Patent ID: 7697066

Claim:
A method for detecting data in a vertical blanking interval (VBI) line, the VBI line including a plurality of points, the method comprising: sampling at least one point of at least one VBI line; determining if the level of at least one data characteristic of the at least one sampled point in the VBI line is greater than or equal to a first threshold; and routing the VBI line to a first data path if the level of the at least one data characteristic of the at least one sampled point in the VBI line is greater than or equal to the first threshold, wherein the first data path comprises a data path through a processing unit of a processing device, wherein, if the VBI line is determined not to include any sampled points that have the level of the at least one data characteristic greater than or equal to the first threshold, the VBI line is not routed to the processing unit.