Home video club television broadcasting system
First Claim
1. A system for providing to a plurality of viewers with viewer operated video recording systems selective access to a plurality of prerecorded video programs which may be recorded and played back at each viewer'"'"'s convenience, comprising:
- scheduling means for defining a plurality of future viewing periods in which selected prerecorded video programs will be transmitted, for receiving viewer video program preferences from said plurality of viewers for video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during said future viewing periods, and for selecting the prerecorded video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during each of said defined future viewing periods in accordance with a selection priority determined by tabulating all of the viewer video program preferences during a predetermined time period, said scheduling means subsequently establishing, responsive to the tabulated viewer video program preferences, when and how often each selected prerecorded video program is to be transmitted during said future viewing periods; and
means responsive to said scheduling means for transmitting the selected prerecorded video programs to each of said plurality of viewers during respective future viewing periods in accordance with said selection priority.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system for providing access to a plurality of video programs of a video library in accordance with viewer preferences. Members of the Home Video Club of the invention may phone in or write in their video program choices and the received viewer choices are tabulated in accordance with a selection priority scheme at the transmission side so that the most popular video programs as determined by the voter choices may be broadcast more regularly for the viewer'"'"'s convenience. For this purpose, a "prime time" viewing period is defined in accordance with the viewer preferences so that the more popular video programs can be shown more frequently to meet viewer demand. The selected video programs are broadcast over rented or dedicated cable television channels for reception by the viewer. The received video programs may then be recorded and time-shifted so that the viewers may view the video programs at their leisure. The technique of this invention is particularly advantageous in that the broadcast system is directly responsive to the viewer preferences and is dynamically programmable in accordance with those preferences so that differing numbers of regular and prime time programs may be viewed in a given time period. Revenue may be raised by charging for the viewer'"'"'s calls and by the subscription fee for joining the Home Video Club.
413 Citations
34 Claims
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1. A system for providing to a plurality of viewers with viewer operated video recording systems selective access to a plurality of prerecorded video programs which may be recorded and played back at each viewer'"'"'s convenience, comprising:
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scheduling means for defining a plurality of future viewing periods in which selected prerecorded video programs will be transmitted, for receiving viewer video program preferences from said plurality of viewers for video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during said future viewing periods, and for selecting the prerecorded video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during each of said defined future viewing periods in accordance with a selection priority determined by tabulating all of the viewer video program preferences during a predetermined time period, said scheduling means subsequently establishing, responsive to the tabulated viewer video program preferences, when and how often each selected prerecorded video program is to be transmitted during said future viewing periods; and means responsive to said scheduling means for transmitting the selected prerecorded video programs to each of said plurality of viewers during respective future viewing periods in accordance with said selection priority. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method of providing to a plurality of viewers with viewer operated video recording systems selective access to a plurality of prerecorded video programs which may be recorded and played back at each viewer'"'"'s convenience, comprising the steps of:
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defining a plurality of future viewing periods in which selected prerecorded video programs will be transmitted; receiving viewer video program preferences from said plurality of viewers for video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during said future viewing periods; selecting the prerecorded video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during each of said defined future viewing periods in accordance with a selection priority determined by tabulating all of the viewer preferences during a predetermined time period and subsequently establishing, responsive to the tabulated viewer preferences, when and how often each selected prerecorded video program is to be transmitted during said future viewing periods; and transmitting the selected prerecorded video programs to each of said plurality of viewers during respective future viewing periods in accordance with said selection priority. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A system for providing to a plurality of viewers with viewer operated video recording systems selective access to a plurality of prerecorded video programs which may be recorded and played back at each viewer'"'"'s convenience, comprising:
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means for scheduling a plurality of future viewing periods during which selected prerecorded video programs will be transmitted; means for receiving and tabulating viewer video program preferences from said plurality of viewers for video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during said future viewing periods; means responsive to said receiving and tabulating means for selecting the prerecorded video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during each of said defined future viewing periods defined by said scheduling means in accordance with a selection priority determined by tabulating said viewer preferences; and means responsive to said selecting means for transmitting the selected prerecorded video programs to each of said plurality of viewers during respective future viewing periods in accordance with said selection priority, whereby at least one prerecorded video program selected by a predetermined percentage of the viewers is transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers each day during a variable prime time viewing period for a predetermined number of days. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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34. A method of providing to a plurality of viewers with viewer operated video recording systems selective access to a plurality of prerecorded video programs which may be recorded and played back at each viewer'"'"'s convenience, comprising the steps of:
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defining a plurality of future viewing periods in which selected prerecorded video programs will be transmitted over at least one cable television channel; receiving viewer video program preferences from said plurality of viewers for video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during said future viewing periods; defining a variable prime time viewing period in accordance with said viewer video program preferences during which at least one prerecorded video program selected by a predetermined percentage of the viewers is to be transmitted daily to each of said plurality of viewers, the timing and duration of said prime time viewing period varying in accordance with said viewer video program preferences; selecting the prerecorded video programs to be transmitted to each of said plurality of viewers during each of said defined future viewing periods and said defined prime time viewing period in accordance with a selection priority determined by tabulating said viewer video program preferences; and transmitting the selected prerecorded video programs to each of said plurality of viewers during at least one of respective future viewing periods and respective future prime time viewing periods in accordance with said selection priority.
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Specification