Apparatus and method of searching for desired television content

#The invention relates to an apparatus and method of searching television programming for specific content.

#Television is one of the most popular communication mediums today. In fact, television has become so popular that more information is being broadcast every day than is possible for any one person to assimilate. Therefore, television viewers frequently desire to search out television programs that are related to a specific topic of interest. For example, a viewer may want to locate television programs related to a particular animal such as a bear, a particular country such as India, or a particular government agency such as the police. However, locating specific television programs which pertain to a desired topic is difficult and time consuming. It is virtually impossible to quickly locate a specific topic across hundreds of television stations broadcasting thousands of different types of shows by scanning through the various television channels. Therefore, a need exists for an apparatus and method for searching through the multitude of television channels and the multitude of programming on those channels by which a viewer could enter specific keyword terms into a search engine and then view a list of programming related to the entered terms that would be provided by search engine.

#Similarly, the Internet is a very popular medium for communication of information. As it is impossible for anybody to obtain all of the information on the Internet, search engines have proved invaluable in allowing users to access specific information on the Internet. Since many television viewers are familiar with the Internet and Internet search engines, there exists a need for an apparatus and method for searching through television programming similar to the method that search engines use for searching through the Internet.

#FIG. 1 is an illustration of the invention interacting with a cable provider and a television set.

#FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the logic of the present invention.

#FIG. 3 is a depiction of the data processing system contained within the logical unit.

#The term “multiplex” as used herein means the process of funneling several different streams of data over a common communications line. The term “cable provider” as used herein means a company which provides television service to multiple users and includes satellite television services. The term “lexical parsing” as used herein means a process of finding matches to a desired search term by comparing the desired search term letter-by-letter with the terms in an available database.

#FIG. 1 is an illustration of the invention 100 interacting with a cable provider and a television set. The cable provider (not shown) provides a television signal through a coaxial cable 102 that runs through the user's wall 104 and into the logical unit 106. Logical unit 106 buffers the cable signal as described below and displays the information on television 110 via television connection 108. Alternatively, logical unit 106 may be placed at the same location as the cable provider such that it is unnecessary to have logical unit 106 at the user's location.

#FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the logic contained within logical unit 106 of the present invention. Search program 200 starts (202) and logical unit 106 receives the cable signal transmitted by the cable provider (204). The cable signal is multiplexed and comprises at least a visual signal, an audio signal, and a closed caption text signal. Moreover, the multiplexed cable signal is not limited to real-time cable programming. The multiplexed signal may also contain information regarding past and future television programs. As logical unit 106 receives the signal, search program 200 continuously buffers the transmitted multiplexed cable signal (206). In buffering the signal, search program 200 obtains the closed-caption text from the cable signal and store the words contained in the captioning text along with the television channel number and time of the television program. Alternatively, search program 200 can buffer the television signal by analyzing the audio signal and buffering the keywords from the audio signal. The text buffering described above is known in the art. Furthermore, the buffering process is not limited to one television channel or one specific time period. If a user desires to buffer different channels at different times, then the user may do so by means of search program 200. For example, if search program 200 has ten hours of buffering time available, the user can have search program 200 buffer ten hours of a channel such as Cable Network News (CNN). Alternatively, search program 200 can buffer four hours of CBS, four hours of CNN, and two hours of the weather channel. Furthermore, the buffering times do not have to be similar. The user can define the CBS buffering time from 5 am to 9 am, the CNN buffering time from 8 am to noon, and the weather channel from 1 pm to 3 pm. Additionally, search program 200 is not limited to the English language. Search program 200 is capable of buffering television in multiple languages simultaneously. Thus, at any given time search program 200 is capable of buffering an enormous variety of television programs.