Starsight Telecast Incorporated

Rovi Solutions Corporation

Jeffrey J Kochy

David P Warden

John H Roop

Alan R Ebright

Giambattista A Alegiani

Konstantine Sokolik

Kenneth Alan Milnes

Constantine Sokolik

Henry Perkins, Iii

Television schedule information transmission and utilization systems transmit TV schedule data and associated network control messages provided by computer as packets via the Video Blanking Interval (VBI) lines in the TV signal from various television program providers. This data is acquired by regional data processing systems and forwarded by the regional data processing systems to subscriber units and used to construct an internal database. This internal database can be accessed by the subscriber unit to display a TV schedule for the channels that are received by the user's TV.

System and method for transmitting and utilizing electronic programs guide information

Television schedule information transmission and utilization systems (,A-,D) transmit TV schedule data and associated network control messages provided by computer (,) as packets via the Video Blanking Interval (VBI) lines in the TV signal from various television program providers (,). This data is acquired by regional data processing systems and forwarded by the regional data processing systems to subscriber units (,) and used to construct an internal database. This intern database can be accessed by the subscriber unit (,) to display a TV schedule for the channels that are received by the user's TV.

System and method for transmitting and utilizing electronic program guide information

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for automatically setting the time in a peripheral device (170) in a television system (10). In the preferred embodiment, a datastream (300) with packets of data (310-313) is broadcast to the peripheral device (170). A time value (400) within the received datastream (300) is used to set the time within the peripheral device (170). The data within the received datastream (300) also contains a cyclic redundancy check (410) which is used to determine when an error is present in the received data packet (310). The time is set in the peripheral device (170) only when the cyclic redundancy check has found no errors in the data packet (310). When needed, additional values within the received packet (310) can later be used to correct the time which has been set in the peripheral device (170).

Automatic time set in a television system

Television schedule information transmission and utilization systems (50A-50D) transmit TV schedule data and associated network control messages provided by computer (54) as packets via the Video Blanking Interval (VBI) lines in the TV signal from various television program providers (51). This data is acquired by regional data processing systems and forwarded by the regional data processing systems to subscriber units (52) and used to construct an internal database. This internal database can be accessed by the subscriber unit (52) to display a TV schedule for the channels that are received by the user's TV.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Jeffrey J Kochy