Trial selection of STB remote control codes

• US 20080092045A1
• Filed: 02/14/2007
• Published: 04/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Saturn Licensing LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Candelore, Brant L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,966,552 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/716
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/635 Overlay text, e.g. embedded captions in a TV program
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/1444 Selective acquisition, locating or processing of specific regions, e.g. highlighted text, fiducial marks or predetermined fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42661 for reading from or writing on a magnetic storage medium, e.g. hard disk drive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/431 Generation of visual interfaces for content selection or interaction; Content or additional data rendering
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4351 involving reassembling additional data, e.g. rebuilding an executable program from recovered modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73

Abstract

A method consistent with certain embodiments of identifying a functional command set for an access device that accesses television programming provided by a service provider involves, at a control device, transmitting a command from a first command set to the access device; ascertaining whether or not the access device provides a correct response to the command, wherein: if the command comprises an [ON] command, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if a video synchronization signal is produced by the access device; and if the command comprises a command that is expected to generate a text containing video frame, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if the text containing video frame is displayed by using an optical character recognition process to extract text from the video frame to determine if the video frame corresponds to the expected text containing video frame. This abstract is not to be considered limiting, since other embodiments may deviate from the features described in this abstract.

Claims

1. A method of identifying a functional command set for an access device that accesses television programming provided by a service provider, comprising:

at a control device, transmitting a command from a first command set to the access device;

ascertaining whether or not the access device provides a correct response to the command, wherein;

if the command comprises an [ON] command, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if a video synchronization signal is produced by the access device; and

if the command comprises a command that is expected to generate a text containing video frame, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if the text containing video frame is displayed by using an optical character recognition process to extract text from the video frame to determine if the video frame corresponds to the expected text containing video frame.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising conducting a verifying process in which additional commands are transmitted that are expected to result in generating an additional text containing video frame, and ascertaining that the resulting additional text containing video frame contains text corresponds to the additional expected text containing video frame by using the OCR process to extract text from the additional text containing video frame.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the command comprises a [MENU] command and wherein the text containing video frame comprises an on screen display of a menu.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the command comprises a [GUIDE] display command and wherein the text containing video frame comprises an on screen display of a program guide.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising, if the access device does not provide a correct response to the command, the transmitting and ascertaining are repeated for additional command sets until a correct response is produced by the access device.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the OCR processing is carried out on a selected segment of the video frame.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the OCR process is enabled to detect special symbols in the video frames.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the special symbols include logos of one or more service providers or television channels.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting of one of an infrared remote control command and an RF remote control command.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting comprises positioning a cursor over an icon representing the command displayed on screen and sending a “

Select”

command.

11. A computer readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed on a programmed processor, carry out a process according to claim 1.

12. A method of identifying a functional command set for an access device that accesses television programming provided by a service provider, comprising:

at a control device, transmitting a command from a first command set to the access device, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting of one of an infrared remote control command and an RF remote control command;

ascertaining whether or not the access device provides a correct response to the command, wherein;

if the command comprises an [ON] command, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if a video synchronization signal is produced by the access device; and

if the command comprises one of a [MENU] and a [GUIDE] command, then the command is expected to generate a text containing video frame, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if the text containing video frame is displayed by using an optical character recognition process to extract text from the video frame to determine if the video frame corresponds to the expected text containing video frame in the form of either a menu or a program guide on screen display; and

further comprising;

if the access device does not provide a correct response to the command, the transmitting and ascertaining are repeated for additional command sets until a correct response is produced by the access device

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising conducting a verifying process in which additional commands are transmitted that are expected to result in generating an additional text containing video frame, and ascertaining that the resulting additional text containing video frame contains text corresponds to the additional expected text containing video frame by using the OCR process to extract text from the additional text containing video frame.

14. The method according to claim 12, wherein the OCR processing is carried out on a selected segment of the video frame.

15. The method according to claim 12, wherein the OCR process is enabled to detect special symbols in the video frames.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the special symbols include logos of one or more service providers or television channels.

17. The method according to claim 12, wherein the transmitting comprises positioning a cursor over an icon representing the command displayed on screen and sending a “

Select”

command.

18. A control device that identifies a functional command set for an access device that accesses television programming provided by a service provider, comprising:

a memory storing a plurality of sets of remote commands;

a video input coupled to the access device for receiving video signals;

a video synchronization detector;

a frame store that stores a video frame received at the video input;

an optical character recognition (OCR) machine that carries out an OCR process on the video frame stored in the video frame store;

a transmitter that transmits a command from a first of said command sets to the access device;

wherein, the control device ascertains whether or not the access device provides a correct response to the command by;

if the command comprises an [ON] command, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if a video synchronization signal is produced by the access device and detected by the video synchronization detector; and

if the command comprises a command that is expected to generate a text containing video frame, then the ascertaining is carried out by determining if the text containing video frame is displayed by using an optical character recognition process to extract text from the video frame stored in the frame store to determine if the video frame corresponds to the expected text containing video frame.

19. The control device according to claim 18, wherein a verifying process is conducted in which additional commands are transmitted by the transmitter that are expected to result in generating an additional text containing video frame, and ascertaining that the resulting additional text containing video frame contains text corresponds to the additional expected text containing video frame by using the OCR machine to extract text from the additional text containing video frame stored in the frame store.

20. The control device according to claim 18, wherein the command comprises a [MENU] command and wherein the text containing video frame comprises an on screen display of a menu.

21. The control according to claim 18, wherein the command comprises a [GUIDE] display command and wherein the text containing video frame comprises an on screen display of a program guide.

22. The control device according to claim 18, wherein, if the access device does not provide a correct response to the command, the transmitting and ascertaining are repeated for additional command sets until a correct response is produced by the access device.

23. The control device according to claim 18, wherein the OCR processing is carried out on a selected segment of the video frame.

24. The control device according to claim 18, wherein the OCR process is enabled to detect special symbols in the video frames.

25. The control device according to claim 24, wherein the special symbols include logos of one or more service providers or television channels.

26. The control device according to claim 18, wherein the transmitter comprises of one of an infrared remote control command transmitter and an RF remote control command transmitter.

27. The control device according to claim 18, wherein the transmitter transmits commands that position a cursor over an icon representing the command displayed on screen and sends a “

Select”

command to transmit the command.