Methods and apparatus for efficiently accessing periodically broadcast data

• US 20020116711A1
• Filed: 12/08/2000
• Published: 08/22/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Courtney, Jonathan D., Calder, Bartley H., Loo, James Van, Rivas, Jesus David
• Granted Patent: US 6,976,268 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4349 by extracting from data carousels, e.g. extraction of software modules from a DVB carousel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/443 OS processes, e.g. booting an STB, implementing a Java virtual machine in an STB or power management in an STB
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/643 Communication protocols network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP], H04L65/65

Abstract

The invention relates to methods and apparatus for accessing data that is periodically transmitted by a broadcaster. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a receiver capable of reception of data is disclosed. The data is transmitted by a broadcaster in a broadcasting system. The receiver reduces the delay conventionally encountered in accessing periodically transmitted data in a broadcasting system.

Claims

1. A receiver suitable for accessing selected portions of data that is periodically transmitted by a broadcaster in a broadcasting system, the receiver comprising:

a data storage unit arranged to store data;

a data updater unit coupled to the data storage unit arranged to detect an update to transmitted data and sending a notification when the update to transmitted data has been detected; and

a data accessing system coupled to the data storage unit arranged to access data from the data storage unit, wherein the transmitted data can be stored in the data storage and wherein the data accessing system can request data to be stored in the data storage.

2. A receiver as recited in claim 1, wherein the receiver includes the data storage.

3. A receiver as recited in claim 1, wherein data is saved by the receiver in the data storage.

4. A receiver as recited in claim 1, wherein the data access system further comprises:

a data access requester capable of sending a request for data to be saved in the data storage, the request identifying transmitted data that is to be saved in the data storage; and

a data accessor capable of accessing the storage device to retrieve transmitted data from the data storage device.

5. A receiver as recited in claim 4, wherein the receiver further comprises a data saver, the data saver being capable of saving transmitted data into the data storage, wherein the data saver can receive a request to save transmitted data in the storage.

6. A receiver as recited in claim 4, wherein the receiver further comprises a data locator capable of providing a locator that identifies location of transmitted data.

7. A receiver as recited in claim 1, wherein the transmitted data are carrousel files and the locator provided by the data locator is a carrousel file locator.

8. A receiver as recited in claim 1, wherein the transmitted data are carrousel files.

9. A receiver as recited in claim 4, wherein the receiver further comprises a data updater

17. A method as recited in claim 13, wherein the method further comprises acquiring a data locator, the data locator identifying data represented by the data class.

18. A method as recited in claim 17, wherein the data locator is a carrousel file locator.

10. A method of accessing data transmitted by a broadcaster in a broadcast system, the method comprising:

receiving the transmitted data from the broadcaster;

storing the transmitted data in a storage; and

accessing the transmitted data from the storage;

11. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the method further comprises dispatching a request to save transmitted data in the storage.

12. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the method further comprises determining whether data can be located in the storage

14. A method as recited in claim 13, wherein the initiating of the request to acquire data represented is done when an instance of the data access object is created and wherein the request initiates a process to acquire data represented by the created instance of the data class.

15. A method as recited in claim 13, wherein data class is a Java carrousel file class.

16. A method as recited in claim 13, wherein the data access object is a Java input output operation.

19. A method as recited in claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:

determining whether data is available to be accessed;

accessing data when it determined that data is available to be accessed; and

waiting for data to become available when it determined that data is not available to be accessed.

20. A method as recited in claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:

subscribing to an update notification, the update notification indicating an update to data, wherein the subscribing to an update notification is implemented in Java programming language.

13. A method of accessing data in a broadcast system, the method comprising:

creating an instance of a data class suitable for representation of data transmitted by a broadcaster in the broadcast system;

creating an instance of a data access object suitable for accessing data represented by the data class; and

initiating a request to acquire data represented by the created instance of the data class.