Electronic program guide with enhanced presentation
First Claim
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1. Apparatus for displaying program guide information on a screen, said apparatus comprising:
- means for displaying a table of program information on said screen, a first axis of said table representing a time of transmission, a second axis of said table representing a channel, wherein an entry of said table comprises an icon representing a class of program to be transmitted on the channel at the time represented by the position of said entry;
means for receiving user input specifying a transmission time of particular interest; and
means for overlaying, over a section of said table corresponding to said transmission time of particular interest, a plurality of magnified text entries, each text entry including text representing the program to be transmitted at the transmission time of particular interest on the channel represented by the position of said text entry.
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Abstract
An intuitively operated Electronic Program Guide (EPG) which presents program guide information in table form at two levels of resolution. Schedule information is presented in icon form over a long time window while textual information is presented for a viewer-selected time slot. The selected time slot may appear to be a magnified representation of the long time window view. In this way, a television screen of conventional resolution may present at least five hours of schedule information for eight channels. The viewer may operate the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) intuitively with simple remote control commands.
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Citations
23 Claims
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1. Apparatus for displaying program guide information on a screen, said apparatus comprising:
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means for displaying a table of program information on said screen, a first axis of said table representing a time of transmission, a second axis of said table representing a channel, wherein an entry of said table comprises an icon representing a class of program to be transmitted on the channel at the time represented by the position of said entry; means for receiving user input specifying a transmission time of particular interest; and means for overlaying, over a section of said table corresponding to said transmission time of particular interest, a plurality of magnified text entries, each text entry including text representing the program to be transmitted at the transmission time of particular interest on the channel represented by the position of said text entry. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method for displaying program guide information, said method comprising the steps of:
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displaying a table of program information on said screen, a first axis of said table representing a time of transmission, a second axis of said table representing a channel, wherein an entry of said table comprises an icon representing a class of program to be transmitted on the channel at the time represented by the position of said entry; receiving user input specifying a transmission time of particular interest; and overlaying, over a section of said table corresponding to said transmission time of particular interest, a plurality of magnified text entries, each text entry including text representing the program to be transmitted at the transmission time of particular interest on the channel represented by the position of said text entry. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A terminal adapter coupled to a broadcast medium carrying a plurality of video programs and electronic program guide information and further coupled to a display, said terminal adapter comprising:
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a display generation unit that displays a table of program information on said screen, a first axis of said table representing a time of transmission, a second axis of said table representing a channel, wherein an entry of said table comprises an icon representing a class of program to be transmitted on the channel at the time represented by the position of said entry; a control unit that receives user input specifying a transmission time of particular interest; and said display generation unit overlaying, over a section of said table corresponding to said transmission time of particular interest, a plurality of magnified text entries, each text entry including text representing the program to be transmitted at the transmission time of particular interest on the channel represented by the position of said text entry. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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Specification