Identifying ancillary information associated with an audio/video program

• US 8,001,569 B2
• Filed: 06/03/2009
• Issued: 08/16/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Marler, Jerilyn L., Casey, Scott P., Lalomia, Mary J., Kinder, David B., Cassezza, Jason T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lonsberry; Hunter B
• Application Number:
  US12/477,278
• Publication Number:
  US 20090244374A1
• Time in Patent Office: 804 Days
• Field of Search: 725/23, 725/36, 725/50, 725/58, 725/61
• US Class Current: 725/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• 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 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8126 involving additional data, e.g. news, sports, stocks, weather forecasts
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/445 for displaying additional information H04N5/50 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/088 the inserted signal being digital

Abstract

A system communicates video information including television content associated with a plurality of channels and ancillary information. Information may be transmitted with the ancillary information that is indicative of the type of content included in the ancillary information. This provides the user, in one embodiment of the present invention, with a visual indication of the type of information that accompanies television content. This helps the user to decide whether the user wishes to view the ancillary information and provides the opportunity to select that enhancement for viewing.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a user selection of a category of information that a user is interested in;

receiving video data and associated ancillary information including an identifier that points to a location of an icon indicative of said category of information;

automatically determining whether that video data has associated ancillary information of a category that the user is interested in; and

if so, automatically displaying, during the display of said video data, an icon to indicate to the user the availability of ancillary information of a category the user is interested in.

2. The method of claim 1 including receiving and storing a plurality of icons on a receiver, each icon indicative of a particular type of content that may be included in ancillary information associated with video data.

3. The method of claim 2 including, before receiving the ancillary information, determining which icons in the plurality of icons have been pre-selected by a user, the pre-selected icons identifying content of the ancillary information that the user is interested in knowing about.

4. The method of claim 3 including receiving, on the receiver, video data and the ancillary information associated with said video data, the ancillary information including a local identifier that points to a location storing one of the icons in the plurality of icons.

5. The method of claim 4 including, if the icon in the plurality of icons pointed to by the local identifier corresponds to a pre-selected icon, displaying the pre-selected icon that is pointed to by the local identifier indicative of at least a part of the content included in said ancillary information, otherwise if the icon in the plurality of icons pointed to by the local identifier corresponds to an icon that was not pre-selected, not displaying the icon of the plurality of icons that was not preselected.

6. The method of claim 1 including, before receiving the ancillary information, determining which icons in a plurality of icons have been pre-selected by a user, the pre-selected icons identifying content of the ancillary information that the user is interested in knowing about.

7. The method of claim 1 including receiving, on the receiver, video data and the ancillary information associated with said video data, the ancillary information including a local identifier that points to a location storing one of the icons in the plurality of icons.

8. The method of claim 1 including, if the icon in the plurality of icons pointed to by the local identifier corresponds to a pre-selected icon, displaying the pre-selected icon that is pointed to by the local identifier indicative of at least a part of the content included in said ancillary information, otherwise if the icon in the plurality of icons pointed to by the local identifier corresponds to an icon that was not pre-selected, not displaying the icon of the plurality of icons that was not preselected.

9. The method of claim 4 including again receiving ancillary information including a particular type of content, and in response thereto, displaying one of said icons indicative of the particular content type only if said one of said icons of a particular icon is one of said icons of said plurality of icons that was pre-selected by the user.

10. The method of claim 4 including receiving said video data and information used to identify the content included in said ancillary information in a first transport stream and receiving said ancillary information over a second transport stream.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein receiving the ancillary information over a second transport stream includes receiving said ancillary information over an MPEG-2 delivery system.

12. The method of claim 4 including parsing the local identifier from an announcement stream.

13. The method of claim 4 wherein receiving a local identifier includes receiving a local identifier that is based on the content of the ancillary information.

14. The method of claim 4 wherein receiving a local identifier includes receiving a local identifier in a trigger.

15. The method of claim 4 wherein receiving a local identifier includes receiving a unique identifier for each icon relative to a given name space.

16. A method comprising:

receiving a user selection of a category of information that a user is interested in;

receiving video data and associated ancillary information;

automatically determining whether that video data has associated ancillary information of a category that the user is interested in; and

if so, automatically displaying, during the display of said video data, an icon to indicate to the user the availability of ancillary content of a category the user is interested in, including, before receiving the ancillary information, determining which icons in a plurality of icons have been pre-selected by a user, the pre-selected icons identifying content of the ancillary information that the user is interested in knowing about.