Patent ID: 8689253

Claim:
A method for helping a plurality of end users configure respective consumer video sets, said method comprising: (a) maintaining a remote support site supporting each of said plurality of end users and remotely located from each of said end users; (b) presenting to the users of each said video set a plurality of presented combinations of settings available for said video sets, each one of said settings related to user-selectable parameters that influence the manner in which a user perceives content existentially presented by a said consumer video set, and each having a range of selectable values, and prompting said users to specify at least one of said plurality of presented combinations; (c) configuring each said video set by automatically and remotely selecting from said support site, for each setting in the user-specified at least one of said plurality of presented combinations, a respective value within the said range of selectable values associated with said user-specified one of said plurality of settings; (d) where said step of presenting a plurality of combinations of settings includes the steps of: (i) accessing the respective settings favored in previous viewing contexts by users outside of the location of said respective set, statistically analyzing automatically the outside favored settings to determine the mutually integrable outside settings most frequently favored by said outside users in previous viewing contexts substantially matching a setup context specified by a said user, and automatically presenting said most frequently favored mutually integrable outside settings as a first one of said presented combinations; and (ii) enabling each said user to selectively indicate approval or disapproval of said presented combination using a remote device, and if disapproval is indicated, successively repeating said presenting and enabling for other statistically analyzed said combinations, each successive other said presented combination being favored less frequently than the combination presented in a preceding iteration.