Pluggable interactive television

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10880618-B2
Application number	US-201514948843-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 23, 2015
Priority date	Sep 2, 2008
Publication date	Dec 29, 2020
Grant date	Dec 29, 2020

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed herein that provide a TV receiver that supports a set of existing iTV standards and proprietary iTV implementations. Further, the TV receiver can be extended to support additional iTV standards and proprietary iTV implementations. A digital television data stream is received and processed by a client. The digital television data stream is analyzed to determine which interactive television format is present. A registry of interactive television virtual machines is searched to determine whether a virtual machine is registered for the interactive television format. Each of the interactive television virtual machines is adapted for one of the interactive television formats. If a virtual machine that matches the interactive television format is found, it is loaded and hosted. Hosting the virtual includes providing services to the virtual machine through common application programming interfaces (APIs) machine includes. The common APIs may be used by any virtual machine that is loaded.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for processing a received signal, comprising:
receiving, from a content source, a digital stream comprising a first video signal for a media asset and a second video signal for the media asset;
executing, using a processor, a plurality of detection components including a first detection component that retrieves from the digital stream a first signal type associated with the first video signal for the media asset and a second detection component that retrieves from the digital stream a second signal type associated with the second video signal for the media asset, wherein the first signal type is different from the second signal type;
retrieving the first signal type from the first detection component and the second signal type from the second detection component respectively;
identifying, using the processor, a first virtual machine associated with the first signal type and a second virtual machine associated with the second signal type, based on mapping logic indicating that the first virtual machine is associated with the first signal type and the second virtual machine is associated with the second signal type,
wherein each of the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine is implemented according to a first standard and a second standard, respectively, wherein the first standard is different from the second standard;
in response to identifying the first virtual machine, initializing the first virtual machine to generate a processed version of the first video signal;
in response to identifying the second virtual machine, initializing the second virtual machine to generate a processed version of the second video signal;
monitoring, using a metadata software component associated with the first signal type, the first video signal;
identifying a change to the first video signal, wherein a third signal type is associated with the first video signal;
in response to the change updating the mapping logic based on a program mapping table received in the first video signal and identify, using the processor, a third virtual machine associated with the third signal type,
in response to identifying the third virtual machine, initializing the third virtual machine to generate a processed version of the first video signal; and
generating for display the processed version of the first video signal and the processed version of the second video signal.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
simultaneously generating for display the processed version of the first video signal and the processed version of the second video signal.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining that the first video signal is no longer present in the digital stream; and
in response to determining that the first video signal is no longer present in the digital stream, shutting down the first virtual machine.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
identifying, using the processor, a metadata software component associated with the first signal type;
executing, using the processor, the metadata software component to extract metadata from the first video signal; and
providing the metadata to the first virtual machine.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the digital stream comprises a conventional television stream and a plurality of interactive television signals, and wherein the plurality of interactive television signals comprises the first video signal and the second video signal.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising splitting, using a demultiplexer, the digital stream into the first video signal and the second video signal.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the first standard and the second standard is one of Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts Group (MHEG), Broadcast Markup Language (BML), Multimedia Home Platform (MHP), or OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP).

8. A system for processing a received video signal, the system comprising:
communications circuitry configured to:
receive, from a content source, a digital stream comprising a first video signal for a media asset and a second video signal for the media asset;
transmit, to control circuitry, the digital stream comprising the first video signal and the second video signal;

storage circuitry configured to:
store mapping logic indicating that a first virtual machine is associated with a first signal type and a second virtual machine is associated with a second signal type;
transmit, to the control circuitry, the mapping logic indicating the first virtual machine associated with the first signal type and the second virtual machine associated with the second signal type;

the control circuitry configured to:
receive, from the communications circuitry, the digital stream comprising the first video signal and the second video signal;
execute a plurality of detection components including a first detection component that retrieves from the digital stream the first signal type associated with the first video signal for the media asset and a second detection component that retrieves from the digital stream the second signal type associated with the second video signal for the media asset, wherein the first signal type is different from second signal type;
retrieve the first signal type from the first detection component and the second signal type from the second detection component respectively;
receive, from the storage circuitry, the mapping logic indicating the first virtual machine associated with the first signal type and the second virtual machine associated with the second signal type;

identify the first virtual machine associated with the first signal type and the second virtual machine associated with the second signal type based on the mapping logic,
wherein each of the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine is implemented according to a first standard and a second standard, respectively, wherein the first standard is different from the second standard;
in response to identifying the first virtual machine, initialize the first virtual machine to generate a processed version of the first video signal;
in response to identifying the second virtual machine, initialize the second virtual machine to generate a processed version of the second video signal;

monitor, using a metadata software component associated with the first signal type, the first video signal;
identify a change to the first video signal, wherein a third signal type is associated with the first video signal;
in response to the change update the mapping logic based on a program mapping table received in the first video signal and identify, using the processor, a third virtual machine associated with the third signal type,
in response to identifying the third virtual machine, initialize the third virtual machine to generate a processed version of the first video signal; and
generate for display the processed version of the first video signal and the processed version of the second video signal.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:
simultaneously generate for display, the first video signal and the second video signal.

10. The system of claim 8 , further comprising:
determine that the first video signal is no longer present in the digital stream; and
in response to determining that the first video signal is no longer present, shut down the first virtual machine.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:
identify a metadata software component associated with the first signal type;
execute the metadata software component to extract metadata from the first video signal; and
provide t

Assignees

• Rovi Tech Corp

Inventors

• Goziker Edward
• Steele Toby
• Zobel Tim
• Glozman Pavel
• Hewit Ross

Classifications

• H04N21/8173 Primary

  End-user applications, e.g. Web browser, game · CPC title

• G09G2370/22

  Detection of presence or absence of input display information or of connection or disconnection of a corresponding information source · CPC title

• H04N21/426

  Internal components of the client {; Characteristics thereof} (H04N5/44 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G09G5/005

  Adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal · CPC title

• H04N21/84

  Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors {(systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73)} · CPC title