Scientific-atlanta, Inc.

Blonder Tongue Laboratories, Inc.

Gregory S Durden

Robert J Beyers, Ii

David J Naddor

Randolph J Schaubs

Robert J Edwards

Ray T Haman, Jr

Robert O Banker

Anthony John Wasilewski

Jay C McMullan, Jr

Curt M Kuban

M Kent Ivey

Lamar E West, Jr

Himanshu R Parikh

Scott L Hamilton

Vibha Rustagi

Paul Borsetti, Jr

Donald R Huntley

Emory L McGinty, Jr

Jesse M Still

John A Kennedy

Douglas J Hoder

Charles R Bramhall

Donovan S White

Arturo A Rodriguez

Dean F Jerding

John Murray Schlarb

William E Wall

Michael P Harney

Jan L Christensen

Darryl L Defreese

William Bradford Thatcher, Jr

Melvin Paulick

Richard B Frederick

Douglas L Ross

Rdy T Haman, Jr

Jay Cauthern Mcmullen

Ray Thomas Haman

William Bradford Thatcher

Ray T Haman

Paul Jr Borsetti

Himanshu Parikh

A method and system that allows a user to, with a single button press on a remote control, quickly navigate within a program guide to an established reference point, such as the program information associated with the last viewed channel and the current time. The establishment of a reference point provides a subscriber with a known position within program information that may cover weeks of time, thousands of channels, and a variety of categories or sorting methods. The subscriber that has advanced through many hours and channels of program information is provided with a method of easily navigating to a known reference within the program information.

System and method for allowing a user to quickly navigate within a program guide to an established reference point

A method and system that provides a single multipurpose PPV channel that a subscriber tunes for all PPV services. From the subscriber's perspective, the program guide, previews, advertising, purchasing options, and showings of all PPV events occur on a single channel. There can be a single multipurpose PPV channel for all PPV services or single PPV channels for groups of similar services, such as a single Family PPV channel, a single Sports PPV channel, and a single Adult PPV channel that each represent single multipurpose channels for similar programming. The advertising on a single multipurpose channel can be directed to the type of programming on all the channels in the group. Once a subscriber purchases a PPV event, the HCT tunes to the MPEG transport stream and program information for the selected PPV event and displays the PPV event on the single multipurpose PPV channel at its associated start time. The subscriber does not have to select another channel. The subscriber that has not purchased a current PPV event continues to watch the previews, advertising, or program guide uninterrupted on the single multipurpose PPV channel. If a subscriber is watching the single multipurpose PPV channel and has not purchased a PPV event, the subscriber continues to see advertising with video or previews even between the event specific advertising. An interstitial service provides the previews, advertising or PPV guide during the period between PPV event advertisements.

Method and apparatus for pay-per-view system

A combined IRD scrambler/modulator is provided in a headend. A service provider transmits a digital program signal in a digital data stream to a headend which distributes analog program signal to at least one subscriber. The headend receives an encoded digital program signal in the digital data stream from the service provider and decrypts the digital program signal therefrom. The digital program signal includes an audio and a video portion. The video portion of the signal is scrambled by a scrambler. The digital audio portion of the digital program signal and scrambled video portion of the digital program signal are converted to an analog program signal and transmitted to one or more subscribers.

Analog/digital system for television services

A system and method are provided for selecting groups of one or more cable television subscribers remotely from a billing computer using data fields in either the billing computer database or a system control computer database. A selection criteria language may be used for selecting subscribers based on data fields in the system control database. Once a group of cable subscribers has been selected, an on-screen message may be remotely created and transmitted to the selected subscribers using cable transmission apparatus. The method provides a way of correlating subscriber information in a comprehensive subscriber database (such as may exist on a billing computer) with other subscriber information in a more limited database stored on a system control computer to allow on-screen messages to be targeted at subscribers selected on the basis of criteria from either database. It also allows message attributes (such as duration of display, colors, and message alerts) to be specified remotely from a billing computer rather than requiring the presence of a human operator at the system control computer.

System and method for remotely selecting subscribers and controlling

A method and apparatus for providing periodic subscription television services comprises a way for subscribers who cannot afford the fees for full time television services such as a regular cable television service to obtain subscription service to a plurality of allocated channels on a periodic basis. The method comprises the steps of allocating channels to a periodic service offering and storing in memory of service denial apparatus service code data which represents the allocated channels. The service denial apparatus for providing periodic service comprises a service denial device such as a switch 389 or other circuit controlled by a controller 260 of service denial apparatus for periodically closing and opening service lines to the periodic service subscriber in accordance with predetermined periodic service intervals. For example, one periodic subscription television service offering may be a weekend service whereby the periodic service subscriber is connected to receive a predetermined plurality of channels from 6 PM on a Friday evening through 12 PM on a Sunday evening.

Method and apparatus for providing periodic subscription television

A data controller which manages the flow of text and electronic program guide (EPG) information to a cable television viewer. The data controller of the invention receives text and EPG information from one or a plurality of authorized data sources via a communications link, processes the received data in its internal database manager to perform data compression and the like, and then provides this text information to the viewer under control of the head end controller. In a preferred embodiment, the text data is formatted on a screen basis into transactions of a predetermined length and the EPG data is formatted on a program basis into transactions of the same length. The transaction are then inserted into the vertical blanking interval of a channel to which the corresponding text or electronic program data has been assigned. At the viewer's television tuner, the text data and/or EPG data is extracted from the vertical blanking interval and mapped to a virtual channel of the viewer's television tuner for display. The viewer's television tuner includes an EPG memory in which the EPG data may be stored to allow the viewer to scroll forward and backward through the stored EPG. The viewer's television tuner also includes a text memory for storing a page of text data so as to allow automatic pagination of the text data on the display screen after a predetermined amount of time has passed during which the viewer may read the text data.

Electronic program guide and text channel data controller

A method of transmitting addressed messages to subscribers comprises the steps of defining the group or individual subscriber to be addressed, creating the message, assigning the message to the individual or group to be addressed, scheduling the message for transmission, transmitting the message, and recording the transmission of the message. The message creating step further includes the steps of defining message attributes such as background color, creating sets of instructions for the subscriber, if required, setting a data field related to alerting the subscriber and compressing the data length of the message using a predetermined compression code. A system control computer, according to the present invention, comprises a billing computer interface for interfacing with a billing computer and a user interface for providing access to messaging services to a system operator, each of the billing and user interfaces for providing data to a group queuing subsystem and a system event scheduler, respectively. The user interface further accesses a database, the database shared by the system event scheduler and a message, device and group manager. The device manager in turn, when scheduled by the system event scheduler, coordinates the transmission of addressed messages via either a headend controller (via an inband channel) or an addressable data transmitter (via an out-of-band channel).

Addressed messaging in a cable television system

A method of selecting individual subscribers for inclusion in groups by means of certain selection criteria comprises the steps of storing criteria related to terminals of a subscription television system, defining criteria which characterizes a group, logically linking the criteria in a predetermined manner to form a group criteria definition statement, comparing the stored terminal criteria with the group criteria definition statement, and assigning an individual or group of terminals to the group when the stored terminal criteria matches the group criteria definition statement. The selection criteria, for example, may include a range of terminal serial numbers, a range of terminal addresses, the status of the terminal, the service codes for the terminal, subscriber terminal features, a code determining the headend to which a terminal is associated, a terminal model number, and the current orders (for example, pay-per-view events subscribed to). The logical operators may include logical AND, logical OR, logical NOT, equal to, greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, parentheticals for joining operators and brackets and separators for service codes.

Method of selecting cable television converter groups

A method of transferring a data message from a remote unit to a central location is provided. A plurality of data channels is selected for transmitting the data message from the remote unit to the central location. At least one random transmit time is generated for transmitting the data message for each of the plurality of data channels. The data message is transmitted over the plurality of data channels at the transmit times. An apparatus for transferring a data message from a remote unit to a central location is also provided.

Cable television radio frequency subscriber data transmission apparatus

Automatic level calibration apparatus for transmitting data from a cable television terminal to the headend of a cable television system comprises programmable transmitter apparatus of the terminal, programmable receiving apparatus at the headend and a calibration controller. Responsive to an addressed command from the headend, the programmable transmitter apparatus returns a sequence of levels at a particular calibration frequency. The programmable receiver apparatus determines an indication of the received signal strength of each of the levels of the sequence of levels. The controller determines an optimum level for transmissions from the terminal.

System for data channel level control

The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for providing a cable TV system with the ability to issue information from a system manager, determine whether the information is intended for a set top designed to receive out-of-band information or in-band information, send the information to the appropriate circuitry. Reformatting of some information is necessary and is performed by a format translator. For in-band information, information may be sent over one or more of a plurality of data streams. Certain types of information are sent over one or more data streams based on the type of information and characteristics of the data streams. It is further disclosed that for efficiency, similar information intended for several addresses is grouped together in a database manager so that the information may be sent to plural addresses at one time. Scramblers are employed with the capability of inserting data onto nonscrambled channels.

In-band controller

An impulse pay-per-view system wherein a number of downloadable transactions may be utilized to effect increased control and diversity is disclosed. A preview time/free transaction permits a system subscriber to view portions of a pay-per-view event without purchasing the event. A security transaction sent while a pay-per-view event is active may be used to prevent a subscriber from receiving events which have not been purchased. A telephone number transaction may include a special character representing an instruction to pause between the dialing of selected digits. A viewer statistic transaction may be use dot instruct a subscriber to record the channel he is viewing. Finally, a subscriber may pre-buy pay-preview events in order to facilitate VCR recording of the events while he is asleep or away from home.

Set-top interface transactions in an impulse pay per view television

Growing community of inventors

Jonesboro, GA, United States of America

Gregory S Durden