Patent ID: 6981273

Claim:
A system for localizing an EPG program schedule, comprising an EPG service provider station comprising: a database of channels and corresponding EPG program schedule information; a database manager identifying a plurality of channel line-ups potentially receivable at a viewing location; a transmitter; and a receiver; a multimedia viewer situated at the viewing location comprising: an automatic channel line-up identifier identifying a first line-up of television channels receivable at the viewing location; a channel line-up processor at the viewing location calculating a channel line-up from among the plurality of channel line-ups that substantially matches the first line-up; a receiver receiving from said EPG service provider station the plurality of channel line-ups; and a transmitter transmitting to said EPG service provider station the identifier of the channel line-up calculated by said channel line-up processor; and a network connection linking said multimedia viewer to said EPG service provider, wherein said EPG service provider station transmitter transmits to said multimedia viewer the plurality of channel line-ups and also transmits to said multimedia viewer EPG program schedule information localized to the viewing location and based on the identifier of the channel line-up calculated by said channel line-up processor, and wherein said EPG service provider station receiver receives from said multimedia viewer the identifier of the calculated channel line-up, and wherein said multimedia viewer receiver also receives from said EPG service provider station the EPG program schedule information.