Systems and methods to reference resources in a television-based entertainment system

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• embedding a resource referencing mechanism into program data, the resource referencing mechanism providing syntactical abstractions to reference resources deployed on networks independent of whether a first network of the networks references resources using a first standard that is different from a second standard used by a second network to reference resources, wherein the resource referencing mechanism comprises a name space notation, an original network identifier that identifies an original carrier of a transport stream, a transport stream identifier that uniquely identifies the transport stream within a terrestrial, cable, or satellite network, and a service identifier that uniquely identifies a service or a program within the transport stream;
• communicating the program data to a client device;
• and
• resolving, by the client device, semantics of the resource referencing mechanism to access at least one resource of the resources, the semantics being resolved using a single schema;
• wherein the resolving is performed by a first application, and wherein at least a subset of the resources corresponds to one or more of:
• a forced tune, by the client device, to a broadcast channel;
• a second application hosted by the client device;
• and navigation from a first page of the first application to a second page of the first application.

A computer-based method comprising:

• accessing a single schema to enforce syntax rules of a resource referencing mechanism, the resource referencing mechanism abstracting at least a subset of specific syntax used by multiple different digital broadcast network resource referencing criteria and comprising either component tags or packet identifiers, each component tag for identifying an elementary stream with a transport stream and each packet identifier for uniquely identifying the elementary stream within the transport stream and is defined in a program map table for individual elementary streams in the transport stream, and further comprising one of an event identifier that identifies an event within a service, an application reference that uniquely identifies an application, and a path identifier that references an object in an object carousel within the service if the resource referencing mechanism identifies the service;
• receiving source content from a content provider, the source content comprising a resource reference based on the resource referencing mechanism;
• enforcing syntax of the resource reference against the single schema to access one or more resources;
• creating an electronic file that maps an abstraction of the resource referencing mechanisms to a transport stream;
• resolving the abstraction against actual data values that identify the transport stream;
• and communicating the electronic file to an application hosted by the client device, the electronic file for evaluation by the application to resolve any abstractions included in the reference against the actual data values, the actual data values being used to tune the client device to the resource.

A computer-readable medium for referencing locally and remotely deployed resources in a digital broadcast network, the computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions executable by a processor and for:

• receiving, by a client device, source content comprising one or more embedded references to resources, the references comprising:
• a service identifier that uniquely identifies a service or a program within the source content;
• one of an event identifier that identifies an event within the service, an application reference that uniquely identifies an application, and a path identifier that references an object in an object carousel within the service if the reference identifies the service;
• and
• determining, by the client device, actual values of syntactical abstractions in syntax of the embedded references to access at least one resource of the resources, the syntactical abstractions comprising a least a subset of abstractions used to reference resources deployed by respective ones of multiple networks independent of different resource referencing syntax standards used by the respective ones;
• wherein the instructions for determining the actual values further comprise instructions for evaluating a mapping table generated by a head end of the digital broadcast network, the mapping table correlating at least one syntactical abstraction to a respective source identifier corresponding to a resource of the resources.

A computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for execution by a processor to reference resources in a television-based entertainment system, the computer-executable instructions comprising instructions for:

• embedding a resource referencing mechanism into program data, the resource referencing mechanism providing syntactical abstractions to reference resources deployed on networks independent of whether a first network of the networks references resources using a first standard that is different from a second standard used by a second network to reference resources, wherein the resource referencing mechanism comprises a name space notation, an original network identifier that identifies an original carrier of a transport stream, a transport stream identifier that uniquely identifies the transport stream within a terrestrial, cable, or satellite network, and a service identifier that uniquely identifies a service or a program within the transport stream;
• communicating the program data to a client device;
• and
• resolving, by the client device, semantics of the resource referencing mechanism to access at least one resource of the resources, the semantics being resolved;
• wherein the resolving is performed by a first application, and wherein at least a subset of the resources corresponds to one or more of:
• a forced tune, by the client device, to a broadcast channel;
• a second application hosted by the client device;
• and navigation from a first page of the first application to a second page of the first application.

A computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for execution by a processor, the computer-executable instructions comprising instructions for:

• receiving source content from a content provider, the source content comprising one or more resource references based on a resource referencing mechanism, a single schema being used to enforce syntax rules of the resource referencing mechanism, the resource referencing mechanism abstracting at least a subset of specific syntax used by multiple different digital broadcast network resource referencing criteria, the resource referencing mechanism comprising component tags for identifying an elementary stream within a transport stream of the source content;
• enforcing syntax of the resource references against the single schema to access one or more resources;
• creating an electronic file that maps an abstraction of the resource referencing mechanisms to a transport stream;
• resolving the abstraction against actual data values that identify the transport stream;
• and communicating the electronic file to an application hosted by the client device, the electronic file for evaluation by the application to resolve any abstractions included in the reference against the actual data values, the actual data values being used to tune the client device to the resource.

A computing device for referencing locally and remotely deployed resources in a digital broadcast network, the computing device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising computer-executable instructions for execution by a processor and comprising instructions for:
• receiving, by a client device, source content comprising one or more embedded references to resources, individual embedded references comprising transport stream universal resource locators (TS URL) that include a name space notation, an original network identifier that identifies an original carrier of a transport stream, and a transport stream identifier that uniquely identifies the transport stream within a terrestrial, cable, or satellite network;
• determining, by the client device, actual values of at least a subset of syntactical abstractions in syntax of the embedded references, the syntactical abstractions representing different syntaxes to reference resources on respective ones of multiple different networks based on different respective digital broadcast standards;
• and wherein a first reference of the embedded references is based on a first syntax rule to access a corresponding resource deployed on a first network based on a first digital broadcasting protocol, and wherein a second reference of the embedded references is based on a second syntax rule that is not the same as the first syntax rule, the second syntax rule being used to access a corresponding resource deployed on a second network based on a second digital broadcasting protocol that is not the first digital broadcasting protocol.

A computing device to reference resources in a television-based entertainment system, the computing device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising computer-executable instructions for execution by a processor and comprising instructions for:
• embedding a resource referencing mechanism into program data, the resource referencing mechanism providing syntactical abstractions to reference resources deployed on networks independent of whether a first network of the networks references resources using a first standard that is different from a second standard used by a second network to reference resources, wherein the resource referencing mechanism comprises a name space notation, an original network identifier that identifies an original carrier of a transport stream, a transport stream identifier that uniquely identifies the transport stream within a terrestrial, cable, or satellite network, and a service identifier that uniquely identifies a service or a program within the transport stream;
• communicating the program data to a client device;
• and
• resolving, by the client device, semantics of the resource referencing mechanism to access at least one resource of the resources, the semantics being resolved using a single schema;
• wherein the syntactical abstractions abstract syntax criteria to access resources deployed by multiple networks, a first network of the multiple networks being configured to reference resources using first syntax criteria to reference resources deployed on the first network, the first syntax criteria being different that any syntax criteria used to reference resources deployed by at least one other network of the multiple networks.

A computing device to reference resources in a television-based entertainment system, the computing device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising computer-executable instructions for execution by a processor and comprising instructions for:
• receiving source content from a content provider, the source content comprising one or more resource references based on a resource referencing mechanism, a single schema being used to enforce syntax rules of the resource referencing mechanism, the resource referencing mechanism abstracting at least a subset of specific syntax used to reference resources across networks, each network being based on a particular one protocol of multiple different digital broadcast protocots, the resource referencing mechanism comprising component tags for identifying an elementary stream within a transport stream of the source content;
• enforcing syntax of the resource references against the single schema to access one or more resources;
• creating an electronic file that maps an abstraction of the resource referencing mechanism to a virtual channel number that corresponds to a source id of the resource, wherein the creating an electronic file further comprising mapping elementary transport stream abstractions in the resource referencing mechanism to a packet identifier for resolving semantics of the reference corresponding to the resource, and wherein the resource is deployed on the network, the network being based on GI network digital broadcast standards;
• and communicating the electronic file to an application hosted by the client device, the electronic file for evaluation by the application to resolve the abstraction to the virtual channel number and the source id to access the resource.