Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080307464 | CHANNEL FILTER FOR A CONTENT PLAYER - A channel-selection filter. The channel-selection filter helps a user navigate to a desired channel. In particular, the channel-selection filter presents a filtered channel list to the user when the user issues one or more channel-filtering commands. The filtered channel list narrows a list of all available channels to those channels that correspond to the channel-filtering commands issued by the user. When presented with a filtered channel list, the user can select a channel from the filtered channel list. The user can also issue additional channel-filtering commands to further narrow the list of channels presented in the filtered channel list. | 12-11-2008 |
20080313671 | MAINTAINING ACCURATE CHANNEL LINE-UP BY PERSISTENTLY MONITORING AVAILABILITY OF ACCESSIBLE CHANNELS - A channel updater. The channel updater maintains an accurate channel line-up by automatically testing accessible channels to determine if those channels are available for viewing. Available channels are added to the channel line-up, and unavailable channels are subtracted from the channel line-up. The updater persistently retests the channels so that changes in channel availability are reflected in the channel line-up. | 12-18-2008 |
20090158368 | CONFIGURING TELEVISION BROADCAST SIGNALS - A system and methods for configuring a television signal SourceType received by one or more tuners. Each of the tuners in the system are initially identified. The signal type is detected, and based on the signal type, a recorder thread is populated with compatible scanners. A weighted scanning order is established within each recorder thread. In one embodiment, the weighted scanning order is based in part on the region where the tuners receive a signal. Once the recorder threads are established, the tuners are scanned in parallel. Based on the scanning results, the television signal SourceType for each tuner is reported. | 06-18-2009 |
20090249398 | NON-GRID TELEVISION GUIDE - The technology is a system and method for displaying a non-grid electronic program guide. Available television channels and episodes are identified in a program guide database. The available television channels are displayed in a first window of the guide. The television series associated with the available episodes are displayed in a second window of the guide. In response to selecting one of the available television channels, the available television episodes are narrowed to the television series that air on the selected television channel. In response to the selection of one of the television series, episodes of the selected television series are displayed in a third window of the guide. Selecting an episode displays the episode information in a fourth window of the guide. | 10-01-2009 |
20090254941 | LINEUP DETECTION - The technology is a system and method for selecting a television lineup. The available television lineups capable of being viewed on a digital device are identified. One of the tuner positions is selected and the television channel designated in each available television lineup identified. If any of the television channels identified is a likely identifiable channel and is designated by approximately half of the available television lineups, available television lineups may be deleted based on the television signal received by the selected tuner position. In on embodiment, the tuner positions are selected in numerical order. In an alternative embodiment, the tuner positions are first sorted before one is selected. It may not be possible to delete lineups based on likely identifiable channels. In this case, a viewer may be prompted to identify a channel. | 10-08-2009 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20110246572 | CONTROLLING MEDIA CONSUMPTION PRIVACY SETTINGS - Embodiments related to controlling media privacy settings are disclosed. One disclosed embodiment provides a media server system including a configured to receive media consumption data for each media content item of a plurality of media content items consumed by a user. Media consumption data for each media content item includes an item-specific privacy status and a media content item identifier. The server is also configured to receive, from one or more of another user and a media content item recommendations program, a request for access to the media consumption data for a media content item, and to provide one or more of the other user and the media content item recommendations program with access to the media consumption data based on the item-specific privacy status of the media consumption data. | 10-06-2011 |
20110246882 | VISUAL ENTERTAINMENT TIMELINE - Embodiments are disclosed herein that relate to the presentation of an entertainment consumption history via a timeline. For example, one embodiment comprises receiving entertainment consumption history comprising one or more entertainment content identifiers each identifying one or more entertainment content items sent to a selected user. The entertainment consumption history also comprises, for each entertainment content identifier, information related to a time at which the one or more entertainment content items identified by the entertainment content identifier were sent to the selected user. The embodiment further comprises sending to a display device a graphical depiction of the entertainment consumption history data as a timeline with each entertainment content identifier being illustrated along a direction of a time axis at a location representative of the time at which the one or more entertainment content items represented by the entertainment content identifier were sent to the selected user. | 10-06-2011 |
20110246909 | ANCILLARY EXPERIENCE-BASED PAIRING - Embodiments are disclosed that relate to ancillary experience-based pairing. One embodiment provides a method comprising displaying content on a display, and displaying a tag on the display along with the content, where the tag comprises an image encoding instructions for pairing with the host computing device. The method further includes, while displaying the tag, receiving registration information from a client computing device, comparing the registration information to expected registration information, and if the registration information matches the expected registration information, then establishing a pairing between the host computing device and the client computing device. The method further includes, upon establishing the pairing, providing an ancillary user experience to the client computing device, where the ancillary user experience including content ancillary to the content. | 10-06-2011 |
20110302606 | AGGREGATED TUNER SCHEDULING - A television recording system in which multiple client devices can form a group, sharing tuners and channel lineups. The clients may be desktop or laptop computers, digital video recorders or other set top boxes. A device within the group may act as a master, maintaining a master recording schedule and assigning tuners to record programs when scheduled or when a client requests use of a tuner for display live programming. Clients may register with the master, revealing the capabilities of their tuners. The master may, each time a tuner is desired, select an appropriate tuner based on multiple criteria, including bandwidth considerations and capabilities of the tuner. | 12-08-2011 |
20110311205 | RECORDING OF SPORTS RELATED TELEVISION PROGRAMMING - A video recording system that controls recording of television programming relating to sporting events to better match the intent of a user who specified programming for recording. The system merges data from an electronic program guide and sports data, such as from a news feed, to determine values of recording parameters, such as start and stop time and channel. User input may specify a player, team, league or other sports entity for which sporting events are to be recorded. The system may use the sports data to identify sporting events involving the specified sports entity and then access an electronic program guide to determine a channel on which to record the sporting events. When the user specifies a sporting event to record, sports data may be used to track progress of the event and dynamically adjust an ending time of the recording to ensure that the full event is recorded. | 12-22-2011 |
20130040572 | PROXIMITY DETECTION FOR SHARED COMPUTING EXPERIENCES - Systems and methods for detecting whether or not two devices are proximate to one another in order to provide a shared computing experience are provided. The method includes broadcasting audio from a first computing device; receiving the broadcast audio at a second computing device; and processing the received audio to identify a unique audio signature within the broadcasted/received audio. The unique audio signature uniquely identifying the first computing device. The method may further include determining that the first computing device and the second computing device are proximate to one another based on the broadcast audio; and providing a shared computing experience at one or both of the first computing device and the second computing device, where the shared computing experience is not provided in the event that it is determined that the first and second computing devices are non-proximate to one another. | 02-14-2013 |
20130129321 | RECORDING OF TELEVISION PROGRAMMING - A video recording system that controls recording of television programming relating to sporting events to better match the intent of a user who specified programming for recording. The system merges data from an electronic program guide and sports data, such as from a news feed, to determine values of recording parameters, such as start and stop time and channel. User input may specify a player, team, league or other sports entity for which sporting events are to be recorded. The system may use the sports data to identify sporting events involving the specified sports entity and then access an electronic program guide to determine a channel on which to record the sporting events. When the user specifies a sporting event to record, sports data may be used to track progress of the event and dynamically adjust an ending time of the recording to ensure that the full event is recorded. | 05-23-2013 |
20140053063 | USER INTERFACE CONTROL FRAMEWORK FOR STAMPING OUT CONTROLS USING A DECLARATIVE TEMPLATE - A user interface (“UI”) control framework enables UI controls to be declaratively created inline with the HTML markup without having to write boilerplate JavaScript that would usually be needed with conventional UI control models. The UI control framework is architected to sit on top of existing WinJS (Windows Library for JavaScript) functionality and encapsulates behaviors that are common across many control implementations so that a single instance of a UI control template may be used to stamp out multiple control instances. The UI control framework separates layout from the “code behind” in the backing controls so that data binding can be implemented abstractly without explicit knowledge of the layout of the control and any of its child controls. The markup provides “anchor points” that allow the code to have direct access to a child control. Custom expando HTML attributes are utilized that place named properties on control instances. | 02-20-2014 |