RECEIVING DEVICE, SERVER, TELEVISION RECEIVER, MOBILE TERMINAL, SYSTEM, RECEIVING METHOD, INFORMATION PROCESSING PROGRAM, AND STORAGE MEDIUM

• US 20100138873A1
• Filed: 10/06/2006
• Published: 06/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Yagi, Ryouta, Terada, Satoshi, Matsubara, Takanobu
• Granted Patent: US 8,156,531 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4345 Extraction or processing of SI, e.g. extracting service information from an MPEG stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4383 Accessing a communication channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/472 End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content end-user interfaces for retrieving video data from a database G06F16/739; network services for supporting unicast streaming H04L65/612
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A receiving device receives broadcast, information, etc. in response to a user selection by manipulation, in order to present the broadcast, information, etc. to the user. The device includes a channel set managing section (30) which collectively handles multiple channels corresponding to broadcast and content on the Internet or another network received by a receiving device (100) as channel groups which are preset handling units according to certain rules. The user can readily handle large numbers of channels when compared with cases where increasing channels are all handled equally without being grouped.

Claims

1-65. -65. (canceled)

66. A receiving device for, in response to a user selecting one of channels each assigned to either broadcast or information, receiving either broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channel to present either the broadcast or information to the user, the channels being classified into channel sets so that the user can select that channel from channels being classified into a channel set being specified as a current channel set, said device comprising:

memory means for containing channel set descriptions on data by which to identity broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channels; and

channel set managing means for, if the user has selected one of the channel sets, obtaining one of the channel set descriptions corresponding to the selected channel set in order to switch from the current channel set to a channel set in accordance with a selected channel set description.

67. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising application program control means for storing multiple application programs associated with the channels, switching between the application programs for execution according to channel switching, and starting up one of the application programs according to the selected channel, the application programs enabling the user to manipulate the broadcast or information.

68. The receiving device of claim 66, wherein:

the channel set descriptions contain therein a name of a second channel set description listing lists of multiple channels for each of the channels; and

the second channel set description contains therein an identifier for one of the channel set descriptions that references the second channel set description.

69. The receiving device of claim 68, wherein display methods are changed for display of a channel set and for display of a second channel set.

70. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising at least either one of:

reading means for retrieving the channel set descriptions from a storage medium; and

communications means for obtaining the channel set descriptions from an external device over a network.

71. The receiving device of claim 66, wherein:

the channel set descriptions contain therein a location from which channel set descriptions are newly obtained; and

the channel set managing means updates the channel set descriptions via the communications means based on the description of the location.

72. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising channel set sorting means for rearranging the display sequence of channel sets, wherein

the channel set sorting means rearranges a display sequence of the channel sets by at least either one of a sequence of updating of the channel sets and access frequency of the channel sets in presenting the channel sets to the user.

73. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising channel set description generating means for generating a channel set description which is a list of channels in a channel set from a file containing a collection of URL links written in XML, HTML, SVG, RSS, CSV, or plain text, the file being stored in the receiving device.

74. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising channel set description generating means for generating a channel set description which is a list of channels in a channel set from a file containing a collection of URL links written in XML, HTML, SVG, RSS, CSV, or plain text, the file being received from a service server.

75. The receiving device of claim 74, further comprising second URL list managing means for obtaining a second list of URLs, wherein

the channel set description generating means generates the channel set descriptions from the file containing a collection of URL links and the second list of URLs obtained separately from the file by the second URL list managing means.

76. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising attribute managing means for storing user attribute information and receiving device attribute information, wherein

the channel set managing means compares either the user attribute information or the receiving device attribute information stored in the attribute managing means to the channel set descriptions and changes channel sets presented to the user.

77. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising:

channel set display means for, during switching between channel sets, presenting information on an old or new channel set to the user; and

channel call display means for, during switching between channels, presenting information on an old or new channel to the user.

78. The receiving device of claim 77, wherein the channel call display means changes a background design for a channel call according to channel attribute information contained in the channel set descriptions.

79. The receiving device of claim 66, further comprising list display menu generating means for generating a list of channels from the channel set descriptions to present the list to the user as a list display menu.

80. The receiving device of claim 79, wherein:

the channel set descriptions contain a type of the list display menu; and

the list display menu generating means changes a display of the list display menu according to the type.

81. The receiving device of claim 79, wherein the list display menu generating means assigns the channels to respective buttons on an input device in displays the list of channels.

82. A server for providing the channel set descriptions to the receiving device of claim 66 over a network in response to a request from the receiving device.

83. A television receiver connectable to the Internet, said receiver comprising the receiving device of claim 66.

84. A mobile terminal connectable the Internet, said terminal comprising the receiving device of claim 66.

85. A system, comprising:

the receiving device of claim 66.

86. A method of, in response to a user selecting one of channels each assigned to either broadcast or information, receiving either broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channel to present either the broadcast or information to the user, the channels being classified into channel sets so that the user can select that channel from channels being classified into a channel set being specified as a current channel set, said method comprising:

the recording step of recording channel set descriptions on data by which to identity broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channels; and

the channel set managing step of, if the user has selected one of the channel sets, obtaining one of the channel set descriptions corresponding to the selected channel set from the recording step, in order to switch from the current channel set to a channel set in accordance with a selected channel set description.

87. An information processing program for causing a computer to operate as individual means in a receiving device for, in response to a user selecting one of channels each assigned to either broadcast or information, receiving either broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channel to present either the broadcast or information to the user, the channels being classified into channel sets so that the user can select that channel from channels being classified into a channel set being specified as a current channel set, said device comprising:

memory means for containing channel set descriptions on data by which to identity broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channels; and

channel set managing means for, if the user has selected one of the channel sets, obtaining one of the channel set descriptions corresponding to the selected channel set in order to switch from the current channel set to a channel set in accordance with a selected channel set description.

88. A computer-readable storage medium containing an information processing program for causing a computer to operate as individual means in a receiving device for, in response to a user selecting one of channels each assigned to either broadcast or information, receiving either broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channel to present either the broadcast or information to the user, the channels being classified into channel sets so that the user can select that channel from channels being classified into a channel set being specified as a current channel set, said device comprising:

memory means for containing channel set descriptions on data by which to identity broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channels; and

channel set managing means for, if the user has selected one of the channel sets, obtaining one of the channel set descriptions corresponding to the selected channel set in order to switch from the current channel set to a channel set in accordance with a selected channel set description.

89. A receiving device for, in response to a user selecting one of channels each assigned to either broadcast or information, receiving either broadcast or information corresponding to the selected channel to present either the broadcast or information to the user, said device comprising:

channel set managing means for managing classified channels as channel sets one of which can be selected by a manipulation input;

channel managing means for, in response to a manipulation input, enabling selection of one of channels classified to the selected channel set; and

communications means for connecting to a server, wherein

the channel set managing means obtains a channel set description from the server via the communications means to update the channel sets.