Apparatus and method of displaying electronic preview guide

• US 6,532,590 B1
• Filed: 04/28/1999
• Issued: 03/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Chimoto, Hiroyuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Faile, Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chung, Jason
• Application Number:
  US09/301,160
• Time in Patent Office: 1,413 Days
• Field of Search: 725/39, 725/43, 725/47, 345/821, 345/822, 345/825, 345/859, 345/860, 345/861
• US Class Current: 725/43
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4263 involving specific tuning arrangements, e.g. two tuners
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4314 for fitting data in a restricted space on the screen, e.g. EPG data in a rectangular grid
• 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 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4821 using a grid, e.g. sorted out by channel and broadcast time

Abstract

An electronic preview guide (EPG) display apparatus for use in a broadcast receiver, for selectively presenting viewers a broadcast schedule. The broadcast schedule is presented in a grid pattern with one or more rows each showing a TV channel number or a TV station name and an array of slots containing preview guide messages of its broadcast schedule extending in the direction of time axis, using a preview guide data broadcast by each broadcast station and a present time. The apparatus includes a display controller for making an EPG slot at the present time or a viewer-designated time wider than other slots within the EPG screen.

Claims

1. An electronic preview guide (EPG) display apparatus for use in a broadcast receiver, for selectively presenting viewers a broadcast schedule in a grid pattern with one or more rows each showing a TV channel number or a TV station name and an array of slots containing preview guide messages of the broadcast schedule extending in a direction of time axis, by using a preview guide data broadcast by each broadcast station and a present time, comprising a display controller for making an EPG slot at the present time or a viewer designated time wider than other slots of the EPG screen, wherein the display controller calculates a time difference between the present time or the viewer-designated time and the program start time, and then based on the calculated time difference, compresses the size of the slots in the EPG screen in a non-linear manner in the time-axis direction, so as to automatically change the amount of information to be displayed according to the size of the EPG slot in which the non-linear processing is performed.

2. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein at the time of displaying the preview guide screen beginning at the present time or the viewer-designating time, the non-linear processing of the time axis in the display controller uses one of 1/Log_m (N×

Ts), 1/exp (N×

Ts), 1/(N×

Ts), or Log_m (N×

Ts) as a compression rate for the EPG slot at the starting time (Ts) of a program to be displayed, wherein a base m of the logarithmic function, Log, and the coefficient N are optional.

3. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display controller includes a selector with which viewers are able to voluntarily select the display processed in the non-linear manner.

4. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display controller includes a first counter for counting a number of displayable characters per program in the case that the character size used for the preview guide display is fixed, and a second counter for counting a program title and the number of displayable characters per additional information from the relation of the character size and the size of the slot in one program display, the display controller displays each program title obtained from the first and the second counter and characters according to the information about the number of displayable characters per additional information in the Program information slot.

5. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein the display controller displays all data in the case that the total number of the characters displayable in the program information slot is more than the character number per program stored in the preview guide data, displays only the program title in the case that the total characters is less than the characters per program stored in the preview guide data but more than the characters of the program title, and displays the displayable character or displays no character in the case that the total character number is less than the characters of the program title.

6. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display controller includes a counter for counting the display characters per program in the case that the character size used for the preview guide display is variable, a character size decision means for deciding the character size from the relation of the number of displayable characters obtained from the counting means and a program information slot size, and a character controller for controlling whether to display additional information in the case that the character size decided by the counting means is smaller than the size which has been set up already, or to not to display any character in the case that the title unable to be displayed.

9. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claims 1 or 7, wherein the display controller compresses the dimensions of other displayed slots relative to the reference slot in accordance with one of the compression rates 1/Log_m (N×

Ts), 1/exp (N×

Ts), 1/(N×

Ts) or Log_m (N×

Ts), where the base m of the Log function and N can be any number, and Ts represents the proximity of the displayed slot to the reference slot.

11. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein the size of the characters displayed in each of the displayed slots is determined based upon the calculated dimensions of the slot.

12. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein the reference slot is the slot at the present time or at a viewer designated time and at the presently received channel or a viewer designated channel.

7. An electronic preview guide (EPG) display apparatus for selectively displaying a program viewing schedule, the program viewing schedule having an axis showing a channel list and a time axis and defining a plurality of EPG slots corresponding to available programs, the electronic preview guide display apparatus having a display controller for displaying a reference EPG slot with a dimension greater than other displayed EPG slots, the dimensions of the slots being based on the proximity in the program viewing schedule of the slots to the reference EPG slot,

wherein the display controller determines the dimensions of the displayed EPG slots in the direction of the time axis based on non-linear, logarithmic processing of the time difference between the time of the reference EPG slot and the program time of the other displayed EPG slots.

8. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein the display controller determines the dimensions of the displayed EPG slots in the channel axis direction based on non-linear, logarithmic processing of the difference in the channel axis direction of the program viewing schedule between the channel of the reference slot and the channel of the other displayed slots.

10. An electronic preview guide display apparatus as claimed in 9, wherein information displayed in each of the displayed slots is determined based upon the calculated dimensions of the slot.