Patent ID: 7164431

Claim:
An on-screen display controller, comprising: a character memory including an index portion and a plurality of attributes both associated with a character, the plurality of attributes including a type attribute to indicate whether the character is a graphical image or a text character and a foreground color attribute; and a font memory for storing a bitmap associated with the character, the index portion indicating an address of a bitmap in the font memory; where the controller accesses the font memory to retrieve the bitmap associated with the character at the address indicated by the index when the type attribute indicates the character is a graphical image; where, if the type attribute indicates the character is the text character, the controller recognizes the foreground color attribute to indicate a foreground color; where, if the type attribute indicates the character is a graphical image, the controller is adapted to recognizes the foreground color attribute to indicate a number of bits used to represent each pixel in the graphical image; and where, if the type attribute indicates the character is a graphical image, the foreground color of the graphical image is encoded in the bitmap; where, if the type attribute indicates the graphical image, the foreground attribute indicates a predetermined attribute other than a foreground color.