Processing and storage of digital data and program specific information
AssigneeThomson Consumer Electronics, Inc.
InventorsHarold Blatter, Kevin Elliott Bridgewater, Michael Scott Deiss, Thomas Edward Horlander
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A program representative packetized datastream is generated from an input packetized datastream representing a plurality of programs. Program content packets comprising a desired program selected from the plurality of programs are identified. Condensed program specific information (CPSI) suitable for use in identifying and assembling the identified packets is formed. The resulting CPSI and the identified packets are formed into a datastream. Program specific information packets and program content packets are also extracted from a packetized datastream and stored on a storage medium.
Claims29
A method for generating a datastream from an input datastream representing a plurality of programs, comprising the steps of:
- selecting a desired program from said plurality of programs;
- identifying program content packets comprising said selected program;
- forming condensed program specific information (CPSI) suitable for identifying and assembling said identified program content packets, said CPSI including program map information associating packet identifiers with individual packetized datastreams that constitute said selected program and excluding program map information related to said plurality of programs other than said selected program;
- and
- forming a datastream representing said desired program from said identified program content packets and said condensed program specific information.
A method for processing a program representative packetized datastream, comprising the steps of:
- selecting said program representative datastream from an input datastream representing a plurality of programs;
- identifying program content packets comprising said selected program;
- forming program specific information (PSI) for identifying and assembling said identified program content packets, said PSI being adaptively generated to be suitable for a desired storage medium type;
- and
- storing said PSI and said program content packets on a storage medium.
A method for generating a condensed program guide from an input datastream representing a plurality of programs and containing a first program guide suitable for use in decoding said plurality of programs, comprising the steps of:
- selecting a desired program from said plurality of programs;
- and
- forming a condensed program guide suitable for use in decoding said selected program by:
- including program map information associating packet identifiers with individual packetized datastreams that constitute said selected program;
- and
- excluding program map information in said first program guide unrelated to said selected program.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.