Categorized Electronic Program Guide Eliminating Empty Categories
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional electronic program guides (EPGs) become inefficient as the number of available channels and content increases, leading to significant navigation time due to the display of 'empty' categories.
Innovation Solution
A categorized EPG is implemented, where content is grouped into categories, and only categories with available content are displayed, allowing for efficient navigation by eliminating 'empty' categories and improving viewing efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional EPG displays all categories including empty ones, then complete category coverage is maintained, but navigation efficiency deteriorates due to clutter and time waste
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes empty categories from the EPG display, showing only categories that contain available content. This is achieved by determining which categories have associated content and selectively displaying only those categories, thereby eliminating clutter and improving navigation efficiency without losing information about available content categories.
2Adaptability or versatility
If EPG displays hundreds of channels and content types, then content variety increases, but navigation time increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the large volume of content into organized categories and further segments the display to show only relevant categories with available content. By grouping content types (e.g., television programs, video-on-demand, movies, sporting events) into distinct categories and selectively displaying them, the system maintains content variety while reducing navigation time through improved information organization.
3Loss of information
If EPG shows all available categories, then user information completeness is improved, but display clutter increases and efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic EPG display that adapts its content based on currently available programming. The system dynamically determines which categories contain available content and adjusts the display accordingly, showing only relevant categories at any given time. This dynamic adaptation maintains information completeness for available content while eliminating display clutter from empty categories, thereby improving ease of operation.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described to provide a categorized electronic program guide, as well as other user interfaces. In an implementation, each of a plurality of representations of content that is currently available via network for consumption are grouped into a respective one of the plurality of categories. An electronic program guide is output for display such that at least one of the categories, which is not have one or more items categorized of the currently available content, is not available for display in the electronic program guide.