Apparatus for an electronic guide with video clips

Abstract

Apparatus and methods for an electronic guide with video clips are provided. The method includes the step of providing a video cassette tape having a first length of video cassette tape having a first index mark written in the control track near the beginning of the first length and a second index mark written in the control track near the end of the first length, a guide grid to video clips on the video cassette tape written in the video track between the first and second index mark, and guide data written as tones in the audio track between the first and second index mark, the guide data associated with the guide grid including for each video clip contained on the video cassette tape a number of index marks either forward or backward on the tape from the guide data to the video clip. A plurality of video clips are provided on the video cassette tape, each video clip having a third and fourth index marks written in the control track near the beginning and end, respectively, of the video clip, video for the video clip written in the video track between the third and fourth index mark, and audio to accompany the video written in the audio track between the third and fourth index mark. In another method the electronic guide with video clips is broadcast with an initialization message and broadcast indication near the start of the broadcast.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.