatically providing a program having the event to the television receiver upon the detection of the particular event.
It is another object of the invention to automatically provide in a PIP window the program having the detected event, even if the PIP window is not originally being displayed. This enables the viewer to quickly swap the main display with the PIP window if the user wishes to view the PIP program.
It is another object of the invention to detect a particular event occurring in another program, store the frames making up the event in a memory to thereby capture the event missed by the viewer, and then display the event either as a PIP window or a main window but delayed by the memory.
It is yet another object of the invention to detect an event by monitoring the audio signal of a program using speech recognition technology.
It is even a further object of the invention to detect text occurring in a program using text recognition technology.
It is yet even another object of the invention to provide the viewer with the ability to enter a particular word or sound (such as the crowd's roar) as the event to be detected.
It is yet a further object of the invention to monitor the video for a particular shape such as a weather map or a football.
It is yet even another object of the invention to enable a viewer to surf the web (e.g. using a WebTV) while monitoring in the background video/audio program information for an exciting event. Similarly a viewer can monitor video/audio information while using a word processing program on a PC equipped with a tuner.
The invention accordingly comprises the methods and features of construction, combination of elements, and arrangement of parts which will be exemplified in the construction hereinafter set forth, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.
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Cavallerano Alan P.
Ciacci Claudio
Shen Richard C.
Gathman Laurie E.
Luu Matthew
Philips Electronics North America Corporation
Sajous Wesner
LandOfFree
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