Electrical program guide system and method

Abstract

The invention provides an electrical program guide system and method by which a desired program can be rapidly selected directly from among a large number of programs with certainty. A program selection screen as a multi-screen is formed from nine reduced screens reduced to one third in the horizontal and vertical directions from screens of programs broadcast on different broadcasting channels. A plurality of such program selection screens are transmitted to a reception side. On the reception side, the program selection screens are stored into a virtual frame memory so that reduced screens of them may make a single virtual screen. From among the reduced screens of the virtual frame, desired 3.times.3 reduced screens are read out and displayed on a multi-screen of full motion. A viewer finds and directly selects a desired program from within the 3.times.3 reduced screens of full motion displayed as the multi-screen. The array of the reduced screens can be automatically changed, based on program enjoyment histories, so that a reduced screen of a program enjoyed frequently by the viewer is disposed at a position which facilitates selection by the viewer such as the upper left position of the screen. The array may be customized such that it is changed to an arbitrary array based on a desire of the viewer.