Abstract:
An information collection method and apparatus retrieves, stores, and interactively displays block-oriented text and image information from broadcasting television video, by analyzing the information screen images from the video source providers on selected channels, with the unilateral processing at the viewer end alone. Also, the present invention provides a method for the video source providers to supply additional information with special image patterns in selected screen areas.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     This invention relates to video, television, and the broadcasting of real-time stock and news information.  
         [0002]     Broadcasting, cable, and satellite television programs sometimes contain real-time stock and news information in the form of viewable texts. These texts typically appear as a formatted screen, a partial screen, or a stripe along the bottom side of the screen. Text strings in a stripe near the bottom edge may appear to be running from the right to the left.  
         [0003]     These texts normally stay on the screen for a short period of time, allowing the viewer to read them briefly. In the case of running text strings, new items constantly enter from the right, as the old items vanishing to the left.  
         [0004]     Financial information networks often use these methods to provide viewers with up-to-date financial indexes, interest rates, as well as real-time stock prices, volumes, and quotations.  
         [0005]     As some notable subjects appear on the screen, viewers may find them vanishing too quickly to read or remember clearly. This is certainly a major deficiency.  
         [0006]     Due to this limitation, viewers must pay close attention for the information to appear. If missed, viewers need to wait a while for the information to re-appear a second time. Some of these messages may not re-appear again.  
         [0007]     As a result, broadcasters need to limit the amount of information to send on the screen. They also need to repeatedly send selected texts in a periodical fashion. In the case of stock quotations, a group of most notable issues are sent over and over in a text stripe at the bottom edge of the screen.  
         [0008]     In the case of weather reports, weather conditions of various areas are listed briefly on the television screen. For the forecast of a certain city, viewers need to catch the exact showing spot at the precise time.  
         [0009]     News headlines also appear regularly or irregularly on certain stations. Some of them draw the attention of the viewers, but disappear quickly before the viewers have a chance to read the entire message.  
         [0010]     These phenomena may be the nature of real-time television broadcasting, but they remain to be a shortcoming that viewers may wish to overcome.  
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0011]     This invention provides a method and apparatus to retrieve, store, organize, and interactively display text-oriented images from real-time television broadcasting.  
         [0012]     This invention also provides a method and apparatus to perform information collection with unilateral processing of ordinary video screen images at the viewer end alone.  
         [0013]     This invention further provides a method for a video source provider to deliver text information with none or minimal changes to existing video broadcasting screen format.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0014]      FIG. 1  shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention for a video information collection system.  
         [0015]      FIG. 2  shows an example of a video source screen for stock activities.  
         [0016]      FIG. 3  shows another example of a video source screen for news headlines.  
         [0017]      FIG. 4  shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention for an information collection database.  
         [0018]      FIG. 5  shows another preferred embodiment of the present invention for an information collection database.  
         [0019]      FIG. 6  shows a screen form to present the collected information.  
         [0020]      FIG. 7  shows another screen form to present the collected information.  
         [0021]      FIG. 8  shows another example of an information source screen.  
         [0022]      FIG. 9  shows an enlarged portion of an image stripe for the video source screen.  
         [0023]      FIG. 10  shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention for a remote control unit.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0024]     The present invention will be illustrated with some preferred embodiments.  
         [0025]      FIG. 1  shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention for a video information collection system.  
         [0026]     The video signal receiver  101  receives broadcasting video signal  102  from a video media source. Video media sources include broadcasting, cable, and satellite television networks.  
         [0027]     At the video media sources, a number of composite signals for individual channels are multiplexed into a modulated broadcasting signal for transmission.  
         [0028]     The video signal receiver  101  includes a channel tuner to select a video source channel and transform it to a composite video signal  103 .  
         [0029]     The composite video signal  103  is typically based on the NTSC standard in the US, or a choice of the NTSC, PAL or SECAM standards in other countries.  
         [0030]     A video image processor unit  104  retrieves video images and information data  105  from the composite video signal  103  and store into the video image and data storage  106 . The video image processor unit  104  may store the bitmap image of the full screen, partial screen, or selected screen areas. To conserve storage capacity, it may also store the target bitmap in simplified, modified, or compressed forms.  
         [0031]     The video image processor unit  104  retrieves screen images upon certain pre-determined selection criteria. A set of selection parameters determines the television channels, the retrieval timeslots, the retrieval frequencies, the locations of screen image areas, and the image characteristics.  
         [0032]     The video image processor unit  104  may compare selected areas of two consecutive screens for significant changes and stores only the distinctive image patterns.  
         [0033]     In addition, the video image processor unit  104  may perform certain image processing or character recognition operations to transform selected parts of the source video screen image into numeric or alphabetic characters. These characters are easier to store.  
         [0034]     A display control unit  107  controls the display of the collected images and data and generates a video display signal  108 .  
         [0035]     If the video display signal  108  is generated from previously stored images and data, the video display interface unit  109  may optionally overlays the video display signal  108  onto the current real-time video signal  110  to generate the output video signal  111 . The current real-time video signal  110  may be a regular television program that the viewer is currently viewing, or a pre-recorded program that the viewer is currently playing back.  
         [0036]     The real-time video signal  110  may be the video image  103  from the video signal receiver  101 , currently tuned to a channel for viewing. It may also be from another internal or external video signal receiver.  
         [0037]      FIG. 2  shows an example of a video source screen for stock activities of a financial service television channel. In screen  201 , area  202  shows major stock indexes. It may cycle through major US and international indexes. Area  203  lists the current volume leaders. It includes the stock prices and variation directions of the most-traded issues.  
         [0038]     Area  204  is a partial list of the stock prices, variation directions, and trading volumes. It may cycle through a set of selected issues over a period of time. It may also include other information such as selling, biting, daily high, and daily low prices.  
         [0039]     Area  205  shows a statistical chart. Graphics elements are likely to occupy more memory spaces. To conserve data storage, these elements may not be included as a part of the essential database elements.  
         [0040]      FIG. 3  is a diagram of a video source screen for news headlines. Assume that the television screen  301  is currently showing a sport event  302 . Area  303  shows the current scores. It may also show scores of other related sport events in other cities.  
         [0041]     Area  304  is a stripe of real-time news headlines. These headlines are shown to keep the viewers informed of other news while staying tuned with the current channel.  
         [0042]     Area  305  is a telephone number that pops up during the regular program to show a phone number for ticket information of coming events.  
         [0043]      FIG. 4  shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention for an information collection database. In this preferred embodiment, the information collection data are stored in a full or partial screen bitmap format.  
         [0044]     The information collection database includes a screen index table  401 , which lists a number of stored screens. Each screen index table entry  402  contains a screen pointer  403 , pointing to the memory location for the full or partial screen bitmap.  
         [0045]     In case that the full or partial screens are stored in simplified or compressed form, the screen table entry  402  may also contain a bitmap parameter field  404  to describe the bitmap memory size or other formatting parameters.  
         [0046]     The screen pointer  403  points to a screen image buffer area  406  within a screen image data structure  405 .  
         [0047]      FIG. 5  shows another preferred embodiment of the present invention for an information collection database. In this preferred embodiment, the image screens are divided into functional blocks.  
         [0048]     In the case of stock information, the contents of the functional blocks are as described in  FIG. 2 . The present invention may perform image processing or character recognition operations to transform some of these image blocks into numeric or alphabetic characters.  
         [0049]     The information database includes an index table  501 , which lists a number of stock issues. Each index entry  502  contains a stock sticker field  503 . The stock sticker field  503  may be an image pointer to a stock sticker image block  511  in the stock sticker image structure  510 . It may also be an explicit alphabetic or numeric code previously transformed from the stock sticker image block.  
         [0050]     An index entry  502  may also contain a company name field  504 . The company name field  504  may be an image pointer to a company name image block  513  in the company name image structure  512 . It may also be an explicit company name text string previously transformed from the company name image block.  
         [0051]     An index entry  502  may also contain a stock activity data pointer  505  to point to a stock activity data sub-table entry  515  in a stock activity data sub-table structure  514 . The stock activity data sub-table entry  515  contains a list of stock activity entries by categories. A stock activity entry  506  may contain a stock price field  507  and a daily statistics field  508 . It may contain other fields such as trading volumes and company profiles.  
         [0052]     The stock price field  507  may be an image pointer to a stock price image block  517  in a stock price image structure  516 . It may also be a numeric or text string previously transformed from the stock price image block.  
         [0053]     The daily statistics field  508  may be an image pointer to a daily statistics image block  519  in a daily statistics image structure  518 . It may also be a numeric or text string previously transformed from the daily statistics image block.  
         [0054]     The output stock information screen to be displayed on the video or television screen may take a number of forms. The first stock information screen form resembles the original stock information source screen image, as shown in  FIG. 2 . It shows the stock sticker names, stock prices, and variation directions, along with stock indexes and other trading activities.  
         [0055]     This time, however, the stock information screens are shown in a more responsive fashion, immediately and interactively according to the user commands.  
         [0056]     The first stock information screen form may be generated directly from the stored full or partial screen without major formatting and alteration. It may also be assembled from a combination of the divided image blocks or the transformed alphanumeric characters.  
         [0057]      FIG. 6  shows a screen form to present the collected information. Screen  601  lists the news headlines collected previously.  
         [0058]     Since it is in a form different from the original information screen, it needs to be assembled from a combination of the divided image blocks or the extracted alphanumeric characters.  
         [0059]      FIG. 7  shows another screen form to present collected information. In screen  701 , the center portion  702  shows the current real-time video of the regular program, assuming to be the same sport event in this case. Information data are shown as screen overlays.  
         [0060]     Area  703  shows a title description of the current event, which may not be a part of the current broadcasting video screen, but a stored image from the information collection database. Area  704  shows the current score, which again may not on the current broadcasting video screen, but also a stored image from the information collection database.  
         [0061]     Area  705  shows a news segment, from stored images in the information collection database. It is selected to display by the viewer, while staying tuned to the current channel.  
         [0062]      FIG. 8  shows another example of an information source screen from the video source provider. In addition to the normal character display  801 , it contains special image stripes  802 ,  803 , and  804  at selected locations. These locations are shown as patterned areas.  
         [0063]     Image stripe  802  is located near the bottom of the screen. Image stripe  803  is located below the stock indexes. Image stripes  803  are located in the lower part of the statistical chart.  
         [0064]     These special image stripes contain special patterns that are functionally similar to a bar code, except in two dimensions. With these image stripes, a source image screen can carry additional information to deliver to the viewers.  
         [0065]     For viewers without the proper receivers, these special patterns simply look like patterned color boundaries.  
         [0066]      FIG. 9  shows an enlarged portion of a special image stripe for the video source screen in  FIG. 8 . To ensure the accurate delivery of the special image patterns from the video providers to the end viewers, the minimum resolution unit of the image pattern is defined to be a number of lines by a number of pixels. In  FIG. 9 , it is shown as a 2-by-2 block.  
         [0067]     In  FIG. 9 , this portion of the image stripe contains four ASCII character codes, shown one character code on top of another. They may be viewed as the first characters of four horizontal pattern rows. Segment  901  contains the code 0011,0100, the ASCII code for the number “4”. Segment  902  contains the code 0100,0001, the code for the letter “A”. Segment  903  contains the code 0010,0000 for a space symbol. Segment  904  contains a null code 0000,0000, which may be used as an end of string mark.  
         [0068]     To accommodate the special image pattern stripes, the video image processor unit, such as unit  104  in  FIG. 1 , needs to perform image-processing functions to transform these image patterns into character codes at the viewer end.  
         [0069]     The source provider must generate these patterns when preparing the video source screen.  
         [0070]     However, the generation of these patterns only requires software changes or data changes. It does not require hardware changes in the video source provider equipment.  
         [0071]      FIG. 10  shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention for a remote control unit for the user to control the basic operations of the information collection system.  
         [0072]     Power button  1001  controls the power on and off. Button  1002  turns on and off of the information display. Special functional buttons  1003 ,  1004 , and  1005  selects the information categories. Button  1003  selects the information category for stock activities. Button  1004  selects the information category for news headlines. Button  1005  selects the main category selection display for the viewer to select other sub-categories.  
         [0073]     Button pair  1006  moves the selected item up or down. Button pair  1007  moves a display page up or down. Button pair  1008  changes the display group selection.  
         [0074]     The array of numerical buttons  1009  provides numerical entries for quick selection of items, pages, groups, or categories. Button  1010  is the entry button. Button  1011  is the cancel button. Button  1012  controls the menu operation to change system settings.