Thomson Licensing

Thomson Licensing S.a.

Interdigital Ce Patent Holdings

Interdigital Madison Patent Holdings

Ralf Schaefer

Eric Diehl

Yves Maetz

Mary-Luc Champel

Pierre Houeix

Philippe Letellier

Alain Durand

Laurent Lesenne

Frédéric Pasquier

Within the context of the broadcasting of DVB services over an IP network, the trend is to separate the signalling information describing the network and the services offered from the services themselves. The signalling is made available to the terminals via XML files available on HTTP servers. In contrast to this approach, the invention consists of a method of recognition, by a receiver connected to a bidirectional network, of digital services on the bidirectional network, which comprises a step in which the receiver connects to a first stream, a step in which the receiver extracts from said stream information on the location on the network, on the one hand, of streams conveying the content of these services and, on the other hand, of separate streams conveying information describing these services, a step in which the receiver connects to at least some of the streams conveying service description information to obtain information on these services and a step in which the receiver uses this information to construct a list, possibly unitary, of the services available on the network.

Method of transmitting digital services over a network and device implementing the method

A method of managing auxiliary programs broadcast with main programs in a digital data stream, wherein the method is implemented by a receiver, involving receiving several digital data streams including the aforementioned digital data stream, detecting data identifying all the auxiliary programs contained in said digital data stream, extracting all the auxiliary programs identified in the stream, and storing all of the auxiliary programs identified and extracted from the digital data stream, wherein the extraction is followed by analyzing execution commands associated with the extracted auxiliary programs.

Method of managing auxiliary programs and a corresponding receiver and system

A method for activating several applications, where a received start up application determines whether a first application or a second application will be activated. The first application, which is received, along with the start up application, is activated if a file of additional data is not present in a memory. Conversely, the second application will be activated if the file is present in the memory.

Interactive television reception and transmitting processes and associated devices

The invention relates to a method for controlling of the display of audio-visual program by a receiver provided with means of receiving and recording audio-visual programs. The method comprises a step of recording a first program selected by the user; and subsequent to an action by the user to display the recorded program, a step of playback a program of a second type pre-recorded in the recording means (this program being for example of an advertising type), and a step which consists in displaying the second type program before the end of the first program display for a time interval stored in the receiver, the display of the first program being conditional to the display of the second-type program. The invention is characterized in that it comprises an improvement, whereby the receiver keeps an account of the duration of display of programs of the second type and authorizes unconditionally the display of programs after a certain duration. The invention also concerns the receiver adapted to display program in accordance with the method.

Method for controlling display of audio-visual programmes, and receiver for displaying same

An information processing system or a digital decoder () makes it possible to process data originating from at least one application (), for example, by way of a bouquet of television programs, and comprises an operating system (), a virtual machine () and an application manager () executing one or more variable management instruction sets () so as to influence the operating system () and the virtual machine () during the execution of the application.

Applications manager with variable management instruction set

The present invention concerns a device and a process for signing digital streams, each of them comprising contents, related to audiovisual information, and a signaling. The device applies encrypting to selectively determined descriptors of the signaling, called authenticated descriptors, to obtain signature. The invention also concerns corresponding authentication device and process. Application to authentication of DVB/MPEG digital streams, notably for MHP.

Growing community of inventors

Acigné, France

Ralf Schaefer