Abstract:
A radio comprises a receiver and a variable delay circuit. The receiver generates an electrical signal. The variable delay circuit delays the electrical signal by a variable delay time and outputs a delayed electrical signal. The variable delay time is manually adjusted to correspond the delayed electrical signal with a display from an external audio and video receiver.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    The present invention relates to an apparatus for receiving broadcasting signals. More particularly, the present invention relates to a variable delay receiver system.  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0002]    The timing of broadcast signals received by televisions and radios depends on the medium through which the signals are sent. For example, a person listening to the audio of a local radio broadcasting a live event while watching the live event on his television with the television sound off may be confused because of the delay between the television and the radio. Due to differences between radio and television transmission delays, attempting to listen to a local radio broadcast coverage of a live event while simultaneously watching the same live event on cable or satellite television (with the television audio off) is an annoying and confusing experience.  
           [0003]    [0003]FIG. 1 is a schematic illustrating the above problem. A live event  102 , such as a sporting event, is being televised at block  104  and broadcasted through a local radio  106 . The television coverage of the live event  102  may be transmitted using several means: over-the-air broadcast  108 , cable broadcast  110 , and satellite broadcast  112 . Eventually, a television receiver  114  receives the video and audio feed of the live event  102 . However, the different means of transmissions  108 ,  110 ,  112  also result in different reception time. For example, the signal “bouncing off” a satellite  112  may create about a 3 second delay between the live event  102  and the broadcast coverage of the live event  102  received on the television receiver  114 . On the other hand, the cable broadcast delay may be shorter than the satellite broadcast delay.  
           [0004]    The transmission feed of the radio broadcast  106  over-the-air  116  may reach a radio receiver  118  at the same residence  120  of the television receiver  114  approximately a few seconds after the radio signals are broadcast. Therefore, the audio from the radio receiver  118  may not match the video of television receiver  114  because of the different delays involved in the different means of transmissions.  
           [0005]    Therefore, a need exists for a radio receiver having variable delay capability so that the audio from a radio broadcast of a live event matches with the video from a television displaying the live event.  
         BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
         [0006]    A radio comprises a receiver and a variable delay circuit. The receiver generates an electrical signal. The variable delay circuit delays the electrical signal by a variable delay time and outputs a delayed electrical signal. The variable delay time is manually adjusted to correspond the delayed electrical signal with a display from an external audio and video receiver.  
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0007]    The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated into and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate one or more embodiments of the present invention and, together with the detailed description, serve to explain the principles and implementations of the invention.  
         [0008]    In the drawings:  
         [0009]    [0009]FIG. 1 is a diagram schematically illustrating the different means of broadcasting a live event in accordance with a prior art.  
         [0010]    [0010]FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically illustrating a variable delay radio receiver in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0011]    [0011]FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically illustrating a method for matching the audio broadcast of a live event of a variable delay receiver with the video broadcast portion of the live event of a television in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0012]    Embodiments of the present invention are described herein in the context of a variable delay radio receiver. Those of ordinary skill in the art will realize that the following detailed description of the present invention is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. Other embodiments of the present invention will readily suggest themselves to such skilled persons having the benefit of this disclosure. Reference will now be made in detail to implementations of the present invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The same reference indicators will be used throughout the drawings and the following detailed description to refer to the same or like parts.  
         [0013]    In the interest of clarity, not all of the routine features of the implementations described herein are shown and described. It will, of course, be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made in order to achieve the developer&#39;s specific goals, such as compliance with application- and business-related constraints, and that these specific goals will vary from one implementation to another and from one developer to another. Moreover, it will be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of engineering for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.  
         [0014]    In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, the components, process steps, and/or data structures may be implemented using various types of operating systems (OS), computing platforms, firmware, computer programs, computer languages, and/or general-purpose machines. The method can be run as a programmed process running on processing circuitry. The processing circuitry can take the form of numerous combinations of processors and operating systems, or a stand-alone device. The process can be implemented as instructions executed by such hardware, hardware alone, or any combination thereof. The software may be stored on a program storage device readable by a machine.  
         [0015]    In addition, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that devices of a less general purpose nature, such as hardwired devices, field programmable logic devices (FPLDs), including field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or the like, may also be used without departing from the scope and spirit of the inventive concepts disclosed herein.  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 2 illustrates a variable delay radio receiver  200  in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The radio  200  includes an antenna  202  for receiving radio signals of a local radio broadcast of a live event. A conventional receiver circuit  204  processes the received radio signals and produces an electrical signal representing the audio of the local radio broadcast of the live event. The electrical signals produced by the receiver circuit  204  are fed into an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter  206 , for producing a digital signal at an input rate set by a controller  212  (e.g., a microprocessor, a digital signal processor, and the like). The digital signal is then sampled by the controller  212  and stored in a conventional circular buffer  208  that may comprise a memory such as an SDRAM. The controller  212  also causes the buffer  208  to sample and store the input signal (at an input rate), and provides an input rate clock signal to the analog-to-digital (A/D) converter  206 , and an output rate clock signal to a digital-to-analog (D/A) converter  210 . Those of ordinary skills in the art will recognize that the A/D converter  206  may also include proper anti-aliasing filter and the D/A converter  210  may also include a proper reconstruction filter. The clock signals from the controller  212  set the input and output rates of the buffer  208 .  
         [0017]    Moreover, the controller  212  controls the memory address of the buffer  208  to cause successive samples to be stored (W) in an increasing address of memory. Additionally, the controller  212  controls a similar process to read (R) samples from the buffer  208  to produce a digital audio signal. The digital audio signal read from the buffer  208  is converted to a restored analog signal with the D/A converter  210 . The restored analog signal is then processed by a conventional audio circuit  214  and fed to a speaker  216 . The rate at which the digital audio signals are read from the buffer  208  and converted to analog form, with the D/A converter  210 , is controlled by the controller  212 . In particular, the controller  212  can offset the read (R) address from the write (W) address of the audio stored in the buffer  208 , to produce a controllable variable delay.  
         [0018]    In accordance with one embodiment, the variable delay receiver  200  also includes a delay display  218  for displaying the time delay, a delay input  220  for controlling the variable delay, and a toggle switch  222  for switching on or off the delay feature of the variable delay radio receiver  200 . The delay display  218 , delay input  220 , and the toggle switch  222  are all coupled to controller  212 . The delay display  218  may include, for example, a digital display of the time delay in milliseconds. One of ordinary skill will recognize that the display  218  may also include analog displays, and other types of displays.  
         [0019]    The delay input  220  may include an analog input or digital input. For example, the analog input may be in the form of a dial knob and the digital input may be in the form of one button (not shown) for increasing the time delay and another button (not shown) for decreasing the time delay.  
         [0020]    The toggle switch  222  may be coupled to the controller  212  for allowing a user to turning on or off the time delay feature of the radio receiver  200 . In accordance with one embodiment, when the user switches off the delay feature off, the receiver circuit  204  is directly coupled to the audio process circuit  214 , bypassing the A/D  206 , buffer  208 , D/A  210 .  
         [0021]    In accordance with another embodiment, the buffer  208  may be implemented with a moving magnetic tape and fixed heads, fixed tape and moving heads, a combination thereof, or a random access memory (RAM) with a read address and a write address. The reading (R) and writing (W) processes in the buffer  208  can be controlled by read and write controllers (not shown), which could be advanced at the same rate, at different rates or either one or both can be stopped. The read and write controllers may be included in the controller  212 . The distance between the write and read positions, expressed in time, represents the time delay in the received broadcast of the local radio by the buffer  208  from the time that the sound was stored (i.e., written) in the buffer  208 . For example, a tape moving at a rate of 10 inches/sec., with heads one inch apart will have a delay of 100 ms. The delay may also be known as the buffer length. The maximum buffer length of a memory is the total number of samples it can hold divided by the sample rate (e.g., 1.0 Megabyte/10,000 samples/sec×1 sample/byte=100 sec.). The complete control over the present positions of the read and write pointers and over the rate at which they advance allows for a variable-length buffer that may be controlled by the delay input  220 . Depending on the accuracy needed, the increment of the time delay input  220  may vary accordingly (for example, one tenth of a second, one hundredth of a second, etc . . . ).  
         [0022]    In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, the variable delay radio receiver  200  may also include another memory  226  for storing the listener-set time delay for a corresponding station and preset buttons  224 . The preset delay memory  226  may be coupled to the preset delay buttons  224 . The preset delay buttons  224  may also be coupled to the controller  212 . A listener may later retrieve the variable time delay previously set for corresponding radio stations.  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 2 illustrates a variable delay radio receiver in accordance with one embodiment. In accordance with another embodiment, FIG. 2 also illustrates a variable delay module  228 . In particular, the variable delay module  228  may also include the A/D converter  206 , the memory buffer  208 , the D/A converter  210 , the toggle switch  222 , the delay display  218 , the delay input  220 , the preset delay buttons  224 , which are all coupled to a controller  212 . The variable delay module  228  may further include a preset delay memory  226  coupled to the preset delay buttons  224 . Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the variable delay module  228  may be implemented with the radio receiver as discussed above, other audio receiver, and the like.  
         [0024]    [0024]FIG. 3 illustrates a method of using the variable delay radio receiver in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. At  302 , a listener watching a live event on his television tunes the variable delay radio receiver to a local station broadcasting the same live event. Both television and radio receiver are located at the same residence. Once the listener resets the variable delay to zero at  304 , the listener increases incrementally the time delay at  306  via the delay input. The listener checks whether the content of the audio matches the video of a television at the same residence at  308  as the time delay varies. If the video of the television still lags behind the audio of the radio, the listener again increases the variable time delay at  306 .  
         [0025]    While embodiments and applications of this invention have been shown and described, it would be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure that many more modifications than mentioned above are possible without departing from the inventive concepts herein. The invention, therefore, is not to be restricted except in the spirit of the appended claims.