Patent ID: 7908619

Claim:
A broadcasting system comprising: a broadcasting station for broadcasting digital contents and attribute information indicating an attribute thereof and an electronic program guide (EPG); and a plurality of reception apparatuses having: reception means for receiving said digital contents and said attribute information broadcast from the broadcasting station, output means for outputting the received digital contents, and selection means for allowing a user to select the digital contents via a filtering process by comparing selection information indicating user preferences with attribute information assigned to the digital contents, said selection information is expressed with an n-dimensional vector S comprising user preference items as elements, wherein each element identifies a preference intensity, wherein an element of vector S identifies a positive value as a preference intensity when the user has demonstrated a positive preference for the element and indentifies a negative value as a preference intensity when the user has demonstrated a negative preference for the element, and wherein said plurality of reception apparatuses include a selection means for: (1) performing a calculation between a vector A related to the attribute information and the vector S; and (2) determining whether to select the digital content based on the result of the calculation, wherein Vector S is generated by using Vector A for a program which is reproduced for a specified period of time or longer, and wherein Vector S is generated by changing a weighting factor for a reserved program and a realtime reproduced program.