Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1996-09-30
2001-02-20
Powell, Mark R. (Department: 2779)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C348S553000, C348S564000, C348S569000, C348S901000, C345S215000, C345S158000, C455S001000, C455S001000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06191781
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to television (TV) systems, and in particular, to a TV graphical user interface (GUI) that combines an electronic program guide with a graphical channel changer to facilitate user access to TV programs and services.
BACKGROUND ART
The growing availability of TV broadcast and interactive services creates a need for a new type of a TV control system that would facilitate user access to options offered by TV program providers. For example, direct broadcast satellite services require users to make their selection among about a thousand TV channels with various TV programs and services. Direct television satellite broadcasting is provided via direct broadcast satellites at an uplink frequency of 17.3 to 17.9 GHz and a downlink frequency of 12.2 to 12.7 Ghz.
A digital satellite television system for direct television broadcasting includes a transmitter for transmitting television signals including video and audio components to a satellite. The satellite retransmits the received television signals to an outdoor antenna assembly that includes a dish-like antenna and a block converter. The dish-like antenna directs the received television signals to the block converter that converts the frequencies of the received television signals to respective lower frequencies.
The television signals produced by the block converter are connected via a coaxial cable to an indoor satellite receiver coupled to a TV set. The satellite receiver tunes, demodulates and otherwise processes the received television signals to provide video and audio signals with a NTSC, PAL or SECAM format suitable for processing by the TV set that produces an image on a display screen in response to the video signals, and an audible response by means of speakers in response to the audio signals.
Within the transmitter, analog video and audio signals are converted to respective digital signals compressed according to the Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) encoding standard. The resultant digital signals are represented by a stream of packets including error correction data. The type of packets is identified by a header code. Packets corresponding to control data may also be added to the packet stream.
In the MPEG standard, the video information may be transmitted in the form of a luminance (Y) component and two color difference (U and V) components. For example, the first color difference component may represent the difference between the red image information and the luminance image information (R-Y), and the second color difference component may represent the difference between the blue image information and the luminance image information (B-Y). In addition, the color information is compressed because the two color difference components correspond to more than one picture element. The use of color difference components and the sharing of the color difference components between picture elements reduces the transmission bandwidth.
The digital information resulting from the compression and error correction encoding is modulated on a carrier using Quaternary Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation and transmitted to a satellite for retransmission.
The satellite receiver comprises a tuner for selecting the appropriate carrier signal retransmitted by the satellite and for converting the frequency of the selected carrier to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal. A QPSK demodulator demodulates the IF signal and supplies it to an error-correcting decoder to correct demodulated packets representing video and audio information. An MPEG decoder decodes and decompresses video and audio packets to form digital video and audio signals supplied to a TV set. A TV set-top box serves to deliver compressed digital video and audio signals in real time usable form to one or more TV sets.
As discussed above, the digital satellite television system may provide about 1,000 TV channels with various TV programs and services. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a graphical user interface (GUI) on a TV screen that would facilitate user access to available TV programs and services.
Also, it would be desirable to provide a TV GUI that would combine an electronic program guide with a graphical channel changer to enable a user to quickly and seamlessly switch between a TV channel selection mode and a TV program selection mode.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, one advantage of the present invention is in providing a graphical user interface (GUI) on a TV screen that would facilitate user access to numerous TV programs and services offered by TV program providers.
Another advantage of the present invention is in providing a TV GUI that would combine an electronic program guide with a graphical channel changer to enable a user to quickly and seamlessly switch between a TV channel selection mode and a TV program selection mode.
The above and other advantages of the invention are achieved, at least in part, by providing a television system that comprises a CPU, and a TV monitor controlled by the CPU for displaying a graphical channel changer in a first mode. The graphical channel changer has graphical channel objects that enable a user to select a TV channel by directing a remote pointing device at the graphical object that defines the selected TV channel. In a second mode, the TV monitors displays an electronic program guide that includes the graphical channel objects.
In accordance with a first aspect of the invention, the electronic program guide contains a schedule of TV programs for a predetermined time period. The electronic program guide may be aligned with the graphical channel changer. When the user switches from the first mode to the TV second mode, the graphical channel changer is transformed into the electronic program guide.
The user may direct the remote pointing device at a guide graphical option in the graphical channel changer to transform the graphical channel changer into the electronic program guide. Alternatively, the remote pointing device may comprise a guide button for transforming the graphical channel changer into the electronic program guide.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the graphical channel changer comprises a graphical channel bar composed of graphical channel objects for defining various TV channels. The graphical channel objects may contain logos and number of the corresponding TV channels. When the user switches into the TV program selection mode, the electronic program guide is displayed by the TV monitor simultaneously with the graphical channel bar.
For example, the electronic program guide may comprise graphical program bars containing information on TV programs carried by various TV channels. Each graphical program bar is aligned with the graphical channel object that defines the corresponding TV channel.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the TV system further comprises a radio-frequency tuner for tuning the TV system to frequency of a selected TV channel. The CPU issues a tune command to tune the radio-frequency tuner to the selected TV channel when the user directs the remote pointing device at a selected graphical channel object defining the selected TV channel.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, to facilitate user access to the TV GUI, the position of the cursor on the TV monitor is checked. When the cursor is in a predetermined position, a graphical object displayed in that predetermined position changes its color.
In accordance with a method of the present invention, the following steps are carried out for switching from the TV channel selection mode to the TV program selection mode:
displaying the graphical channel selector containing graphical channel objects for defining a group of TV channels, and
drawing TV program information bars containing TV program information for the group of TV channels. Each program information bar that contains TV program information for a particular TV channel is simultaneously displayed and aligned with a graphical channel object defining this TV cha
Blonstein Steve
Chaney Jack
Deacon Michael
Nasledov Dimitry
Aiello Jeffrey P.
Powell Mark R.
Sajous Wesner
SamSung Electronics, Ltd.
Sherman & Sherman
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