Patent ID: 8365228

Claim:
An information transmitting apparatus operable to transmit program information to an information receiving apparatus, the information transmitting apparatus comprising: program information data generating means operable to generate program guide information data representing schedules of programs transmitted in respective time slots and including status information indicating whether program guide information for a particular time slot has changed; first multiplexing means operable to multiplex an encoded video signal and an encoded audio signal to generate a multiplexed audio-video signal; second multiplexing means operable to multiplex the program guide information data with a multiplexed audio-video signal generated by the first multiplexing means to generate a multiplexed signal to be transmitted to the information receiving apparatus, such that said program guide information is transmitted in prescribed time periods in said multiplexed signal; and a controller operable to control the first and second multiplexing means to control the data rate at which said multiplexed audio-video signal and said program guide data are transmitted, wherein the status information indicates whether a version of said program guide data has changed; said controller being further operable to increase bandwidth of said program guide information data in said multiplexed signal while concurrently decreasing bandwidth of said encoded video and audio signals during said prescribed time periods in said multiplexed signal.