Patent ID: 8533758

Claim:
A method performed by a digital television receiver, comprising: retrieving, by the digital television receiver and from a local memory, a uniform resource locator (URL) format including a standardized hostname and a standardized filename for a web-based service for providing channel map files, each of the channel map files associated with different television service providers, wherein the standardized hostname and the standardized filename are stored in the local memory prior to delivery of the digital television receiver to a user; receiving, by the digital television receiver, a name for a particular television service provider of the television service providers; generating, by the digital television receiver, a lookup request by inserting the name for the particular television service provider into the URL format that includes the standardized hostname and the standardized filename; receiving, by the digital television receiver and from a domain name system (DNS) server, an Internet protocol (IP) address that is responsive to the lookup request; sending, by the digital television receiver and to a data server, a channel map information request based on the IP address and the standardized filename retrieved from the local memory; receiving, by the digital television receiver and from the data server, a particular channel map file based on the standardized filename, wherein the digital television receiver stores the particular channel map file; and extracting, by the digital television receiver, parsed digital television channel information from the particular stored channel map file to present to the user.