Patent ID: 7493021

Claim:
A method for recording television programming, comprising the steps of: recording a plurality of television program instances on recording media; automatically comparing a closed captioning stream from a first television program instance with a respective closed captioning stream from each of at least one additional television program instances; and if said closed captioning stream from said first television program instance matches a respective closed captioning stream from a second television program instance according to at least one pre-established criterion, said second television program instance being one of said additional television program instances, then automatically identifying a respective selective portion of at least one of said first television program instance and said second television program instance corresponding to one or more portions of said closed captioning stream from said first television program instance which do not match corresponding one or more portions of said closed captioning stream from said second television program instance, each respective selective portion being at least some and less than all of the respective television program instance, and with respect to each said respective selective portion, automatically taking at least one action distinguishing the respective selective portion from that portion of the respective television program instance not within the respective selective portion.