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Television program delivery system
| Details |
Inventors: Hendricks, John S.; Bonner, Alfred E.;
Assignee: Discovery Communications, Inc. (Bethesda, MD)
Primary Examiner: Grant; Chris
Assistant Examiner:
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Dorsey & Whitney LLP
An expanded television program delivery system is described which allows viewers to select television and audio program choices from a series of menus. The primary components of the system include an operations center, a digital cable headend, and at least one set top terminal having a remote control. The system allows for a great number of television signals to be transmitted by using digital compression techniques. A combined signal is transmitted over satellite to a cable headend, which may modify the combined signal for changes or additions in programming or menu content. The combined or modified signal is subsequently distributed to individual set top terminals in the cable network. Menus are partially stored in a set top terminal in each subscriber's home and may be reprogrammed by signals sent from the operations center or headend. Numerous types of menus may be used, incorporating information included within the video/data signal received by the set top terminal. A remote control unit with icon buttons allows a subscriber to select programs based upon a series of major menus, submenus, and during program menus. Various data gathering and analysis techniques are used to compile programs watched information that in turn is used in packaging programs, customizing menu selections, targeting advertisements, and maintaining account and billing information. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A Television Program Delivery System Description 1.
Introduction FIG.
1 shows the present invention as an expanded cable television program delivery system 200 that dramatically increases programming capacity using compressed transmission of television program signals.
Developments in digital bandwidth compression technology now allow much greater throughput of television program signals over existing or slightly modified transmission media.
The program delivery system 200 shown provides subscribers with a user friendly interface to operate and exploit a six-fold or more increase in current program delivery capability.
Subscribers are able to access an expanded television program package and view selected programs through a menu-driven access scheme that allows each subscriber to select individual programs by sequencing a series of menus.
The menus are sequenced by the subscriber using simple alpha-numeric and iconic character access or moving a cursor or highlight bar on the TV screen to access desired programs by simply pressing a single button, rather than recalling from memory and pressing the actual two or more digit numeric number assigned to a selection.
Thus, with the press of a single button, the subscriber can advance from one menu to the next.
In this fashion, the subscriber can sequence the menus and select a program from any given menu.
The programs are grouped by category so that similar program offerings are found on the same menu.
2.
Major System Components In its most basic form, the system uses a program delivery system 200 in conjunction with a conventional concatenated cable television system 210.
The program delivery system 200 generally includes (I) at least one operations center 202, where program packaging and control information are created and then assembled in the form of digital data, (ii) a digital compression system, where the digital data is compressed, combined/multiplexed, encoded, and mapped into digital signals for satellite transmission to the cable headend 208, and (iii) a set of in-home decompressors
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Television 
