Patent ID: 8079055

Claim:
A method of obtaining metadata associated with television programming content, comprising: instructing, via a digital television device that does not have direct access to the metadata, an access device to generate and communicate a signal to the digital television device suitable for driving a television display of the digital television device, where the signal contains visual metadata in a video format suitable for rendering on the television display of the digital television device in a visual representation; receiving the signal at the digital television device and storing a representation of a video frame within a memory of the digital television device; processing the video frame via the digital television device using optical character recognition (OCR) of the visual metadata to extract enough information to identify the television programming content from the video frame; retrieving additional metadata associated with the identified television programming content from a television programming content source of metadata; and displaying the retrieved additional metadata on the television display of the digital television device at a configured time other than a time at which the additional metadata is retrieved.