Patent ID: 8645983

Claim:
A processor-implemented method for audible channel announcement comprising: using a processor: detecting displayed channel information corresponding to a current program channel decoded for display by a display screen; wherein when the broadcast video is an analog signal, the detecting is based on detecting a discontinuous timing or momentarily black section in the analog video signal; and wherein when the broadcast video signal is a digital video signal, the detecting is based on detecting data corresponding to the channel information in a channel watermark in an area of the digital video signal with relatively static contrast; capturing, in response to said detecting, the channel information; parsing the channel information to determine the current program channel by: performing parsing line by line until characters which exhibit certain predetermined properties are located, when the broadcast signal is an analog signal, performing an optical character recognition operation on the channel watermark to generate a textual representation of the current program channel, when the broadcast signal is a digital video signal and performing a text-to-speech translation using the textual representation; and providing an audible announcement of at least one of the current program channel and network information, based on the text-to-speech translation, to a visually impaired user, wherein the network information includes a broadcast network identity that corresponds to the current program channel and that is determined by a user location and by a service provider identity; wherein detecting the channel information comprises detecting data corresponding to the channel information in closes captioning data.