Patent ID: 8139162

Claim:
A television channel scan method, comprising: selecting a first CEA-542-B compliant channel plan; scanning a plurality of N frequencies of the first CEA-542-B compliant channel plan to determine if any channel was detected by sequentially tuning the channels at a tuner; if at least one channel of the CEA-542-B compliant channel plan was detected, selecting all channels from the first CEA-542-B compliant channel plan as channels available for a user to tune; if no channels were detected in the N frequencies of the first CEA-542-B compliant channel plan, then selecting a second CEA-542-B compliant channel plan; scanning a plurality of N frequencies of the second CEA-542-B compliant channel plan to determine if any channel was detected by sequentially tuning the channels at the tuner; if at least one channel of the CEA-542-B compliant channel plan was detected, selecting all channels from the second CEA-542-B compliant channel plan as channels available for a user to tune; if no channels were detected in the N frequencies of the second CEA-542-B compliant channel plan, then selecting a third CEA-542-B compliant channel plan; scanning a plurality of N frequencies of the third CEA-542-B compliant channel plan to determine if any channel was detected by sequentially tuning the channels at the tuner; if at least one channel of the CEA-542-B compliant channel plan was detected, selecting all channels from the third CEA-542-B compliant channel plan as channels available for a user to tune; and wherein N is a positive integer.