System and method for pointing to a displayable program guide

Abstract

A method and system that allows a user to, with a single button press on a remote control, quickly navigate within a program guide to an established reference point, such as the program information associated with the last viewed channel and the current time. The establishment of a reference point provides a subscriber with a known position within program information that may cover weeks of time, thousands of channels, and a variety of categories or sorting methods. The subscriber that has advanced through many hours and channels of program information is provided with a method of easily navigating to a known reference within the program information.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation of Application No. 09 / 494,209, filed Jan. 28, 2000, which claims the benefit of provisional Application No. 60 / 138,757, filed Jun. 11, 1999, and to provisional Application No. 60 / 170,302, filed Dec. 13, 1999, and entirely incorporated herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to a television program guide in a subscriber television system and, more specifically, to allowing a user to quickly navigate within the program guide to an established reference point such as the program information associated with the last channel viewed and the current time. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] In a subscriber television system, television services have traditionally included little more than an analog broadcast video source. Recently, however, digital programming has become a reality with the home communications terminal (“HCT”), otherwise known as the set-top box, becoming a powerful c...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

In such systems, scanning program information sequentially can require hundreds of keystrokes by the subscriber and can consume tremendous amounts of time.

Furthermore, locating a particular program can be quite difficult if the subscriber does not already know the channel number for the program for which they are searching.

In addition, traditional subscriber television systems have failed to provide the types of complex, graphically rich interactive program guide applications that are becoming popular with more sophisticated consumers of current digital systems.

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