VCR with cable tuner control
First Claim
1. In a television viewing system of the type including a television receiver that receives control signals, a first hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said television receiver, a first associated unit that provides video signals to said television receiver, and a second hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said associated unit, wherein said television receiver and said first hand-held remote transmitter constitute a master unit and said first associated unit and said second hand-held transmitter constitute a slave unit, said master unit being trainable to transmit control signals to said slave unit, the method of training said master unit as to the required control signal codes for transmission to the slave unit comprising the steps of:
- generating displays on the screen of the television receiver requesting the operator to use the second hand-held transmitter of the slave unit to transmit at least certain control signals to said master unit;
receiving said control signals at the master unit from the second hand-held transmitter of the slave unit; and
establishing a conversion memory within said master unit, based on such received control signals, to enable said master unit to transmit control signals to the slave unit.
6 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A single remote control transmitter can advantageously control three units including a cable tuner/descrambler, a video recorder/player and a television receiver. One of these three units, preferably the video recorder/player, is a master unit. It receives remote control signals from a hand held remote control transmitter. The master unit is initialized using on screen prompts to learn the remote control signals for the other units which are slaves. The prompts ask the user to operate various controls on the remote control transmitter of the proposed slave unit, while receiving and analyzing the remote control transmissions. This permits the master unit to build a translation table for control of the slave units. The master unit may include a read only memory of remote control codes for a number of possible slave units. The master unit can abort the initialization process if it recognizes the requested remote control transmission is according to one of the remote control codes stored in the memory. The system preferably separates control of the plural processes so that each one of the cable tuner/descrambler, the video recorder/player and the television receiver are employed for only certain functions.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. In a television viewing system of the type including a television receiver that receives control signals, a first hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said television receiver, a first associated unit that provides video signals to said television receiver, and a second hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said associated unit, wherein said television receiver and said first hand-held remote transmitter constitute a master unit and said first associated unit and said second hand-held transmitter constitute a slave unit, said master unit being trainable to transmit control signals to said slave unit, the method of training said master unit as to the required control signal codes for transmission to the slave unit comprising the steps of:
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generating displays on the screen of the television receiver requesting the operator to use the second hand-held transmitter of the slave unit to transmit at least certain control signals to said master unit; receiving said control signals at the master unit from the second hand-held transmitter of the slave unit; and establishing a conversion memory within said master unit, based on such received control signals, to enable said master unit to transmit control signals to the slave unit. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. In a television viewing system of the type including a television receiver that receives control signals, a first hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said television receiver, a first associated unit that provides video signals to said television receiver, and a second hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said first associated unit, wherein said first associated unit and said second hand-held remote transmitter constitute a master unit and said television receiver and first hand-held remote transmitter constitute a slave unit, said master unit being trainable to transmit control signals to said slave unit, the method of training said master unit as to the required control signal codes for transmission to the slave unit comprising the steps of:
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generating displays on the screen of the television receiver requesting the operator to use the first hand-held transmitter of the slave unit to transmit at least certain control signals to said master unit; receiving said control signals at the master unit from the first hand-held transmitter of the slave unit; and establishing a conversion memory within said master unit, based on such received control signals, to enable said master unit to transmit control signals to the slave unit. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16)
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12. In a television viewing system of the type including a television receiver that receives control signals, a first hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said television receiver, a video recorder/player that provides video signals to said television receiver, a second hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said video recorder/player, a tunable video signal receiver and scrambled signal descrambler that provides video signals to at least said television receiver, and a third hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said descrambler, wherein said video recorder/player and said second hand-held remote transmitter constitute a master unit and said descrambler and third hand-held remote transmitter constitute a slave unit, said master unit being trainable to transmit control signals to said slave unit, the method of training said master unit as to the required control signal codes for transmission to the slave unit comprising the steps of:
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generating displays on the screen of the television receiver requesting the operator to use the third hand-held remote transmitter of the slave unit to transmit at least certain control signals to the master unit; receiving said control signals at the master unit from the third hand-held transmitter of the slave unit; and establishing a conversion memory within said master unit, based on such received control signals, to enable said master unit to transmit control signals to the slave unit. - View Dependent Claims (13)
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14. In a television viewing system of the type including a television receiver that receives control signals, a first hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said television receiver, a video recorder/player that provides video signals to said television receiver, a second hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said video recorder/player, a tunable video signal receiver and scrambled signal descrambler that provides video signals to at least said television receiver, and a third hand-held remote transmitter that transmits control signals to at least said descrambler, wherein said descrambler and said third hand-held remote transmitter constitute a master unit and said video recorder/player and said second hand-held remote transmitter constitute a slave unit, said master unit being trainable to transmit control signals to said slave unit, the method of training said master unit as to the required control signal codes for transmission to the slave unit comprising the steps of:
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generating displays on the screen of the television receiver requesting the operator to use the second hand-held transmitter of the slave unit to transmit at least certain control signals to said master unit; receiving said control signals at the master unit from the second hand-held transmitter of the slave unit; and establishing a conversion memory within said master unit, based on such received control signals, to enable said master unit to transmit control signals to the slave unit. - View Dependent Claims (15)
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Specification