METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING ELECTRONIC PROGRAM GUIDE

• US 20100251306A1
• Filed: 08/31/2009
• Published: 09/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: OH, Zhang-hoon
• Application Number:
  US12/550,448
• Publication Number:
  US 20100251306A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26283 for associating distribution time parameters to content, e.g. to generate electronic program guide data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2665 Gathering content from different sources, e.g. Internet and satellite
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47214 for content reservation or setting reminders; for requesting event notification, e.g. of sport results or stock market stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; notification of incoming messages in packet switching networks H04L51/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4828 for searching program descriptors retrieval of video data G06F16/739
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/173 with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal

Abstract

Provided are a method and apparatus for generating an electronic program guide (EPG). A method of generating a personalized EPG includes receiving at least one first EPG of scheduled contents from a content provider, detecting whether there is recording information on each of the scheduled contents, generating a second EPG using the detected recording information on each of the scheduled contents and the at least one first EPG, and transmitting the second EPG to a server.

Claims

1. A method of generating a personalized electronic program guide (EPG), the method comprising:

receiving at least one first EPG of scheduled contents from a content provider;

detecting whether there is recording information on each of the scheduled contents;

generating a second EPG using the detected recording information and the at least one first EPG, if the recording information is detected; and

transmitting the second EPG to a server.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting whether there is additional information to be updated among additional information on the scheduled contents,

wherein the generating the second EPG comprises generating the second EPG using the recording information and the additional information to be updated, if the additional information to be updated is detected.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the detecting whether there is the additional information to be updated comprises:

crawling for information on the scheduled contents from the content provider; and

searching for previously uncrawled additional information or additional information, which differs from previously crawled additional information, as the additional information to be updated, based on a result of the crawling.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the detecting whether there is the recording information is performed using a first processing unit, and the crawling for information on the scheduled contents from the content provider is performed using one of the first processing unit and a second processing unit.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the first processing unit generates and stores the recording information, and the second processing unit manages the at least one first EPG and reproduces the scheduled contents,

wherein the crawling for information on the scheduled contents from the content provider is performed by one of the first and second processing units, which performs operations to consume smaller resources at present.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the crawling for information on the scheduled contents from the content provider is performed after recording of at least one of the scheduled contents is reserved or completed.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one EPG of the at least one first EPG and the second EPG is configured in a microformat, and

wherein the detecting whether there is the recording information is performed based on the microformat included in the at least one first EPG.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating the second EPG comprises inserting at least one of a marker and text, which indicates the recording information, into the at least one first EPG or adding an addition region containing the recording information to the at least one first EPG.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising generating positional information including a position of additional information on the scheduled contents in the at least one first EPG,

wherein the generating the second EPG is performed based on the generated positional information.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating the second EPG is performed based on performance of an external apparatus that will use the second EPG.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the recording information includes information on at least one selected from the group consisting of recording completion, recording stoppage, recording cancellation, recording reservation, and reserved recording cancellation of a content and a content-recorded apparatus.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the at least one first EPG comprises receiving at least one of a first EPG configured in a hypertext markup language format and a first EPG configured in an extensible markup language format.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating the second EPG is performed after recording of the at least one of the scheduled contents is reserved or completed,

the method further comprising backing up the second EPG along with a time at which the recording is reserved or completed after the generating the second EPG.

27. A computer-readable medium having embodied thereon a computer program for executing the method of claim 1.

14. An electronic program guide (EPG) generation apparatus for providing a personalized EPG, the apparatus comprising:

a processing unit that receives at least one first EPG of scheduled contents from a content provider and detects whether there is recording information on each of the scheduled contents;

an EPG generation unit that generates a second EPG using the detected recording information and the at least one first EPG, if the recording information is detected; and

a transmission unit that transmits the second EPG to a server.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the processing unit detects whether there is additional information to be updated among additional information on the scheduled contents,

wherein the second EPG is generated using the recording information and the additional information to be updated, if the additional information to be updated is detected.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the processing unit crawls for information on the scheduled contents from the content provider and searches for previously uncrawled additional information or additional information, which differs from previously crawled additional information, as the additional information to be updated, based on a result of the crawling.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the processing unit comprises:

a first processing unit that detects whether there is the recording information or crawls for the information on the scheduled contents from the content provider; and

a second processing unit that crawls for the information on the scheduled contents from the content provider, wherein the crawling for the information on the scheduled contents from the content provider is performed by one of the first processing unit and the second processing unit.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the first processing unit generates and stores the recording information, and the second processing unit manages the at least one first EPG and reproduces the scheduled contents,

wherein the crawling for the information on the scheduled contents from the content provider is performed by one of the first and second processing units, which performs operations to consume smaller resources at present.

19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the processing unit crawls for the information on the scheduled contents from the content provider after recording of at least one of the scheduled contents is reserved or completed.

20. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein at least one EPG of the at least one first EPG and the second EPG is configured in a microformat, and

wherein the processing unit detects whether there is the recording information based on the microformat included in the at least one first EPG.

21. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the EPG generation unit generates the second EPG by inserting at least one of a marker and text, which indicates the recording information, into the at least one first EPG or adding an addition region containing the recording information to the at least one first EPG.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, further comprising a positional information generation unit that generates positional information including a position of additional information on the scheduled contents in the at least one first EPG,

wherein the EPG generation unit generates the second EPG based on the generated positional information.

23. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the EPG generation unit generates the second EPG based on performance of an external apparatus that will use the second EPG.

24. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the recording information includes information on at least one selected from the group consisting of recording completion, recording stoppage, recording cancellation, recording reservation, and reserved recording cancellation of a content and a content-recorded apparatus.

25. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the processing unit receives at least one of a first EPG configured in a hypertext markup language format and a first EPG configured in an extensible markup language format.

26. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the EPG generation unit generates the second EPG after recording of the at least one of the scheduled contents is reserved or completed and backs up the generated second EPG along with a time at which the recording is reserved or completed.