At+t Corp.

Byron Lynn Johnson

Jack E James

Gary Lamont Hobbs

Stephen Gratzer McWilliams

Michael Wyndham Heller

Ronald Lee Katz

Apparatus for interdicting television channels of a cable television system comprises a plurality of oscillators dedicated to jamming the audio portion of television channels to be interdicted, and a further plurality of different oscillators dedicated to jamming the video portion of television channels to be interdicted. The number of jamming oscillators for jamming the audio is less than or equal to the number of jamming oscillators for jamming the video. The hopping rate for video jamming is greatly in excess of the hopping rate for audio jamming. On the other hand, the dwell time for audio jamming is greatly in excess of the dwell time for video jamming. At least two levels of jamming effectiveness of both audio and video portions can be addressably controlled from the headend of a system including such interdiction apparatus. If shared oscillators according to prior art techniques are used to jam both audio and video, this form of jamming engine may be selectively actuated in preference to or as an alternative for a jamming engine comprising both an audio jamming oscillator and a video jamming oscillator.

Method and apparatus for interdicting cable television channels

A system wherein audio samples are added to a video signal, but within the time-frame allocated to video information, thereby displacing video data. Two audio samples are preferably placed in each video line: at the beginning, and at the end. When the video lines are 'stacked' to form a video image, the audio forms noisy vertical stripes at the sides of the image, each of which is about 6 percent of the width of the image. The invention stretches the video image, to cover the stripes.

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Indianapolis, IN, United States of America

Byron Lynn Johnson