Receiving device, server, television receiver, mobile terminal, system, receiving method, information processing program, and storage medium

• US 8,156,531 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2006
• Issued: 04/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Terada, Satoshi, Matsubara, Takanobu, Yagi, Ryouta
• Primary Examiner(s): Bui, Kieu Oanh T
• Application Number:
  US12/089,183
• Publication Number:
  US 20100138873A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,013 Days
• Field of Search: 725/40, 725/47, 725/57, 725/86, 725/97, 725/100, 725/142
• US Class Current: 725/100
• 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 21/4345 Extraction or processing of SI, e.g. extracting service information from an MPEG stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4383 Accessing a communication channel
• 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 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/472 End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content end-user interfaces for retrieving video data from a database G06F16/739; network services for supporting unicast streaming H04L65/612
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A receiving device receives broadcast, information, etc. in response to a user selection by manipulation, in order to present the broadcast, information, etc. to the user. The device includes a channel set managing section (30) which collectively handles multiple channels corresponding to broadcast and content on the Internet or another network received by a receiving device (100) as channel groups which are preset handling units according to certain rules. The user can readily handle large numbers of channels when compared with cases where increasing channels are all handled equally without being grouped.

Claims

1. A receiving device comprising:

an input section operable to input user selections of a selected channel set made up of a collection of channels that are compiled together as a channel set according to at least one common rule, the channels in any given channel set being made up of information channels including Net content;

a memory section containing channel set descriptions of each of the channel sets including data by which to identify information content including Net content corresponding to the channels of each channel set;

an input analyzing section connected to receive the user selections input through the input section and to analyze each received user selection to output an indication of a selection of a selected channel set when the user selection designates the selected channel set for selection;

a channel set managing section connected to receive the indication of the selection of the selected channel set from the input analyzing section to obtain a channel set description from the memory section corresponding to the selected channel set when the selected channel set is different from a current channel set; and

a channel managing section responding to the obtained channel set description in order to change channels within the selected channel set when channel change instructions have also been input by the input section, wherein;

the channel set descriptions contain therein a name of a second channel set description listing lists of multiple channels for each of the channels; and

the second channel set description contains therein an identifier for one of the channel set descriptions that references the second channel set description.

2. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising:

an application program control section storing multiple application programs associated with the channels, switching between the application programs for execution according to channel selection, and starting up one of the application programs according to the channel selection, the application programs enabling the user to manipulate the information based on the channel selection.

3. The receiving device of claim 1, wherein display methods are changed for display of a channel set and for display of a second channel set.

4. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising at least either one of:

a reading section as the channel set description section operable to obtain the channel set descriptions from a storage medium; and

a communications section as the channel set description section operable to obtain the channel set descriptions from an external device over a network.

5. The receiving device of claim 4, wherein:

the channel set descriptions contain therein a location from which channel set descriptions are newly obtained; and

the channel set managing section updates the channel set descriptions via the communications section based on the description of the location.

6. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising:

a channel set sorting section rearranging the display sequence of channel sets,

wherein

the channel set sorting section rearranges a display sequence of the channel sets by at least either one of a sequence of updating of the channel sets and access frequency of the channel sets in presenting the channel sets to the user.

7. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising:

a channel set description generating section generating channel set descriptions for storage in the memory section with each generated channel set description being a list of channels in a channel set from a file containing a collection of URL links written in XML, HTML, SVG, RSS, CSV, or plain text, the file being stored in the receiving device.

8. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising:

a channel set description generating section generating channel set descriptions for storage in the memory section with each generated channel set description being a list of channels in a channel set from a file containing a collection of URL links written in XML, HTML, SVG, RSS, CSV, or plain text, the file being received from a service server.

9. The receiving device of claim 8, further comprising:

a second URL list managing section obtaining a second list of URLs,

wherein

the channel set description generating section generates the channel set descriptions from the file containing a collection of URL links and the second list of URLs obtained separately from the file by the second URL list managing section.

10. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising:

an attribute managing section storing user attribute information and receiving device attribute information,

wherein

the channel set managing section compares either the user attribute information or the receiving device attribute information stored in the attribute managing section to the channel set descriptions and changes channel sets presented to the user.

11. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising:

a channel set display section presenting information on the current channel set or information on the selected channel set to the user during switching between channel sets; and

a channel call display section presenting information on an old or new channel to the user during switching between channels.

12. The receiving device of claim 11, wherein the channel call display section changes a background design for a channel call according to channel attribute information contained in the channel set descriptions.

13. The receiving device of claim 1, further comprising:

a list display menu generating section generating a list of channels from the channel set descriptions to present the list to the user as a list display menu.

14. The receiving device of claim 13, wherein:

the channel set descriptions contain a type of the list display menu; and

the list display menu generating section changes a display of the list display menu according to the type.

15. The receiving device of claim 13, wherein the list display menu generating section assigns the channels to respective buttons on an input device and displays the list of channels.

16. A server for providing the channel set descriptions to the receiving device of claim 1 over a network in response to a request from the receiving device.

17. A television receiver connectable to the Internet, said receiver comprising the receiving device of claim 1.

18. A mobile terminal connectable the Internet, said terminal comprising the receiving device of claim 1.

19. A system, comprising:

the receiving device of claim 1.

20. A method comprising:

inputting user selections of a selected channel set made up of a collection of channels that are compiled together as a channel set according to at least one common rule as to each channel in the channel set, the channels in any given channel set being made up of information channels including Net content;

storing channel set descriptions of each of the channel sets including data by which to identify information corresponding to the selected channels in a store; and

obtaining one of the channel set descriptions corresponding to the selected channel set from the store in order to switch from the current channel set to the selected channel set in accordance with a selected channel set description when the user has selected one of the channel sets in the inputting step, wherein;

the channel set descriptions contain therein a name of a second channel set description listing lists of multiple channels for each of the channels; and

the second channel set description contains therein an identifier for one of the channel set descriptions that references the second channel set description.

21. A computer-readable non-transitory storage medium containing an information processing program for causing a computer to operate as individual sections in a receiving device comprising:

an input section operable to input user selections of a selected channel set made up of a collection of channels that are compiled together as a channel set according to at least one common rule, the channels in any given channel set being made up of information channels including Net content;

a memory section containing channel set descriptions of each of the channel sets including data by which to identify information content including Net content corresponding to the channels of each channel set;

an input analyzing section connected to receive the user selections input through the input section and to analyze each received user selection to output an indication of a selection of a selected channel set when the user selection designates the selected channel set for selection;

a channel set managing section connected to receive the indication of the selection of the selected channel set from the input analyzing section to obtain a channel set description from the memory section corresponding to the selected channel set; and

a channel managing section responding to the obtained channel set description in order to change channels within the selected channel set when channel change instructions have also been input by the input section, wherein;

the channel set descriptions contain therein a name of a second channel set description listing lists of multiple channels for each of the channels; and

the second channel set description contains therein an identifier for one of the channel set descriptions that references the second channel set description.

22. A receiving device comprising:

an input section operable to input user selections of a selected channel being made up of an information channel including Net content;

a receiving section receiving a selected information channel an output section operable to output a selected information channel to the user;

a memory section containing channel set descriptions a plurality of channel sets, each channel set including data by which to identify information corresponding to the selected channels;

a channel set managing section managing classified channels as channel sets one of which can be selected by a manipulation input to the input section, wherein the channel set managing section obtains, from the memory section, one of the channel set descriptions corresponding to the selected channel set in order to switch from the current channel set to a channel set in accordance with a selected channel set description when the user has selected one of the channel sets;

a channel managing section, in response to a manipulation input to the input section, enabling selection of one of channels classified to the selected channel set; and

a communications section for connecting to a server,

wherein;

the channel set managing section obtains a channel set description from the server via the communications section to update the channel sets in the memory section;

the channel set descriptions contain therein a name of a second channel set description listing lists of multiple channels for each of the channels; and

the second channel set description contains therein an identifier for one of the channel set descriptions that references the second channel set description.