Patent ID: 7171108
Filing Date: 2007-01-30
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An audiovisual system for making audiovisual programs available to a user from a broadcast source and from local storage and for presenting on a display device a first available audiovisual program selected from the available audiovisual programs, the audiovisual system comprising: a disk drive adapted to receive and store audiovisual programs and to retrieve and transmit stored audiovisual programs; a preference determination module responsive to user input and electronic program guide information to estimate a degree of interest by the user for each available audiovisual program, wherein the available audiovisual programs include broadcasted audiovisual programs available to be received from the broadcast source and stored audiovisual programs available to be played back from the local storage; an alert module coupled to the preference determination module, the alert module performing a comparison of the degree of interest for each available audiovisual program to at least one threshold interest criterion and generating an interrupt signal in response to the comparison; and a system controller coupled to the alert module, the system controller responsive to user input and electronic program guide information to present the first available audiovisual program to the user, and responsive to the interrupt signal from the alert module to interrupt presenting the first available audiovisual program to provide information to the user regarding at least a second available audiovisual program.