Interactive video distribution systems – Video distribution system with upstream communication – Having link to external network
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-10
2002-12-31
Faile, Andrew (Department: 2611)
Interactive video distribution systems
Video distribution system with upstream communication
Having link to external network
C725S051000, C725S109000, C725S112000, C725S136000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06502243
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for locating a resource within a broadcasting environment. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for enabling resources of one event, program, or transport stream within a broadcasting environment to be shared with resources of another event, program, or transport stream.
2. Description of the Conventional Art
A Digital Television (DTV) receiver receives data from multiple broadcasting entities. For instance,
FIG. 1
illustrates a DTV receiver
11
that receives data from plural terrestrial broadcast stations
12
, a cable system
13
, a satellite system
14
and an Internet system
15
.
Data is generally communicated to the receiver in the form of one or more transport streams. For instance, a feed from a terrestrial broadcast station
12
generally includes a single transport stream. However, a satellite or cable feed may contain a hundred or more transport streams.
FIG. 2
illustrates the content and structure of a conventional transport stream
21
. As shown in
FIG. 2
, a conventional transport stream
21
generally includes a combination of one or more virtual channels
22
, a single virtual channel
22
being capable of broadcasting a program. For instance, when broadcasting video programs, the virtual channel combines a video stream with one or more audio streams to provide multiple language capabilities, and one or more data streams to provide information which can be used to enhance the video program. Similarly, pure data programs can be broadcast having only data streams, each data stream representing a large number of data items to enable access by the receiver to tens of thousands of data items simultaneously.
A virtual channel
22
can therefore be described in terms of its component elementary streams
23
or its component events (not shown). Each elementary stream
23
within a virtual channel
22
includes one particular type of information, such as video information, audio information, or data. By contrast, unlike elementary streams
23
, events generally include multiple types of information, such as a combination of video, audio and data. An event generally defines a portion of a program. For instance, an event might be a TV show. Events are often defined by criteria such as their duration.
The elementary streams
23
and events forming the virtual channels
22
may include data such as the HTML (“HyperText Mark-up Language”) pages
24
shown in FIG.
2
.
Moreover, the resources communicated to a DTV receiver potentially include virtual channels
22
, elementary streams
23
, events and/or individual data items
24
.
It is sometimes useful to share the resources of related broadcasts that are received by a DTV receiver. For instance, using resources from within one channel or transport stream to supplement another channel or transport stream provides great flexibility for enhancing the viewing experience of the DTV viewer.
Conventionally, various schemes have been proposed for sharing the resources of related broadcasts without relying on bidirectional communication. However, as described in greater detail below, the conventional art fails to provide an efficient system for enabling resources to be shared between programs of separate channels within one or more transport streams, or even between events within separate programs.
Some conventional proposals for sharing the resources of related broadcasts are based on broadcasts which include embedded references to resources, which references are based on the absolute address of those resources or on some other fixed criteria for identifying the resources. Those proposals are therefore susceptible to some of the same problems experienced by direct addressing schemes applied to computer systems.
First, direct addressing schemes tend to be relatively inflexible with respect to relocation of resources since a change in the location of a resource frustrates fixed references to that resource previously embedded in other programs. For instance, if a resource is relocated, URLs embedded in programs under direct addressing schemes specify references to an outdated address for the resource.
Second, direct addressing schemes tend to be relatively inflexible with respect to replication of resources. Since each replicated copy of a resource requires an independent and unique address to avoid errors in a direct addressing scheme, an embedded reference to a fixed address cannot be used to achieve a hyperlink to any of the replicated copies. Therefore, the most convenient copy of a resource may not be available based on the fixed reference information embedded in the program.
The first and second problems are both evident when a single program is rebroadcast by multiple local affiliate stations or cable stations. Specifically, as demonstrated by
FIG. 3
, programs broadcast from a network broadcasting server
31
includes embedded references to resources of a local affiliate station addressed by call-sign (e.g., WXAB) or by channel (e.g., channel
17
) of that local affiliate station. The program is retransmitted by local affiliates
32
, WXAB and WXCD, and received by corresponding receivers
33
, DTV#l and DTV#
2
, respectively. The receiver
33
DTV#
1
corresponding to local affiliate WXAB has access to the transmit stream and channel specified in the embedded reference, and the receiver DTV#
2
corresponding to local affiliate WXCD is without access to the transmit stream and channel specified in the embedded reference.
A third problem with conventional proposals resembling a direct addressing scheme is illustrated by FIG.
4
.
FIG. 4
demonstrates the difficulties experienced by an operator attempting to understand the reference specified by a reference embedded using the direct addressing scheme correspond to an actual address of a resource, it is difficult for an operator viewing those embedded references to recognize the underlying resource being referenced. Furthermore, due to the lack of meaningful pneumonic, typographical errors and the like are easily missed by an operator.
As an alternative to the proposals involving schemes resembling direct addressing, proposals have been offered for schemes based on embedded references to pneumonics corresponding to resources. These proposals more closely resemble conventional indirect addressing processes.
One such proposal provides specifications for TV and unidirectional HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) schemes. In each specification, embedded references are used to describe resources to be shared. However, neither specification provides an identifier for locating the source of a resource described by an embedded reference. Rather, the proposal for the HTTP scheme seems to require the receiver to look at the header of every data item received from every channel to identify a match for an embedded URL, a slow and resource intensive task. Additionally, the teachings of each of these specifications are limited to channels, neither suggesting the use of references to other resources such as elementary streams, events and/or data.
Another conventional proposal that resembles an indirect addressing scheme involves embedding references to groups of interlinked Web pages into a TV broadcast, and mapping the embedded references into references that are meaningful in the context of DTV. More specifically, this proposal involves the use of translation information transmitted along with the TV broadcast for translating embedded references having an Internet format (e.g., “http:” URLs) into a format that is meaningful in the context of DTV broadcasting (e.g., “dtv” or “atsc” URLs), so as to identify the location of corresponding resources within the TV broadcast. Such URL mappings could also be used more generally to translate URLs with arbitrary logical names for resources into URLs with direct addresses.
In order to locate the transport stream carrying an appropriate mapping table for translating an embedded URL, this propo
Birch & Stewart Kolasch & Birch, LLP
Faile Andrew
Lgerca, Inc.
Vu Ngoc
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