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US 8,752,082 B2Granted
Virtual channel table for a broadcast protocol and method of broadcasting and receiving broadcast signals using the same
AssigneeLG Electronics Inc.
InventorsJinpil Kim, C. Gomer Thomas
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Abstract
A virtual channel table for broadcasting protocol and a method for broadcasting by using the virtual channel table includes identification information identifying and permitting discrimination of active and inactive channels contained in the virtual channel table. At a receiver, the virtual channel table transmitted from the transmitting side is parsed, thereby determining whether the current received channel is an active or inactive channel.
Claims6
A method of identifying a status of a broadcast channel in a digital broadcast receiver, the method comprising:
- receiving a digital broadcast signal including a virtual channel table (VCT) which includes service status information, the VCT defining a virtual channel and including a program number field and a service location descriptor, wherein the program number field associates the virtual channel with an MPEG-2 program association table (PAT) and a program map table (PMT);
- detecting the service status information from the digital broadcast signal, the service status information indicating whether the virtual channel is an active or an inactive channel;
- and
- controlling display of the virtual channel when the virtual channel is determined to be inactive, wherein the inactive channel is capable of being automatically skipped,
- wherein the inactive channel is a broadcast channel that is not presently broadcasted but is scheduled to be broadcasted at a predetermined later time from a broadcast station without local viewer interaction.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.