Patent ID: 7444402

Claim:
A method of screening offensive material in a digital transmission, comprising: receiving a digital transmission including at least one embedded offensive material code associated with a portion of the digital transmissiom; monitoring the digital transmission for the offensive material code; recognizing the offensive material code; determining that an offensive-material control input is enabled; determining whether the digital transmission includes an embedded non-offensive portion; modifying the digital transmission i) using the embedded non-offensive portion when the offensive material code is detected, when the offensive-material control input is enabled and when the digital transmission includes the embedded non-offensive portion, or ii) using an other user-selected option when the offensive material code is detected, when the offensive-material control input is enabled, and when the digital transmission does not include the embedded non-offensive portion; and playing the modified digital transmission; wherein when the digital transmission does not include the embedded non-offensive portion, the other user-selected option is a pre-selected insertion signal, and modifying includes substituting the pre-selected insertion signal for the portion of the digital transmission associated with the offensive material code; and wherein the pre-selected insertion signal is selected from the group consisting of a tone, a sequence of tones, a stored audio stream, and a stored video stream.