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Television tuner

  • US 20060055831A1
  • Filed: 06/13/2005
  • Published: 03/16/2006
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2004
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A television tuner that receives a television signal using a smart antenna that can be statically adjusted with an electric signal to exhibit directivity in a selected direction, comprising:

  • a directivity control section that generates an electric signal with which the directivity of the smart antenna is adjusted so that the smart antenna will be directional to a selected direction;

    a tuner section that receives a television signal, which falls within a frequency band corresponding to a predetermined reception channel, via the smart antenna; and

    a signal state detector section that detects the state of a signal sent from the tuner section by detecting an AGC voltage that defines an amplification factor of a signal sent from the tuner and/or by detecting a bit error rate of a digital signal sent from the tuner section, wherein;

    the reception channel refers to a physical channel assigned to a frequency band on one-to-one correspondence or one or two or more virtual channels arbitrarily associated with each physical channel, the television tuner further comprising;

    a memory unit in which a first table indicating the relationship of correspondence between the physical channels and the frequency bands, a second table indicating the relationship of correspondence between the virtual channels and the physical channels, and a reception channel on which a television picture is received;

    a verification unit that when an instruction is issued to instruct direct selection of a reception channel, verifies whether the reception channel specified in the instruction agrees with the reception channel stored in the memory unit;

    a rescan unit that executes rescan;

    that is;

    that when the verification unit verifies that the reception channel specified in the instruction of direct channel selection agrees with the reception channel stored in the memory unit, if the reception channel is a physical channel, references the first table stored in the memory unit so as to determine a frequency band within which the tuner section receives a television signal;

    that if the reception channel is a virtual channel, references the first table and the second table, which are stored in the memory unit, so as to determine a frequency band within which the tuner section receives a television signal;

    that then causes the antenna control section to vary or control the receiving direction of the smart antenna and causes the signal state detector section to detect the states of signals sampled in all receiving directions;

    that when the state of a signal detected by the signal state detector section agrees with a predetermined signal state, preserves the receiving direction of the smart antenna in which the signal is sampled; and

    a display control unit that displays a representation signifying that rescan executed by the rescan unit is under way.

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