Patent ID: 8611285

Claim:
A method of processing video data with an electronic equipment, the video data available from a time-sliced data stream having video data corresponding to each of a plurality of channels, comprising: a) receiving video data corresponding to one of the channels from the plurality of channels that is currently selected by the user and driving a display in accordance with the video data corresponding to the currently selected channel; b) predicting which one of the remaining channels from the plurality of channels that the user may next select by separately predicting a plurality of predicted next channels with each of plural prediction techniques and designating only one predicted next channel from among the plurality of separately predicted next channels; and c) receiving and buffering video data corresponding only to the designated predicted channel from among the plurality of predicted next channels; wherein the prediction comprises: performing a first prediction technique from among the plural prediction techniques to predict a first next channel; performing a second prediction technique from among the plural prediction techniques to predict a second next channel; wherein the first or second prediction technique is employed from among the plural prediction techniques based on monitoring a user's behavior; weighting the prediction of the first next channel and the second next channel; and based on a result of the weighting, designating either the first next channel or the second next channel as the only one predicted next channel.