MXPA96002661A - Consumer interface for a digi detelevision system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a television system for receiving a plurality of digitally coded television programs, comprising: means for selecting a desired program of digitally encoded television programs in a particular digital data transmission channel from a plurality of digital data transmission channels in response to a control signal, all data transmission channels also include television programming data for all data transmission channels, television programming data that define the relationship of each one of the television programs to the respective one of the plurality of digital data transmission channels, data entry means operable by the user to enter data, control means coupled with the selection means and with the data entry means for generate the control signal in response to the data entered s by the user, and the control means selects a desired program of the digitally encoded television programs in a virtual channel of a plurality of virtual channels in response to the data entered by the user, each virtual channel being subject to reassignment to a plurality different from the plurality of digital data transmission channels

Description

CONSUMER INTERFACE FOR A DIGITAL TELEVISION SYSTEM FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to the field of digital communication systems, and is described with reference to a digital satellite television system, but can also be applied to systems such as a digital cable system, digital terrestrial transmission system , or a digital communication system that uses telephone lines. The invention also concerns displays on the screen to control such a system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In a satellite television communication system, the satellite receives a signal representing audio, video or data information from a ground based transmitter. The satellite amplifies and retransmits this signal to a plurality of receivers, located in the residences of consumers, via answering machines that operate at specified frequencies and have given bandwidths. Such a system includes an upstream transmission portion (from ground to satellite), a satellite reception and transmission unit in orbit above the earth, and a downstream connection portion (from satellite to ground) that includes a receiver located in the user's residence. The subject matter of the present invention concerns especially the downward connection receiving unit designed for relatively easy use by the user. The system of interest is designed to employ two satellites within a few degrees of each other in geosynchrony of Earth orbit stationed at an altitude of 35,887,702 kilometers, approximately over the state of Texas. With this arrangement, receivers located anywhere in the 48 contiguous states of the United States of America can receive signals from both satellites in the same parabolic antenna reflector without the need to replenish the parabolic reflector of the antenna. Each satellite transmits its signals with a respective polarization. The selection of a satellite for the reception of its signals is achieved in the receiving antenna by selecting those signals with the appropriate polarization. Each satellite includes sixteen answering machines to transmit signals to the parabolic reflector of the receiving antenna over a range of frequencies. Each answering machine is multiplexed in time to carry a plurality of television channels, (for example, from six to eight channels), substantially simultaneously. The satellite signals are transmitted in compressed and packaged form, and include television and auxiliary data signals. Because the system is capable of carrying as many as two hundred and fifty six channels, the user must be provided with some method and apparatus for selecting television programs. Make it easy to understand and operate. If we watch conventional VHF and UHF analog transmission television as a guide, we find that the solution provided in it is of very little help, for the following reasons. The channel number of a given television station corresponds to a fixed frequency band. In other words, channel 6 in the United States of North America is regulated to occupy the 82-88 MHz range. Most consumers who are not technicians do not understand the frequency assignments of the television transmission bands. Instead, they tune into a desired channel by entering their channel number into their receiver. Your receiver is programmed with the appropriate information to perform the required tuning for the desired channel by generating the band connection and the appropriate tuning commands, in response to the introduction of the channel number made by the user. It is possible for manufacturers to build a fixed channel-to-frequency number translation arrangement within each television receiver, just because the relationship between the channel number and the frequency band must conform to a transmission standard. This fixed frequency standard is acceptable for transmitters because their transmission equipment is easily accessible for maintenance purposes due to their location on the ground. If the transmitter fails, it can be repaired and the station can be back "in the air" in its designated frequency band relatively quickly. In contrast, a fixed frequency arrangement for a satellite is not convenient due to the practical inaccessibility of a satellite in orbit. In the event that an answering machine fails, the answering machine is inoperative, essentially forever, and the receivers programmed to tune that answering machine to receive a desired television program would not receive a usable signal. In that case, the receiver will have lost the desired TV channels. A satellite receiver can be programmed to perform a function similar to the common autoprogram function, in which a television receiver searches for all active channels and records the detection of each as it finds it. If such a system is used after a failure of the answering machine, the answering machine with a fault will be noticed and a new active answering machine will be found (assuming that the programming has been moved to a new answering machine through ground control personnel). The user's receiver would have to perform an internal remapping to associate the desired channel with the new answering machine. However, in the event that a power supply module on the satellite fails, several answering machines that can receive power from that module may cease transmission at the same time. In that case, the self-programming solution given above will not work because several new answering machines will be found at the same time that several old answering machines are perceived as lost. In such a case, the receiver will have no way of assigning the received signals to their appropriate channels. Moreover, as mentioned above, since each answering machine carries six to eight channels, the channels assigned to the answering machine that failed can be distributed among several answering machines that still work. In that case the receiving antenna will have access to all the television channels, but the receiver will not know, literally, where to find those channels that have been moved.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A television system for receiving a plurality of digitally encoded television programs includes an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) having circuits for selecting a particular digital data transmission channel from a plurality of data transmission channels digitally containing a desired digitally coded television program in response to a control signal, including also at least one of the data transmission channels, the programming of television programs. The seventh also includes data entry circuits operable by the user for entering data, and a controller for generating the control signal mentioned above in response to the data entered by the user. The controller selects a virtual channel from a plurality of virtual channels in response to the data entered by the user, each virtual channel being subject to reassignment to a different one of the plurality of digital data transmission channels, defining the programming data of television programs the relationship of each of the television programs with the respective ones of a plurality of digital data transmission channels. Each digital transmission channel provides a "multiplex of packaged digital data" (PDDM) of program, audio, video and data guides. As such, the system under consideration provides a comprehensive and logical organization for the transmission of multiple television programs in digital form useful in both satellite and terrestrial transmission.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES 1 and 2 are illustrations of a typical transmitted data stream from an answering machine according to the invention. FIGURE 3 is an illustration of an on-screen display of a program guide according to the invention. FIGURE 4 is an illustration of the segmentation of the master program guide and special program guides according to the invention. FIGURES 5a and 5b are illustrations of program data structures according to the invention. FIGURE 6 is a block diagram of a satellite transmission / reception system according to the invention. FIGURE 7 is a block diagram of the integrated receiver decoder receiver unit. FIGURE 8 is a block diagram of a portion of the integrated receiver decoder receiver unit of FIGURES 6 and 7, in detail.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING In the system in question, the information necessary to select a given television program is not programmed in a fixed way inside each receiver but instead it is loaded from the satellite continuously on each answering machine. The television program selection information comprises a set of data known as the Master Program Guide (MPG), which refers to the titles of television programs, their start and end time, a virtual channel number that is going to displaying the user, and information assigning virtual channels to the frequencies of the answering machine and to a position in the data stream multiplexed in time transmitted by a particular talker. In a system according to the invention in question, it is not possible to tune to any channel until the first master program guide is received from the satellite, because the receiver literally does not know where any channel is located, in terms of frequency and position (that is, the data time track) within the data stream of any answering machine. The concept of virtual channels allows the assignment of virtual channel numbers by categories such as sports, movies, news. This embodiment, in turn, allows active and inactive virtual channels. That is, ten virtual channels assigned to sporting events on a Saturday afternoon can be inactivated after the games and can provide enough bandwidth to support, for example, twenty cinema channels. Thus, the user has the perception that he has many more channels than, in fact, could be supported simultaneously in the available bandwidth. In other words, the concept of virtual channels allows the multiplexing of the bandwidth of the system. Moreover, it allows a television program that requires a larger bandwidth (such as a sporting event) to "borrow" bits from a second television program on the same answering machine that does not require as much bandwidth (such as one). exposition of comments "). Thus, the available bandwidth of a given answering machine can be reassigned, as needed, from one virtual channel to another. Conveniently, the system is totally flexible because each program can be assigned, or reassigned at any time of transmission from the master program guide, to any answering machine or data time track, in a way that is completely transparent to the user , who only sees the program title without changing and the virtual channel. Thus, it is possible to solve the problem of multiple answering machines with failure without the user realizing what happened, by means of a reassignment made quickly of the affected television programs for the answering machines in operation with data time trackers and without using, and by transmitting a new program guide to users. A master program guide is transmitted preferably to all the answering machines with the video and audio data of the television programs, and is repeated periodically, for example, every 2 seconds. The master program guide is not encoded, and can be used by the receiver immediately after it is received and stored. The master program guide, once received, is kept in a memory unit in the receiver, and is updated periodically, for example every 30 minutes. The retention of the maeetra program guide allows instantaneous selection of television programs because the necessary selection data is always available. If the program master guide was to be discarded after using it to select a television program, then a delay of at least two seconds would be incurred while a new program guide was acquired, before any additional selection could be made. of programae. As mentioned above, the system is capable of transmitting hundreds of programs. Each program can include many services. A service is defined herein as a program component, such as a video signal, an audio signal, a closed captioning signal, or other data, including executable computer programs, for an appropriate receiver. Each service of each program is identified by an exclusive Service Component Identifier (SCID). The information for the respective services is transmitted in packets of predetermined amounts of data (for example, 130 bytes) and each packet includes a service component identifier corresponding to the service. A representation of a typical data stream from one of the answering machines is shown in FIGURE 1, and a typical packet of that data stream is shown in FIGURE 2. In FIGURE 1, a row of boxes represents signals that they are components of a plurality of different television program tranemitted by a given answering machine. Packages with letters that have the same subscripts represent components of a single television program. For example, the package identified as V-,, A? and Ol t represent video, audio and data for the program 1. In the top row of the packet row, the respective components of a particular program are shown grouped together. However, it is not necessary to group the components of a particular program together, as indicated by the sequence of packages in the center of the row. Even more, it is not required to place the packages of a row in any particular order. The row of packages shown in the lower part of FIGURE 1 represents three programs multiplexed in time, programs 1, 2 and 3, plus the packages that represent a program guide (packages D4). It is important to mention that the program guide data interrelates the program components and the virtual channels by virtue of the service component identifier. The respective packets are arranged to include a prefix and a payload as shown in FIGURE 2. The prefix of this example includes 8-bit doe bytes that comprise five fields, four of which are 1-byte fields (P, BB , CF, CS) and "a 12-bit field (service component identifier.) The payload portion contains the actual information that is to be received and processed." As shown in FIGURE 2, an example prefix includes a 1-bit priority field (P); a limit field of 1 bit (BB), which indicates the limits between the changes of significant signals; a 1-bit field (CF), which indicates whether the payload is tangled or not; a 1-bit field (CS) that indicates which of two unraveling keys will be used to unravel a tangled payload; and a 12-bit service component identifier. The rest of the packet comprises the payload that can include parity bite of error code attached to the end of the payload data. A master program guide comprises packaged data formatted as defined above, and is assigned a specific service component identifier, such as 0000 0000 0001. A master program guide comprises four sequential, designated data blocks, SEGM, APGD , CSSM1 ... CSSMnseg, and PISM1 ... PISMnseg, which will be described later. A master program guide typically includes television programming for the next two hours, but may include programming for four, six, or eight hours depending on the size of the memory allocated to store it in the receiver. In addition to the master program guide, one or more special program guides (SPG) are also provided, which contain additional data, such as, for example, television program schedule for the next eight hours. That is, the master guide retains all the information necessary to select television programs at the time, and the special guides contain information about future television programs. Special guides are loaded from the satellite as needed and are not retained in memory due to their large size. As shown in FIGURE 4, both the program master guide and the special program guides are divided into a plurality of segments or portions (from 0 to 15) with a "nseg" index indicating the current number of items comprising the special guide. Each element carries program information for one or more virtual channels that vary from 100 to 999. FIGURE 4 shows only an example allocation of virtual channels with respect to the segments, and other groups can be made at the discretion of the operators in the network. center of connection upwards of the satellite. Each special guide segment includes two blocks of data in sequence, CSSM1 ... CSSMnseg, and PISM1 ... PISMnseg, which will also be described later. FIGURES 5a and 5b show structures of the satellite transmission system in question. Note that the Segment Map (SEGM) block of the master program guide contains information about the division of the channel space into segments, and the segment number. The Data Block of the Additional Program Guide (APGD) contains a program guide map that indicates which segments of the special program guide is active, and its location (that is, the particular answering machine that carries the segment), as well as the identifiers of the service components of the respective segments. The additional program guide data block contains information about the programs relating to the ratings and the subject of a particular television program. The additional program guide data block also includes a program guide map that associates special guide segments with the respective names, numbers, and types. The master guide and each special guide contain a Channel of Service Segments Map block (CSSM) and a block of Map of Program Information Segments. The Channel Service Segments Map describes virtual channels (for example, listing information such as channel name, call letters, channel number and type) that are in the corresponding segment. The Program Information Segments Map block contains connected lists of information about programs such as title, start time, duration, classification, and category, which are in each virtual channel described in the Map of Service Segments per Channel. The relevant portions of the data structures shown in FIGURES 3, 4, 5a and 5b will be referred to in the following description of the program selection process. That is, many portions of the data structures shown in FIGS. 5a and 5b concern other functions than the virtual channel selection, such as purchase information, and will not be discussed. Referring to FIGURE 3, a user selects a television program to be displayed, by moving a cursor (via the operation of the direction control keys up, down, to the right, and to the left, of a remote control, not shown) with respect to a block of the on-screen display of the program guide containing the name of the desired program. When a SELECT key on the remote control is pressed, the current position x and y of the cursor ee evaluates to derive the virtual channel and program time information. As shown in FIGURE 4, and as mentioned earlier, the maeetra program guide and the eepecialee program guides are divided into segments (which can be as few as a segment or as many as 16). The lowest channel (100) is always assigned the first channel of the seg (0). Each segment contains channel and program information for a defined number of virtual channels. By deriving the virtual channel number from the position information of the X and Y cursor, the virtual channel number is used to indicate within the appropriate part of the particular program guide (either a program master guide or a program guide). specials) to retrieve the specific channel information and program information. Specifically, the Channel Information Registers (Cl) in the Channel Service Segment Map (CSSM) have a fixed length of seventeen bytes and contain such items as the number of identifications of service components in use. (typically 2, audio and video), the answering machine of the channel (Chan Xpndr) the abbreviated name and channel number (that is, typically 4 characters), and a pointer within the information of the connected program. In order to have access to any specific Channel Information (Cl) it is only necessary to repeatedly add seventeen to a base value. Information about the program includes the start day and time of the program, the thirty minute track number, the theme category (ie drama, sports, comedy) and the classification of origin. Once the answering machine of the channel carrying a desired television program is tuned, the data packets containing the audio and video information for that program can be selected from the data stream received from the answering machine by examining the data packets the 12-bit code of the service component identifier. If the identifier of the service component of the data packet received at the time matches the identifier of the service component of the television program according to the one found in the program guide, then the data packet is routed to the processing sections of the program. appropriate data of the receiver. If the identifier of the service component of a particular packet does not match the identifier of the service component of the desired television program as listed in the program guide, then the packet of data is discarded. Now follows a brief description of the hardware of the seventh, suitable to implement the invention described above. In FIGURE 6, a tracker 601 processes a data signal from a source 614 (e.g., a television signal source) and transmits it to satellite 613 that receives and retransmits the signal to receiver 612. Transmitter 601 includes an encoder 602, a forward error modulator / corrector (FEC) 603, and an uplink unit 604. The encoder 602 compresses and encodes signals from the source 614 according to a predetermined standard such as MPEG. MPEG is an international standard developed by the Moving Picture Expert Group of the International Standards Organization for the coded representation of moving images and associated audio stored in a digital storage medium. A coded signal from unit 602 is supplied to the forward error corrector modulator (FEC) 603, which encodes the signal with error correction data, and the Quaternary Phase Change Key (QPSK) modulates the signal coded by a conveyor. Both the coding of the convolution block and the Reed-Solomon (RS) are made in block 603. The uplink unit 604 transmits the compressed and encoded signal to satellite 613, which transmits the signal to a geographical reception area selected In this mode, satellite 613 operates in two ways, according to which it exchanges channel capacity for transmission energy, or transmission power for channel capacity. In the first mode, satellite 613 illustratively transmits sixteen channels at 120 watts each. In the second mode, satellite 613 transmits eight channels at 240 watts each. The signal from the satellite 613 is received by the antenna parabolic reflector 605 coupled to an input of a so-called top-set receiver (ie an interface device located on top of a television receiver). The receiver 612 includes a forward demodulator / error correction decoder (FEC) 607 for demodulating the signal and for decoding the error correction data, a microprocessor 606, which interacts with the demodulator / forward error correction unit 607. , and a driver unit 608 for transporting the signal to an appropriate decoder within the unit 609 depending on the content of the signal, that is, audio or video information. The transport unit 608 receives the corrected data packets from the unit 607 and checks the header of each packet to determine its address. The decoders in the 609 unit decode the signal and remove the added transport data, if used. An NTSC 610 Encoder encodes the decoded signal into a format suitable for use by the signal processing circuits in a standard 611 NTSC consumer television receiver. FIGURE 7 is a block diagram showing the components of the decoder-receiver system. receiver-integrated that includes the outdoor antenna parabolic reflector unit 7-5. The integrated decoder-receiver includes a block 707 that includes a tuner 734 and a demodulator unit 735 for tuning divereae television signals. The integrated-receiver-decoder is controlled by a microcontroller 706, which also controls the interface between the integrated receiver decoder and a telephone network via a 734 telephone modem, between the integrated receiver decoder and a user via an IR 725 connection and between the integrated receiver decoder and a television receiver via an MPEG 723 decoder, a video encoder 721, and a radio frequency modulator 722, and finally, between the integrated receiver decoder unit and a user via a smart card interface and the IC transport 708. Referring now to FIGURE 8, the FEC 807 forward demodulator / error correction unit acquires, demodulates, and decodes the data signal that is received from the parabolic reflector of antenna 805. This unit includes a tuner 834, a quaternary phase change key demodulator 835, a Viterbi 836 convolution encoder, a d es-intercalador 837, and a Reed-Solomon (RS) 838 decoder, all of conventional design, arranged as shown. The tuner 834 receives an input signal from the antenna parabolic reflector 805. With baee in the channel selection of a user, a control unit 806 (ie, a microprocessor) sends a frequency signal to the tuner 834. This signal causes the tuner 834 to tune to the appropriate channel and convert the received signal into frequency in response to the signal of the tuned frequency sent to the tuner 834 from the microprocessor 806. An output signal is provided from the tuner 34 to the key demodulator. quaternary phase change 835. The quaternary phase change key demodulator 835 is secured on (or synchronized with) the tuned channel, demodulates the modulated data signal, and generates a signal indicative of the quality of the demodulated signal. The demodulator 835 demodulates the modulated input data signal independent of the speed of the error correction code of the received data signal. The closed phase cycle circuit in the demodulator 835 synchronizes the operation of the demodulator 835 with the input signal using well-known techniques. The scrambler 835 is synchronized with the input signal, and supplies this signal to a storage recorder in the microprocessor 806. an output demodulated data signal is provided from the unit 835 to the Viterbi decoder 836. The demodulator 835 also generates a signal Output signal quality, which is indicative of the quality of the signal received from satellite transmission, and refers to the signal-to-noise ratio of the received signal. Various sources of noise, as well as fading by rain, can deteriorate the quality of a received signal. A quaternary phase change key demodulator suitable for use as the 835 unit is commercially available from Hughes Network Systems of Germantown, Maryland (integrated circuit type No. 1016212), and from Comstream Corp., San Diego California (No. CD2000) . The decoder 836 uses a Viterbi algorithm to decode and correct bit errors in the demodulated signal from the unit 835. The decoder 836 includes internal networks, as is known, to synchronize its operation with the incoming demodulated signal in order to effectively decode the demodulated signal. After the decoder 836 decodes and corrects errors of the demodulated data signal, the decoded data signal is supplied to an interleaver 837. The interleaver 837 restores the ordering of the data signal to its original sequence, and Reed-Solomon blocks form (RS blocks), according to known techniques. For this purpose the de-interleaver 837 is again laid on an 8-bit synchronization word inserted by the encoder at the beginning of each block RS, thereby providing block synchronization RS. The un-interleaved signal is supplied to a Reed Solomon (RS) 838 decoder. The Reed-Solomon 838 decoder decodes Reed-Solomon blocks and corrects byte errors within a block. An encoded signal is provided from the Viterbi decoder to the Reed-Solomon 838 decoder via the interleaver 837. If the decoder 36 uses the appropriate error correction decoding rate to decode the data signal, the interleaver 837 and the Reed Solomon 838 decoder will work normally. Thus, a multi-channel transmission system was shown and assigned which allocates television programs to answering machines and tracks multiplexed in time in the data stream of a given answering machine in a manner that is completely transparent to the user, who simply tunes in a desired television program by selecting a virtual channel. It was explained above, that the key to the smooth operation of this system is the transmission of the master guides and special channels that refers to the channels of the answering machine and to the data pointings of the programs in the data stream of the answering machine with respect to the numbers of the virtual channels.

Claims (11)

1. CLAIMS 1. A television set to receive a plurality of digitally encoded television programs, comprising: an element for selecting a particular digital data transmission channel from a plurality of digital data transmission channels containing the desired television programs digitally encoded in response to a control signal, including when one of these data transmission channels is the data of television program programming; a data entry element operable by the user to enter data; a control element coupled to the selection element and to the data entry element for generating the control signal in response to the data entered by the user; and selecting the control element a virtual channel from a plurality of virtual channels in response to the data entered by the user, each virtual channel being subject to reassignment to a different one of a plurality of digital data transmission channels, defining the data of the programming of television programs the relation of each one of the television programs with the respective ones of the plurality of digital data transmission channels.
2. 2. The television system of the claim 1 where, the virtual channels carry numbers assigned according to the content of the program.
3. 3. The television system of the claim 2 wherein, the virtual channels are subject to activation and deactivation, and wherein the bandwidth of the transmission channel currently assigned to a disabled virtual channel is reassigned to a newly activated virtual channel. The television system of claim 1 wherein, the television signals of each of the television programs are transmitted in compressed form, and the television system includes an element for decompressing the signals of the television programs for its visual display The television system of claim 4, further comprising an element for generating graphics on the screen to generate a matrix of transmission times and virtual channels corresponding to a programming of the television programs in response to the programming data. of television programs. The system of claim 5 wherein, a user selects one of the virtual channels from the television programming matrix displayed and in response, the controller selects a corresponding digital data transmission channel for the reception of or program of TV. 7. A television system for receiving a plurality of digitally encoded television programs, comprising: an element for selecting a particular data channel in response to a control signal, whose particular data channel can be assigned to one or more channels of transmission containing each of those data channels the desired of the digitally encoded television programs, also including, at least one of the transmission channels program data of television programs; a data entry element operable by the user to enter data, - a control element coupled to the selection element and to the data entry element for generating the control signal in response to the data entered by the user, - and the control element that selects a data channel in response to the data entered by the user, each data channel being subject to reassignment to a different one of the plurality of transmission channels, the television program programming data defining the relationship of each of the television programs with the respective ones of the plurality of transmission channels. 8. A television system for receiving a plurality of digitally encoded television programs transmitted in packaged form via one of a plurality of data transmission channels, comprising: an element for selecting the data packets corresponding to a particular television program digitally encoded from a plurality of data packets corresponding to the plurality of digitally coded television programs in response to a control signal; the digitally encoded particular television program being subject to the assignment to any of the data transmission channels, each of the data transmission channels containing at least one digitally encoded television program and the television program programming data.; a data entry element operable by the user to enter data; and a control element coupled to the selection element and to the data entry element for generating the control signal in response to the data entered by the user; the control element selecting a digitally encoded television program in response to the data entered by the user, the television program programming data defining the relationship of each of the digitally encoded television programs with the respective ones of the plurality of channels of data transmission. 9. The seventh of claim 8 wherein, a user selects one of the titles of television programs from the displayed matrix of the television programming and in response the controller selects a corresponding data transmission channel for the reception of that television program and selects to process only those data packages that correspond to the digitally encoded particular television program. The system of claim 9 wherein, the data packets corresponding to the digitally encoded particular television program are identified by an identification code. The system of claim 10 wherein, the data packets corresponding to the particular television programming data are identified by a second identification code.