The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 03, 1999
Filed:
Jun. 18, 1997
Jeffrey W Crosby, Sherman Oaks, CA (US);
Michael A Friedman, Fountain Valley, CA (US);
Hughes Electronics Corporation, El Segundo, CA (US);
Abstract
A multi-channel digital video receiver (e.g. DBS) includes a tuning unit with two tuner modules and a decoder unit with two decoder modules. These tuner and decoder units enable the receiver to simultaneously produce decoded video and audio signals for two separately-tuned channels. The signals for the channel currently selected by the user are tuned and decoded by one set of tuner and decoder modules. The decoded signals for the selected channel are sent to an output stage (e.g. encoder), where the signals and their output are encoded for use on an attached presentation device (e.g. television, audio processor, computer, etc.) Simultaneously, a microcontroller predicts the next channel the user will select and causes the other tuner and decoder modules to begin tuning to and decoding the signals for that predicted next channel. A third set of tuner and decoder modules can be added to enable the receiver to begin tuning to and decoding the signals for another likely next channel. Since the receiver begins tuning to the predicted next channel even before a new channel is requested, an expected channel-change command can be processed more quickly than in a conventional receiver.