This application discloses gateways and settop decoders for use in home networks as well as the home network itself and an intelligent remote control.
The introduction of cable modems and broadband services to cable television systems has given rise to the development of home gateway systems. These systems couple the digital and analog cable television hybrid fiber coax cables to telephones, computers, FAX machines, settop box TV adapters, digital VCRs, cameras etc. for bidirectional digital communication with the headend and receiving conventional analog downstream broadcasts. These systems can implement video on demand, broadband Internet access, monitoring at the headed of security camera video taken in customer homes, interactive games resident on a server at the headend and a host of other applications.
Personal digital assistants and handheld computers (hereafter PDAs) that can display video exist. However, to the applicant's knowledge, no PDA has the application software and communication circuitry and drivers needed to communicate with a gateway and act as a remote control to control analog and digital equipment at a customer premises. Further, no PDA exists which can act as a remote control to control headend processing relevant to the customer premises where the remote is located such as ordering video-on-demand selections, responding to queries, sending and receiving e-mail through a mail server at the headend, browsing the internet by sending URL and other commands to a web server at the headend and displaying the retrieved web pages, interacting with game servers at the headend, etc.
Further, no remote control that is not a modified PDA exists with a display that can display television or other images. In particular, no remote control, whether based on a PDA or not, exists that can by issuing commands through a cable modem and gateway at a customer premises, monitor one video channel while watching another.
With the advent of digital broadcast television systems such as DirecTV and Dish Network and cable TV and ADSL systems delivering digital data, a need for gateway circuits that can interface these different mediums to various peripherals that use the data has arisen. The UltimateTV personal digital data “pseudo video tape recorder” is one limited type of gateway that has recently become commercially available to interface a satellite dish and a telephone line to a wireless remote control and a television. The applicants do not admit the UltimateTV gateway is prior art since the applicant's invention of the same concept dates back at least to the summer of 2000. The UltimateTV gateway however does not have the ability to also interface an HFC or DSL network to peripherals either directly connected to the gateway through USB or Firewire or SCSI buses or indirectly connected through one or more local area networks.
The introduction of the TIVO personal digital video recorder has created a whole new market. However the TIVO has several disadvantages. The TIVO uses infrared commands to an infrared transducer affixed to an external digital video broadcast receiver to change the channels thereof in response to channel selection commands entered by a TIVO remote control. The satellite receiver is external to the TIVO system, and has its own remote control. The TIVO prior art system gets confused and often records no signal at all when an uninitiated family member such as a child changes the channel on the separate digital TV satellite receiver using that receiver's remote control instead of the TIVO controller. This confuses the TIVO prior art system because, if the channel is changed without using the TIVO controller, the TIVO system does not know to which channel the dish receiver is currently tuned. Strangely, the TIVO prior art system tunes an external digital video satellite receiver by sending it infrared “diferential” commands. Thus, if the TIVO knows the receiver is tuned to channel 100 and the TIVO wants to record a program on channel 125, the TIVO will issue a command to increase the channel number by 25 either by giving 25 channel up commands or by giving a command to increase the channel number by 25 instead of simply giving a command “change to channel 125”. This is a serious drawback if small children or TIVO-challenged people are using the TV. Further, because the satellite receiver is external to the TIVO, it must be kept on at all times because the TIVO cannot turn it on and off when needed to record programs. In energy starved states like California, this is a problem.
Recently, the UltimateTV personal digital video recorder was introduced by Microsoft that solves the “on all the time” and channel confusion problems of TIVO. This unit may not be prior art to the gateway and headend cherrypicker that implement TIVO functions inventions disclosed herein because of an earlier conception date. Further, having the TIVO functions done in a gateway or a headend is different than having them done in a separate digital video recorder, and it saves customers money by only needing to pay for the service and not buy an entire TIVO unit and subscription to the program data.
A need has therefore arisen for a wireless remote control which can, through a cable modem and gateway and settop box, issue commands to a headend to allow the remote to monitor one video channel while watching another on a TV. There is also a need for an intelligent remote that can change video channel selections for the TV or remote by issuing commands to the headend. There is also a need for an intelligent remote control that can issue commands to a headend to order video-on-demand programs. There is also a need for a wireless remote that can issue commands to a headend to browse the internet through a headend web server and display text and graphics or web pages or e-mail on the remote display or on a television coupled to a gateway in communication with the remote. There is also a need for an intelligent remote that can issue commands to a gateway or headend to control the gateway or headend to carry out TIVO-like functions for the customer. There is also a need for a gateway that can implement TIVO like functions as well as interface peripherals to various types of broadband digital data delivery transmission mediums and headend circuitry providing digital data delivery services. There is also a need for a headend cherrypicker that can be controlled by a wireless remote control which can implement TIVO like recording functions.