Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Frederic Azera

Christen E Coomer

Jeffrey C Fong

Michael W Van Flandern

Daniel L Poling, Jr

Cory J Cirrincione

Colin Lee Acton

Michael S Hayton

Kristina M Voros

Hiroshi Ohno

Jeffrey Neil Margolis

John E Elsbree

Suzan Marashi

Kevin Timothy Shields

Veronica Y Law

Bojana Ostojic

Marc S Oshiro

Mark S Newell

Talal Ali Batrouny

Renaud Bordelet

Shawn E Pickett

Hans Peter Hess

Elyssa Cox

Paul Michael Irwin

Erick Fejta

Will Vong

Bill Flora

Described is a scrolling technology including a turbo-scroll mode that is automatically entered to increase the rate of scrolling through a set of items, (e.g., media content). The turbo-scroll mode may be triggered by holding down a scroll button for a period of time. In the turbo-scroll mode, visual cues are provided to assist the user in knowing a current relative position within the set of items. The visual cues may correspond to text metadata, such as letters indicative of an alphabetic position of scrolling, displaying a list or filtered sub-list of label data for items proximate the scroll position, a graphical position indicator, a channel indicator or time indicator for an electronic program guide, fading the electronic program guide into a background representation thereof, and/or providing at least two letters indicative of an alphabetic position of scrolling through the items.

Turbo-scroll mode for rapid data item selection

Described herein is technology for, among other things, performing navigation in a media environment. The technology involves the presenting a user with only a portion of the previously visited pages or areas as he or she moves to previously visited pages or areas. As the user moves around the media environment, the movements are recorded for use when requests are received for previously visited areas or pages. As the user moves to previously visited areas redundant pages or areas are skipped. Thus, the user's forward and backward navigation are different and the user moves backward more easily, quickly and efficiently.

Enhanced user navigation to previously visited areas in a media environment

Techniques are disclosed herein for merging EPG data associated with a variety of program sources. In one aspect, EPG data is accessed for different program sources and rules are selected that define how entries in the EPG data are to be merged. The rules may be selected based on whether the EPG data was collected in-band or out-of-band. In addition, the merging rules can be dependent on the program source, which allows the flexibility of applying different rules to different program sources. The EPG data from the different program sources is merged into a single EPG based on the selected rules.

Merging electronic program guide information

A channel-selection filter. The channel-selection filter helps a user navigate to a desired channel. In particular, the channel-selection filter presents a filtered channel list to the user when the user issues one or more channel-filtering commands. The filtered channel list narrows a list of all available channels to those channels that correspond to the channel-filtering commands issued by the user. When presented with a filtered channel list, the user can select a channel from the filtered channel list. The user can also issue additional channel-filtering commands to further narrow the list of channels presented in the filtered channel list.

Channel filter for a content player

A unified discovery interface presents broadcast discovery data relating to broadcast content available via a broadcast channel and non-broadcast discovery data relating to non-broadcasting content available via a virtual channel of the unified discovery interface. In one implementation, the virtual channel is customizable via a discovery interface relationship parameter that indicates a relationship of the virtual channel within the unified discovery interface. The unified discovery interface allows a user to select between broadcast media content available via a broadcast channel and non-broadcast media content available via the virtual channel.

Customizing virtual channels in a discovery interface

A discovery interface presents aggregated discovery data in a discovery interface through which a user may select between television content and Internet Protocol content. In one implementation, the discovery interface includes a television channel region associated with a television channel that lists television programs. The discovery interface further includes an Internet Protocol content region associated with the television channel that lists Internet Protocol content based on user navigation within the television channel region.

Aggregating discovery data in a discovery interface

A discovery interface facilitates the selection of available media content. Content-relevant graphical tiles are displayed in strips within the discovery interface. In this manner, a user can survey graphics associated with available content. When the discovery interface section (e.g., a row) is in focus, the graphical tiles are expanded as compared to the tiles in sections that are not in focus to provide easier viewing by the user. Furthermore, when an individual tile is in focus, then the tile expands further to be wider and taller than any of the other tiles in the associated tile strip. In one implementation, the focused tile is also highlighted, such as with a distinguishing border. In another implementation, metadata associated with the content of the focused tile is displayed in the proximity of the focused tile.

Graphical tile-based expansion cell guide

A channel updater. The channel updater maintains an accurate channel line-up by automatically testing accessible channels to determine if those channels are available for viewing. Available channels are added to the channel line-up, and unavailable channels are subtracted from the channel line-up. The updater persistently retests the channels so that changes in channel availability are reflected in the channel line-up.

Maintaining accurate channel line-up by persistently monitoring availability of accessible channels

A unified discovery interface that presents aggregated discovery data for media content available via multiple content delivery types is provided. In one implementation, the discovery data may be aggregated via a discovery data ingestion module to provide a compilation accessible by one or more client modules. The one or more client modules may present the aggregated discovery data in the unified discovery interface through which a user may select between first media content available via a first content delivery type and second media content available via a second content delivery type. In another implementation, a client module may aggregate discovery data and provide a unified discovery interface through which a user may select between first media content available via a first content delivery type and second media content available via a second content delivery type.

Aggregating content from multiple content delivery types in a discovery interface

Growing community of inventors

Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Frederic Azera