Methods and systems for enhancing electronic program guides
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- computing a program score for individual programs that are to be represented in an electronic program guide;
computing, from the program scores, a relative score for individual programs, the relative scores providing a measure of how well a particular program relates to the other programs that are to be represented in the electronic program guide; and
displaying visual indicia of the relative scores of individual programs on the electronic program guide.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Various systems and methods enhance a user'"'"'s electronic program guide (EPG) experience and can permit an EPG system to learn about individual user preferences, and then tailor an EPG rendering or program-recommendation process to those specific user'"'"'s preferences. Various embodiments can provide EPGs that provide quick visual cues for the user to quickly ascertain the subject matter of programs that might be of particular interest. Various scoring approaches can not only ascertain, on a user-by-user basis, those programs that are most likely to be of interest to a user, but can reduce the amount of information to which such users are exposed in an EPG. Various tools are provided by which the user can rate programs or have programs rated for them.
179 Citations
134 Claims
-
1. A method comprising:
-
computing a program score for individual programs that are to be represented in an electronic program guide;
computing, from the program scores, a relative score for individual programs, the relative scores providing a measure of how well a particular program relates to the other programs that are to be represented in the electronic program guide; and
displaying visual indicia of the relative scores of individual programs on the electronic program guide. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
-
-
13. A client device comprising:
-
computer-readable media;
instructions on the computer-readable media;
one or more processors capable of executing the instructions on the computer-readable media, the instructions causing the one or more processors to;
compute a program score for individual programs that are to be represented in an electronic program guide, the program scores being computed as a function of metadata that describes the programs and user preferences;
compute, from the program scores, a relative score for individual programs, the relative scores providing a measure of how well a particular program relates to the other programs that are to be represented in the electronic program guide; and
display visual indicia of the relative scores of individual programs on the electronic program guide. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A method comprising:
-
rendering an electronic program guide having individual cells that correspond to individual programs; and
rendering at least one non-textual image that is associated with at least one program within the cell that corresponds to the one program. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
-
-
27. An electronic program guide comprising:
-
multiple cells individual ones of which being associated with individual programs; and
at least one non-textual image visually associated with at least one of the cells, the one image being related to a program that corresponds to the one cell. - View Dependent Claims (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
-
-
34. A method comprising:
-
determining one or more channels that comprise a user'"'"'s favorite channels; and
rendering an electronic program guide that contains entries for the determined favorite channels. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
-
-
41. One or more computer readable media having computer-readable instructions thereon which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
-
determine one or more channels that comprise a user'"'"'s favorite channels; and
render an electronic program guide that contains entries for the determined favorite channels. - View Dependent Claims (42, 43, 44, 45, 46)
-
-
47. A method comprising:
-
determining one or more channels that comprise a user'"'"'s favorite channels by evaluating individual programs that are broadcast on the one or more channels; and
rendering an electronic program guide that contains entries for the determined favorite channels. - View Dependent Claims (48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55)
-
-
56. One or more computer readable media having computer-readable instructions thereon which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
-
determine one or more channels that comprise a user'"'"'s favorite channels by evaluating individual programs that are broadcast on the one or more channels, said evaluating comprising calculating a score for all of the individual programs on every channel as a function of a user'"'"'s preferences; and
render an electronic program guide that contains only entries for the determined favorite channels. - View Dependent Claims (57)
-
-
58. A method comprising:
-
determining one or more channels that comprise favorite channels of one or more users by evaluating individual programs that are to appear in an electronic program guide in relation to preferences that are specified for the one or more users; and
rendering an electronic program guide that contains only entries for the channels that are determined to be favorite channels. - View Dependent Claims (59, 60, 61, 62, 63)
-
-
64. An electronic program guide comprising:
-
a display having entries associated with one or more channels, each channel entry having multiple cells individual ones of which being associated with individual programs; and
the display comprising only entries for channels that have been determined to be favorite channels. - View Dependent Claims (65, 66, 67, 68, 69)
-
-
70. A method comprising:
-
receiving user input that rates one or more programs that appear in an electronic program guide; and
rendering an electronic program guide that incorporates the user'"'"'s input. - View Dependent Claims (71, 72, 73, 74)
-
-
75. A method comprising:
-
receiving user input that defines a scoring range that can be used to assess whether or not to include a particular program in an electronic program guide;
processing scores associated with individual programs to ascertain whether the programs have scores within the user-defined scoring range; and
rendering an electronic program guide that presents visual indicia for programs whose scores are within the user-defined scoring range. - View Dependent Claims (76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81)
-
-
82. A system comprising:
-
an electronic program guide application that is configured to render an electronic program guide having multiple entries that provide information on various programs; and
a user input mechanism associated with the electronic program guide application and configured to enable a user to reduce the number of program entries in the electronic program guide. - View Dependent Claims (83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90)
-
-
91. A method comprising:
-
receiving user input that specifies one or more filters that are to be used to filter programs from an electronic program guide;
using the one or more filters to filter one or more programs from programs that are to be represented in an electronic program guide; and
rendering an electronic program guide that presents visual indicia associated with programs that have not been filtered. - View Dependent Claims (92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97)
-
-
98. A method comprising:
-
determining one or more programs for recommendation to a user based on program scores associated with individual programs; and
rendering a display that contains one or more recommended programs. - View Dependent Claims (99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106)
-
-
107. A method comprising:
-
determining one or more programs for recommendation to a user based on program scores associated with individual programs;
rendering a display that contains one or more recommended programs;
receiving user input that indicates one or more programs to record for future viewing; and
recording the one or more programs. - View Dependent Claims (108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116)
-
-
117. A method comprising:
-
determining whether a user has recently viewed a particular program that is to be represented in an electronic program guide; and
rendering an electronic program guide that presents visual indicia that indicates programs that have been recently viewed by the user. - View Dependent Claims (118, 119, 120, 121, 122)
-
-
123. A method comprising:
-
determining whether a user has recently viewed a particular program that can be represented in an electronic program guide; and
rendering an electronic program guide that does not contain an entry for at least one program that has been recently viewed by the user. - View Dependent Claims (124, 125)
-
-
126. A method comprising:
-
determining one or more programs for recommendation to a user based on program scores associated with individual programs;
determining whether the user has recently viewed a particular program that is to be recommended;
rendering a display that contains one or more recommended programs;
if the user has recently viewed a particular program that is to be recommended, rendering said display to not contain any recommendations for programs that have been recently viewed. - View Dependent Claims (127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134)
-
Specification