A wide array of content for viewing may be obtained through different technologies. Movies, television shows, educational videos, etc. may be downloaded using personal computers, laptop computers, tablet/slate devices, smart phones and other Internet capable devices. Documents, books, articles and other texts may also be viewed or downloaded. Cable and satellite systems also provide access to many types of content, such as television programs, movies, video-on-demand content, pay-per-view content, etc.
To discover content of interest to a user, search engines, program guides, push-services and other filtering technologies may be used. Without such tools the plethora of available content would be overwhelming. However, even with such tools, a user is often inundated with content that is in a language that the user lacks proficiency in reading and/or understanding.
For example, electronic program guides (EPG) and interactive program guides provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus displaying broadcast programming/content or scheduling information for current and upcoming programming/content. Non-interactive electronic program guides (EPG) present a digitally displayed, non-interactive menu of programming/content on a dedicated channel. EPGs are broadcast by specialized video character generation (CG) equipment housed within each such provider's central television distribution facility. By tuning into an EPG channel, a menu is displayed that lists current and upcoming television programs on all available channels.
A more modern form of the EPG is the interactive program guide (IPG). An IPG allows user to navigate scheduling information menus interactively, selecting and discovering programming by time, title, station, or genre using an input device such as a keypad, computer keyboard, or TV remote control. Its interactive menus are generated entirely within local receiving or display equipment using raw scheduling data sent by individual broadcast stations or centralized scheduling information providers. A typical IPG provides information covering the next 7 or 14 days.
Data to populate an interactive EPG may be distributed over the Internet, either for a charge or free of charge, and implemented on equipment connected directly or through a computer to the Internet. Television-based IPGs can also facilitate the selection of programs for recording with digital video recorders (DVRs), also known as personal video recorders (PVRs).
The aspect of an IPG most noticed by users is its graphical user interface (GUI), which is typically implemented as a grid or table listing channel names and program titles and times: Web and Television-based IPG interfaces allow the user to highlight any given listing and call up additional information about it supplied by the EPG provider. IPGs also allow users the option of searching or filtering content by genre, as well as immediate one-touch access to, or recording of, a selected program. Reminders and parental control functions may also often be included. The IPGs may also be configured to control a DVR. However, as can be seen, current EPGs filter content based on a parameter selected by the user, e.g., genre. Filter setup is performed manually by configuring the filters using the guide.
Other filtering tools, such as search engines, data mining tools, social media filters, etc., are also limited in how parameters are used to filter results. For example, a search for a movie of a particular title may generate results that include an English version, a Spanish version, an English version having French subtitles, a Spanish language book of the title, an English language book of the title, etc. Thus, the user is forced to scan through the search results to identify results that the user is interested in viewing or downloading.
It can be seen then that there is a need for providing content filtering based on acquired data associated with language identification.