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:
Nov. 26, 2002
Filed:
Jan. 08, 1999
Reem Safadi, Horsham, PA (US);
General Instrument Corporation, Horsham, PA (US);
Abstract
A system for inserting commercials into an audiovisual bit stream by providing cue commands in response to cue tones in a pre-existing analog signal, and/or in response to control signals from an uplink (/programmer/network) site or headend (/affiliate). Firmware upgrades are provided to a digital encoder to facilitate generating spliceable bit streams and generation of cue_commands. This enables commercial insertion at an uplink site (/programmer/network) as well as at a cable television headend (/affiliate). The system provides functional compatibility between a digital bit stream and the analog cue tones. The cue commands are preferably carried in the transport layer of the bit stream so there is no need to decode and process several layers of the bit stream. Accordingly, a new commercial insertion capability can be added to existing uplink and headend equipment in a backward compatible manner minimizing upgrade-related expenses, yet allowing different splicing techniques to be employed depending on cost-performance tradeoffs in terms of desired post-splicing audiovisual quality.