Patent ID: 8250597

Claim:
An apparatus for processing satellite, microwave, fiberoptic, digital delivery network, or cable signals, comprising: a digital signal decompression circuit; a circuit including an electronic programming guide for providing a display on a television set or monitor of programs provided by a service provider; copy protection control registers or one or more programmable copy protection signal generator for providing a control signal and for receiving a plurality of programmable copy protection configurations, wherein the copy protection configurations determine components or forms of copy protection signals; a circuit for selecting respective configurations of the programmable copy protection configurations corresponding to all of the components or forms of the following programmable signals; vertical blanking interval signals On/Off, end of field porch pulses On/Off, color stripe process On/Off, H sync amplitude reduction On/Off, V sync amplitude reduction On/Off; and wherein the selected programmable copy protection signals are applied to the video signal in response to the control signal to produce a copy protected video signal, wherein the copy protected video signal is viewable on a television monitor but a recording thereof is not watchable.