Abstract:
A method for displaying messages on a television screen comprising the steps of (a) displaying a video signal on the screen; (b) receiving at the screen an incoming notification message including a dialog and an icon associated therewith; (c) displaying the icon on the video screen in combination with the video signal, and (d) only displaying the dialog responsive to a user-initiated action.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]     This application claims the benefit from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/535,093 filed Jan. 6, 2004 whose contents are incorporated herein for all purposes. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     1. Field of the Invention  
         [0003]     The invention relates to interactive television systems, and more particularly to methods for communicating important alert messages to the viewer while they are engaged in viewing a television.  
         [0004]     2. Description of the Prior Art  
         [0005]     Televisions have been commonly paired with remote controls for operating television functions such as channel selection, volume adjustment and other functions. Television displays use a variety of different technologies such as cathode ray tubes (CRT), flat panel plasma displays, liquid crystal displays, projection screen displays, and others. Such displays are typically used to display content (broadcast via cable, antenna, or satellite) for viewing by a television viewer. More recently, such displays have also been used to display software applications such as personal video recording functions and others. These applications may reside on a CPU in the television, or on another CPU on a network that the TV is connected to.  
         [0006]     A problem arises when a software applications (source) wishes to communicate important messages, herein called “notifications”, to the viewer while they are engaged in viewing the television broadcast content or operating an application. Examples of these notifications are appointment reminders; signals from devices such as caller ID codes with telephones, weather warnings, etc.  
         [0007]     A traditional PC paradigm is that a dialog box is displayed demanding the viewer&#39;s immediate attention. Given the resolution of a standard television, the dialog can consume a large portion of the screen making for an annoying television viewing experience.  
         [0008]     Accordingly, the need remains for a method that minimizes the intrusion of notifications on the viewing experience over those methods known in the prior art.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0009]     Whereas the prior art resides in computers where software applications compete on equal footing with one another, the present invention is customized for television where the video viewing has the highest priority, and where the main control is the television remote control.  
         [0010]     The invention minimizes the intrusion on TV viewing by software applications (sources) wishing to communicate (notify) the viewer. The invention associates a relatively small icon with the notification message and displays the icon over the video until the viewer manually requests to see the notification message (dialog information).  
         [0011]     The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention that proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0012]      FIG. 1  is a remote control device constructed to implement the invention.  
         [0013]      FIG. 2  is an alternate embodiment of a remote control.  
         [0014]      FIG. 3  is a block diagram showing a system for implementing a preferred embodiment of the invention.  
         [0015]      FIG. 4  is representative of a screen image showing a user interface implemented according to the present invention.  
         [0016]      FIG. 5A -D show icons representative of different alerts used for the notification system of the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0017]     A television remote control usable to implement the present invention is shown at  10  in  FIG. 1 . Remote control  10  includes buttons dedicated to television functions, such as volume up/down buttons  12 ,  14 , and those that have a contextual function such as &lt;ENTER&gt;  16 , left  18  and right  20  buttons. Remote control  10  further includes an additional set of uniquely colored (or symbolically labeled) buttons  22 —such as red button  22   a , green button  22   b , yellow button  22   c  and blue button  22   d  on the remote control. The actions of the buttons  22  are dedicated to features of the invention, but the results of pushing the buttons are contextual in nature.  
         [0018]      FIG. 2  is an alternate embodiment of the remote control of  FIG. 1  which cycles through alert messages using a dedicated button  24 .  
         [0019]      FIG. 3  contains a block diagram for a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) television capable of operating according to some embodiments of the present invention. Television  100  contains an LCD panel  102  to display visual output to a viewer based on a display signal generated by an LCD panel driver  104 . LCD panel driver  104  accepts a primary digital video signal in CCIR656 format (eight bits per pixel YC b C r , in a “4:2:2” data ratio wherein two C b  and two C r  pixels are supplied for every four luminance pixels) from a digital video/graphics processor  120 .  
         [0020]     A television processor  106  provides basic control functions and viewer input interfaces for television  100 . Television processor  106  receives viewer commands, both from buttons located on the television itself (TV controls) and from a handheld remote control unit (not shown in  FIG. 5 , but like remote  10 ) through the IR Port. Based on the viewer commands, television processor  106  controls an analog tuner/input select section  108 , and also supplies user inputs to a digital video/graphics processor  120  over a Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) command channel. Television processor  106  is also capable of generating basic On-Screen Display (OSD) graphics, e.g., indicating which input is selected, the current audio volume setting, etc. Television processor  106  supplies these OSD graphics as a TV OSD signal to LCD panel driver  104  for overlay on the display signal.  
         [0021]     Analog tuner/input select section  108  allows television  100  to switch between various analog (or possibly digital) inputs for both video and audio. Video inputs can include a radio frequency (RF) signal carrying broadcast television, digital television, and/or high-definition television signals, NTSC video, S-Video, and/or RGB component video inputs, although various embodiments may not accept each of these signal types or may accept signals in other formats (such as PAL). The selected video input is converted to a digital data stream, DV In, in CCIR656 format and supplied to a media processor  110 .  
         [0022]     Analog tuner/input select section  108  also selects an audio source, digitizes that source if necessary, and supplies that digitized source as Digital Audio In to an Audio Processor  114  and a multiplexer  130 . The audio source can be selected—independent of the current video source—as the audio channel(s) of a currently tuned RF television signal, stereophonic or monophonic audio connected to television  100  by audio jacks corresponding to a video input, or an internal microphone.  
         [0023]     Media processor  110  and digital video/graphics processor  120  provide various digital feature capabilities for television  100 , as will be explained further in the specific embodiments below. In some embodiments, processors  110  and  120  can be TMS320DM270 signal processors, available from Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, Tex. Digital video/graphics processor  120  functions as a master processor, and media processor  110  functions as a slave processor. Media processor  110  supplies digital video, either corresponding to DV In or to a decoded media stream from another source, to digital video/graphics processor  120  over a DV transfer bus.  
         [0024]     Media processor  110  performs MPEG (Motion Picture Expert Group) coding and decoding of digital media streams for television  100 , as instructed by digital video/graphics processor  120 . A 32-bit-wide data bus connects memory  112 , e.g., two 16-bit-wide×1M synchronous DRAM devices connected in parallel, to processor  110 . An audio processor  114  also connects to this data bus to provide audio coding and decoding for media streams handled by media processor  110 .  
         [0025]     Digital video/graphics processor  120  coordinates (and/or implements) many of the digital features of television  100 . A 32-bit-wide data bus connects memory  122 , e.g., two 16-bit-wide×1M synchronous DRAM devices connected in parallel, to processor  120 . A 16-bit-wide system bus connects processor  120  to media processor  110 , an audio processor  124 , flash memory  126 , and removable PCMCIA cards  128 . Flash memory  126  stores boot code, configuration data, executable code, and Java code for graphics applications, etc. PCMCIA cards  128  can provide extended media and/or application capability. Digital video/graphics processor  120  can pass data from the DV Transfer bus to LCD panel driver  104  as is, but processor  120  can also supercede, modify, or superimpose the DV Transfer signal with other content.  
         [0026]     Multiplexer  130  provides audio output to the television amplifier and line outputs (not shown) from one of three sources. The first source is the current Digital Audio In stream from analog tuner/input select section  108 . The second and third sources are the Digital Audio Outputs of audio processors  114  and  124 . These two outputs are tied to the same input of multiplexer  130 , since each audio processor is capable of tri-stating its output when it is not selected. In some embodiments, processors  114  and  124  can be TMS320VC5416 signal processors, available from Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, Tex.  
         [0027]     The television system  100  can communicate with a remote computer via an 802.11 wireless network. In a preferred embodiment, a wireless PCMCIA card is inserted into one of two PCMCIA slots  128  [ FIG. 3 ]. This hardware is then exercised by an 802.11 driver in the DVG processor  120  [ FIG. 3 ]. The communication protocol is TCP/IP.  
         [0028]     Incoming alerts/notifications are stored in a list in memory  122  and the most recent are mapped to the colored buttons  22  of remote control  10 . Since at any given time, there may be more notifications than colored buttons  22 , one of the buttons  22   a ,  22   b ,  22   c  or  22   d  is then reserved for navigating through the notification list. In the alternative, all buttons  22  can be used and a dedicated alert scroll button  24  may be used in place of one of the colored buttons  22 . Should a new notification arrive while navigating through the list, the most recent notifications are again mapped to the colored buttons, and their accompanying icons redisplayed. In one arrangement, the buttons are mapped left to right so that the most recent notification is mapped to the leftmost (red button  22   a ) to reflect an English speaker&#39;s propensity to read from left to right.  
         [0029]      FIG. 4  illustrates a screen shot showing a notification icon  100  mapped to the blue color button  22   d . The icon is displayed in a blue color to indicate the color of the alert button (here the blue button  22   d ) to which the icon has been mapped. The icon appears as a small graphic at the corner along the bottom of the screen so as not to unduly interfere with the material currently being displayed on the video display field  104 . If the blue button is pressed by the user, a notification dialog  102  corresponding to the icon is displayed on the screen.  
         [0030]     In the alternative, notification icons  100  are displayed with a border having the same color as the button  22  to which the notification message is associated. Other icons and notifications are possible, examples of which are shown in FIGS.  5 A-D—a calendar notification icon ( FIG. 5A ), a memorandum trigger icon ( FIG. 5B ), a delete notification icon ( FIG. 5C ), and an alarm notification icon ( FIG. 5D ). The viewer is now in a position to read the notification at their leisure by pushing the colored button  22  on the remote control  10  whose color and relative position matches that of the displayed icons. Doing so will “action” the icon causing a dialog generated from the notification data to appear. This dialog may require further user input, in which case, the colored buttons are remapped to the dialog in the same manner as the previous mapping. Pressing a colored button  22  now will trigger the dialog, which may communicate the user selection to the source. This is dependant on what action the source has assigned to the dialog button in the notification data and will remove the notification from the list. This removal will of course cause a remapping of notifications to colored buttons, along with a subsequent redisplay of their icons.  
         [0031]     Having described and illustrated the principles of the invention in a preferred embodiment thereof, it should be apparent that the invention could be modified in arrangement and detail without departing from such principles. We claim all modifications and variation coming within the spirit and scope of the following claims.