Patent ID: 8250604

Claim:
A method of presenting a video electronic program guide (EPG), comprising in combination: establishing a sorting priority of a plurality of television channels that reside on a plurality of separate transport streams, with a principal focus channel comprising a selected channel having a highest sorting priority, and other channels being arranged in pairs of equivalent sorting priority in a hierarchy relative to the selected channel from highest sorting priority to lowest sorting priority of the other channel pairs; where the sorting priority is determined by a selected category of channels; displaying a plurality of windows representing a plurality of the channels in a cross media bar menu arrangement, with the principal focus channel being represented at a window appearing at an intersection of horizontal and vertical bars in the cross media bar menu arrangement and the pairs of channels arranged on either side of the selected channel in the cross media bar menu arrangement, with windows representing the pairs of channels situated opposite each other relative to the intersection of the horizontal and vertical bars and with the windows representing the pairs of channels having lower sorting priority being equivalently situated progressively further from the principal focus channel window relative to the respective equivalent sorting priority of the pair of channels; sequentially retrieving sample clips of the plurality of television channels that reside on the plurality of separate transport streams in the selected category in order of the sorting priority starting at the highest sorting priority and proceeding in order to the lowest sorting priority by tuning to, in order of the sorting priority, each transport stream carrying each channel, except that where a lower or equal sorting priority channel in the selected category of channels is carried in the same transport stream as a channel that is currently being retrieved, then the lower or equal sorting priority channel is retrieved along with the channel that is currently being retrieved by selecting packet identifiers of the lower or equal sorting priority channel; and presenting the sample clips as repeating clips in their respective windows.