5846results about "Broadcast transmission systems" patented technology

An interactive television system that renders on-demand interactive multimedia services for a community of users. The interactive multimedia is delivered to each user on a TV or on a LAN-node (Local-Area-Network) computer through an "interactive TV channel" created and controlled by a Channel-processor, which can be implemented as either a PC or a high-end workstation. The system employs a direct-access on-demand workgroup server. It is equipped with the primary on-demand multimedia data base stored on a hard disk subsystem that is connected directly to the Channel-processors through an internal workgroup link. Using a no-overhead server technology, the connected workgrouped Channel-processors can all concurrently retrieve and process the data directly from the hard disk subsystem without resorting to a stand-alone server system for data retrieving and downloading. The system also employs peer-to-peer workgroup connectivity, so that all of the workgrouped Channel-processors that are connected to the workgroup server through the internal workgroup link, can communicate with one another.

A distributed antenna system having a transport portion including at least one overhead power line for transmitting system information along its length, and a distribution portion including at least one local access point disposed along the length of the power line for providing local access to information transported by the transport portion.

A method and system for efficiently managing power consumption in a mobile device controls power consumption with an adjustable sleep period or listening interval that may be user-specified and automatically tuned based on recent detected usage. With an adjustable sleep period, a receiver conserves power by leaving a sleep mode only at predefined and adjustable periods, which may be selected by the user to balance connectivity and power saving and which may be automatically incremented when the device activity is low.

A novel network manager for use with a cable television system headend capable of monitoring and managing headend components and set top terminals in a television delivery system is described. The invention relates to methods and apparatus that manage and coordinate the reception of various programming and control signals at a headend. The invention manages and coordinates the storage of such signals for intelligent selection and distribution to set top terminals. The invention makes use of a receiver or set of receivers, a work station, a program control information processing component, a network management CPU, databases, control software and an instruction memory. The invention uses these components to manage and monitor certain headend components, such as signal reception equipment, an authorization component, a file server, MPEG decoders, a digital buffer with frame repeat and channel modulators. The invention is particularly useful in processing and responding to upstream information and subscriber communications received from set top terminals. In so doing, the invention accommodates various system services, including (1) near video on demand (NVOD), (2) virtual video on demand (VVOD), (3) video on demand (VOD), (4) interactive program services, (5) program suggestion features, (6) advertisement targeting, (7) generation of standard and custom menus, and (8) data spooling and text overlaying.

A system and method for implementing conversational protocols for distributed conversational networking architectures and / or distributed conversational applications, as well as real-time conversational computing between network-connected pervasive computing devices and / or servers over a computer network. The implementation of distributed conversational systems / applications according to the present invention is based, in part, on a suitably defined conversational coding, transport and control protocols. The control protocols include session control protocols, protocols for exchanging of speech meta-information, and speech engine remote control protocols.

A fluid infusion system as described herein includes a number of local “body network” devices, such as an infusion pump, a handheld monitor or controller, a physiological sensor, and a bedside or hospital monitor. The body network devices can be configured to support communication of status data, physiological information, alerts, control signals, and other information between one another. In addition, the body network devices can be configured to support networked communication of status data, physiological information, alerts, control signals, and other information between the body network devices and “external” devices, systems, or communication networks. The networked medical devices are configured to support a variety of wireless data communication protocols for efficient communication of data within the medical device network. In addition, the wireless medical devices may be configured to support a number of dynamically adjustable wireless data communication modes to react to current operating conditions, application-specific data content, or other criteria.

The actual site that serves the Web pages to a client in response to a URL domain name is automatically and transparently selected from a list of many switches each having identical data storage. In a peer hand-off process, a switch receives domain name server lookup request for a particular virtual Internet protocol (VIP) domain name. The switch examines the source IP-address for the domain name server request, examines the user's IP-address, and determines if there is server site that is geographically close to that user. The switch examines an ordered hand-off table corresponding to the domain. The switch chooses a next remote server (or its own VIP) in line based on, (a) the remote server location compared to domain name server request source, (b) the remote servers' weights, and (c) the remote server that experienced the previous hand-off. The switch then sends the domain name server response back to client domain name server with the IP-addresses in an ordered list.

A viewer interface for a television program delivery system is described. The innovation relates to methods and devices for viewer pathways to television programs. Specifically, the interface involves hardware and software used in conjunction with a television at the viewer home to create a user friendly menu based approach to television program access. The device is particularly useful in a program delivery system with hundreds of programs and a data signal carrying program information. The disclosure describes menu generation and menu selection of television programs.

An apparatus for upgrading a viewer interface for a television program delivery system (200) is described. The invention relates to methods and devices for viewer pathways to television programs and services. Specifically, the apparatus involves hardware and software used in conjunction with the interface and a television at the viewer home to create a user friendly menu based approach to accessing programs and services. The apparatus is particularly useful in a program delivery system (200) with hundreds of programs and a data signal carrying program information. The disclosure describes menu generation and menu selection of television programs.

The invention provides systems and methods for managing mobile devices of supported by different platforms. In some embodiments, the invention provides this management capability by utilizing one or more agents or modules native to the platforms themselves to provide interaction with individual mobile. In some embodiments, the invention provides an abstraction layer by which management tasks or other functions relating to mobile devices of different types may be generally defined and translated for application to mobile devices supported by different platforms. In some embodiments, the invention utilizes existing organizational structure of an enterprise or organization to define management permission for mobile device administrators and end users as well as to define policy configuration schemes for mobile devices. In some embodiments, the invention tracks the lifecycle of mobile devices within an enterprise or organization as assets within the organization.

A method and system for creating, using, and managing a three-dimensional digital model of the physical environment combines outdoor terrain elevation and land-use information, building placements, heights and geometries of the interior structure of buildings, along with site-specific models of components that are distributed spatially within a physical environment. The present invention separately provides an asset management system that allows the integrated three-dimensional model of the outdoor, indoor, and distributed infrastructure equipment to communicate with and aggregate the information pertaining to actual physical components of the actual network, thereby providing a management system that can track the on-going performance, cost, maintenance history, and depreciation of multiple networks using the site-specific unified digital format.

Apparatus for recording and collecting the installed location of cable modems in a cable data network comprises a network manager for maintaining and collecting cable modem location information. Components of the network manager maintains a software agent that manages a database of modem installation and status information. Responsive to a manager request, the component software agent provides the installation and status information to the network manager. The information is displayed as a map which can show the topology of the cable modem's location in the network with respect to other modems and other components of the network.

A method and apparatus for broadcasting live personal performances over the Internet employs a web server to manage scheduling and broadcasting of the performances over the Internet, as well as collections and payments for products and services sold by presenters to viewers in conjunction with their performances. The server receives audio / video data from presenter operated computers through an uploaded presenter program, and relays the received audio / video data to viewer operated computers for viewing in media players invoked by their web browsers responding to an uploaded HTML document or JAVA applet. Viewers select performances to view from a program schedule provided on a webpage hosted by the web server. Both viewers and presenters are registered with the web server to facilitate payments for products and services, and their financial information stored in a secure user database.

A method for distribution to and management of an inventory of digital content in a digital content vending machine, DCVM. The DCVM includes an infrastructure and an inventory in a client on a personal computer, PC. The infrastructure presents a graphical user interface on the client containing a plurality of stores operated by vendors. Customers shop in the stores by viewing information about and selecting assets inventory. One or more master servers are provided to update the infrastructure and inventory.

Closed loop wireless communication of signals using an adaptive transmit antenna array (3), in which a plurality of copies of signals to be transmitted by the transmit antenna array (3) are produced with delays and weights (wnj) that are functions of the multi-path transmission channel characteristics (H) from the transmit antenna array (3) to a receive antenna array (4) of a receiver (2) and are combined before transmission by the transmit antenna array. The delays and weights (wnj) of the transmit copies for each transmit antenna element are functions of the respective multi-path transmission channel characteristics (hn,m=1l=1,…⁢ ,hn,m=Ml=L)from that transmit antenna element to the receive antenna array (4) ssuch that the multi-path signal components propagated to each receiver element are received with distinguishable delays according to the propagation path. The receiver (2) combines the received signal components from each receive antenna element with delays and weights (u) that are respective functions of the multi-path transmission channels. Preferably, the receiver comprises a multi-finger RAKE receiver (6) that copies the received signals from the receive antenna array with delays and weights (u) that are respective functions of the multi-path transmission channels and combines the copied received signals.

The present invention details a novel application of wireless networking and digital music technologies to achieve coordinated and synchronized music playback among peer listeners connected by wireless ad-hoc networks. Two or more listeners in local proximity allowed by short-range wireless transmission can participate and listen to the same song at the same time. Moreover, the present invention allows listeners in the transmission range to discover each other through profile matching. A high matching score may indicate similar preference or taste to a certain music style thereby easily locating mutual interests, which would not have been possible.

In one exemplary embodiment, a system for providing data access between an information source and a mobile communication device includes a transcoding system and a first network device. The transcoding system includes a plurality of transcoders, and each transcoder is operable to transcode information content from a respective first content type into a respective second content type. The first network device is in communication with the transcoding system and includes a connection handler system. The connection handler system is operable to receive connection data for a connection between the information source and the mobile communication device and to select a corresponding connection handler. The connection handler is operable to select one or more transcoders from the plurality of transcoders to transcode the information content.

A vehicle overall interactive managing method is disclosed. Uplink information transmitted by way of an artificial satellite to a center includes emergency information and periodic information. Downlink information transmitted from the center via the artificial satellite to each vehicle includes audio and image. There is provided at a ground station a movable body overall information management system that is provided with databases storing various types of data and an analysis system. Mandatory automobile inspection information, user information, traffic and road information, safety information, and other types of information are distributed to each of information requiring organizations through this system.

A method and system of performing IP multicast includes a client at one of many downstream networks that sends a request signal to an upstream network via a return channel (e.g., the Internet), and the upstream network sends the request to a media server. The media server, and for live data, a media encoder, processes a media stream to generate a real-time IP multicast communication that is output to a unidirectional satellite that transmits the IP multicast communication to the client without delay via the downstream network, and can convert the IP multicast to unicast. The bidirectional return channel allows the source to calculate billing information based on client usage statistics, and transmits confirmation acknowledgement based on a confirmation request from the upstream network. Because the routing configuration is transparent to the rest of the network, the invention applies to multi-hop networks on both sides of the satellite link.

A method and system for powerline networking. The method and system include an adapter and a gateway connected to powerlines. The gateway is operable for configuring the adapter for powerline networking by communicating configuration signals to the adapter over the powerlines. A powerline network is defined by the configuring of the adapter to communicate with the gateway over the powerlines.

Methods and systems for communicating with a plurality of communications networks are provided herein. Aspects of the system may comprise cellular processing circuitry that processes a plurality of cellular frequency band communications services, comprising at least one cellular voice service and at least one cellular data service. The cellular processing circuitry may comprise a plurality of cellular processing integrated circuits within a mobile terminal. Broadcast processing circuitry may processes VHF / UHF frequency band broadcast services in at least one single broadcast processing integrated circuit within the mobile terminal. One or more of the cellular processing integrated circuits may communicate with, and shares at least a single memory with, the single broadcast processing integrated circuit. The single memory may be coupled to one or more of the cellular processing integrated circuits and the single broadcast processing integrated circuit via a memory interface.

The communication system includes a hybride fiber / coax distribution network. A head end provides for downstream transmission of telephony and control data in a first frequency bandwidth over the hybrid fiber / coax distribution network and reception of upstream telephony and control data in a second frequency bandwidth over the hybrid fiber / coax distribution network. The head end includes head end multicarrier modem for modulating at least downstream telephony information on a plurality of orthogonal carriers in the first frequency bandwidth and demodulating at least upstream telephony information modulated on a plurality of orthogonal carriers in the second frequency bandwidth. The head end further includes a controller operatively connected to the head end multicarrier modem for controlling transmission of the downstream telephony information and downstream control data and for controlling receipt of the upstream control data and upstream telephony information. The system further includes service units, each service unit operatively connected to the hybrid fiber / coax distribution network for upstream transmission of telephony and control data in the second frequency bandwidth and for receipt of the downstream control data and telephony in the first frequency bandwidth. Each service unit includes a service unit multicarrier modem for modulating at least the upstream telephony information on at least one carrier orthogonal at the head end terminal to another carrier in the second frequency bandwidth and for demodulating at least downstream telephony information modulated on at least a band of a plurality of orthogonal carriers in the first frequency bandwidth. Each service unit also includes a controller operatively connected to the service unit multicarrier modem for controlling the modulation of and demodulation performed by the service unit multicarrier modem. A method of monitoring communication channels, a distributed loop method for adjusting transmission characteristics to allow for transmission of data in a multi-point to point communication system, a polyphase filter technique for providing ingress protection and a scanning method for identifying frequency bands to be used for transmission by service units are also included. Also provided is a method and apparatus for performing a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). In one embodiment, a scalable FFT system is built using a novel dual-radix butterfly core.

A system and method supporting access, coordination, modification, updating, and management of multiple sources of multimedia information resident on a plurality of access devices is disclosed. A broadband access gateway may support applications that perform user services involving multiple sources of multimedia information across a network by acting as a focal point for access to multimedia information related to the applications. Using information that identifies such sources, the broadband access gateway may coordinate modification of one or more multimedia information sources based upon the content of other related sources of multimedia information. One such application may include the coordination of calendars for the planning of a meeting involving multiple participants. A representative embodiment of the present invention may identify available meeting dates and times, and the placement of reservations for appropriate travel accommodations using services accessible to the broadband access gateway via a broadband network.

A method and apparatus for providing power to e.g., a chargeable device via a radio frequency link. In one aspect, a method of providing power to a chargeable device via radio frequency link comprises generating a substantially un-modulated signal. The method further comprises radiating a substantially un-modulated radio frequency (RF) signal to the chargeable device via a transmit antenna based on the substantially un-modulated signal. The method further comprises powering or charging the chargeable device with power delivered by the substantially un-modulated RF signal.

Provided is a system and method for a multicast routing algorithm to work in infrastructure based mesh networks. It chooses access points, fixed infrastructure gateway nodes connected to each other and / or the global internet via a wired / wireless backbone, as a group of local multicast group leaders to form a multicast group leader cloud. Each local multicast group leader is elected on-demand according to the local multicast group member's request. Each local multicast group leader forms a local multicast tree rooted at this leader connecting all multicast group members associated with the AP. The processes of electing and maintaining local multicast trees rooted at APs enable efficient coordination with underlying unicast routing to exploit the advantages of fixed infrastructure nodes. Therefore, routing overhead and multicast tree convergence time are reduced. The method can support large networks with fast topology change due to fast convergence and reduced routing overhead.

A method of transmitting information to a portable computing device comprises, using a first communication protocol, transmitting a client to the portable computing device. The client configures the portable computing device to communicate with a distributor using a data transfer communication protocol. Using the data transfer communication protocol, the information is transmitted from the distributor to the portable computing device. Transmitting the information includes generating, at the distributor, a polling signal, detecting, at the distributor, an acknowledgement signal generated, in response to the polling signal, by the portable computing device, and generating, in response to the acknowledgement signal, a broadcast signal incorporating the information.

A data processing apparatus communicates data bits on a predetermined number of sub-carrier signals of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) symbol. The data processing apparatus comprises a parity interleaver operable to perform parity interleaving on Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoded data bits obtained by performing LDPC encoding according to a parity check matrix of an LDPC code including a parity matrix corresponding to parity bits of the LDPC code, the parity matrix having a stepwise structure, so that a parity bit of the LDPC encoded data bits is interleaved to a different parity bit position. A mapping unit maps the parity interleaved bits onto data symbols corresponding to modulation symbols of a modulation scheme of the OFDM sub-carrier signals. A symbol interleaver is arranged in operation to read-into a symbol interleaver memory the predetermined number of data symbols for mapping onto the OFDM sub-carrier signals, and to read-out of the interleaver memory the data symbols for the OFDM sub-carriers to effect the mapping, the read-out being in a different order than the read-in, the order being determined from a set of addresses, with the effect that the data symbols are interleaved on the sub-carrier signals. The set of addresses are generated by an address generator which has been optimised to interleave the data symbols on to the sub-carrier signals of the OFDM carrier signals for a given operating mode of the OFDM system, such as a 32K operating mode for DVB-T2 or DVB-C2.