Patent ID: 7050117

Claim:
A channel selection device used in a digital/analog broadcasting receiver comprising: a receiving device for receiving an encoded digital/analog broadcasting signal originated from a broadcasting station; a digital/analog decoder for decoding the digital/analog broadcasting signal received from the receiving device and then outputting the signal to a display; a memory for storing channel information contained in the broadcasting signal decoded by the digital decoder; an on-screen display output circuit, which provides a matrix display of channel information, wherein different main channels are listed across rows of the matrix and sub-channels are listed in a same column of the matrix as a corresponding main channel; a control unit for controlling sections of the receiver, and, an input device for inputting a user's instruction for channel selection to the control unit; wherein the device receives a digital broadcast and an analog broadcast which are originated through different channels, the digital broadcast involves one or a plurality of sub-channels for originating contents, which sub-channels are assigned a virtual channel headed by the same main channel number as that for analog broadcast, and; the control unit, upon reception of the channel selection instruction from the input device, makes the receiving device to receive the broadcasting signal of a selected channel and makes the digital decoder to decode the received broadcasting signal, to obtain the channel information contained in the decoded broadcasting signal and then store the channel information in the memory; wherein the input device has UP/DOWN keys assigned for sub-channel switch-over and RIGHT/LEFT keys assigned for main channel switch-over; and wherein the control unit selects the smallest channel number of the sub-channel from among the digital ones if the main channel contains a plurality of sub-channels, in channel changing on the basis of the channel changing instruction sent from the input device.