US 5,289,271 AGranted

Cable television-usage system

OwnerJohn C. Watsoninventor

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Abstract

A cable-television usage system that enables subscribers to be charged based upon their actual usage of the cable channels offered. The system is compatible with current cable equipment and methods. It can be installed outside of the subscribers dwelling and it is capable of determining usage for multiple sets and various cable configurations including converter boxes. Channel usage is monitored using the local oscillator tuning circuit that tunes the channel for the subscriber's set. An unique switching design permits the carrier frequency to be acurately measured by briefly disconnecting the cable from the set. An electronic switching arrangement enables the measurement to be made during a random manner corresponding to one pixel's time on the TV screen. The invention also permits polling of subscriber's television preferences without any effort required by the subscribers.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A cable television-usage system for determining the channel usage of a television set within a dwelling, said television having a plurality of channels, with each said channel having a unique local oscillator signal corresponding to that channel comprising:

channel detection means for detecting the local oscillator signal of the channel that said television is tuned;
signal processing means for converting said local oscillator signal provided by said channel detection means into a signal corresponding to the channel being used;
timing processing means for measuring the elapsed time that each channel is being used by timing the duration of the signals produced by said signal processing means;
and providing a signal representing the usage time of each channel of said television;
memory storage means for storing said signal provided by said timing processing means;
and
transmitter means for selectively transmitting said usage time of each channel of said television;
and
wherein said channel detection means further comprises:
switching means for electronically disconnecting the cable from each said television set during the interval when said channel detection means is detecting the local oscillator signal of the channel being used.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.