United States Patent
`Sandbank
`
`[19]
`
`[11]
`
`[45]
`
`Patent Number:
`
`Date of Patent:
`
`4,885,579
`
`Dec. 5, 1989
`
`[54]
`
`DEVICE FOR THE REMOTE CONTROL OF
`A VIDEORECORDER OR A
`VIDEORECEIVER
`
`FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS
`
`.
`4/1984 European Pat. Off.
`0122626
`.
`7/1984 European Pat. Off.
`0133985
`9/1983 Fed. Rep. of Germany .
`3335082A1
`2104277A 11/1981 United Kingdom .
`2126002A 9/1982 United Kingdom .
`OTHER PUBLICATIONS
`
`Hofmann, Von Gunter et al., “Videotext Programmiert
`Videorecorder”, Journal Rundfunktech Mitteilungen,
`Jan. 26, 1982, 254—257;
`Kruger, H_. Eckhard, “Das Digitale Fernshkennung-
`ssystem ZPS”, Nachrichtentechnische Zeitschrift N.
`vol. 35 (Jun. 1982), No. 6.
`Primary Examiner-—-Donald J. Yusko
`Assistant Examz'ner—Brian Palladino
`Attorney, Agent, or Fz‘rm—Robert F. O’Connell
`
`ABSTRACT
`[57]
`A conventional video recorder comprises-electrome
`chanical components, electronic circuits and a control
`unit with which there are associated both front panel
`controls and a user remote control unit with a sensor to
`which signals can be sent from a hand-held remote
`control unit. In addition to these conventional features
`an off-air remote controller is provided. This is capable
`of decoding control signals associated with the televi-
`sion signal and includes an encoder which generates
`outputs which simulate those from the conventional
`user remote control unit.
`
`10 Claims, 2 Drawing Sheets
`
`[21]
`[22]
`[861
`
`[37]
`
`[75]
`
`Inventor:
`
`[73] Assignee:
`
`App]. No.:
`PCT Filed:
`
`PCT No.:
`
`Charles P. Sandbank, Reigate, United
`Kingdom
`British Broadcasting Corporation,
`London, England
`134,775
`
`Apr. 16, 1987
`PCT/GB87/00259
`
`§ 371 Date:
`
`Apr. 25, 1988
`
`Apr. 25, 1988
`§ 102(e) Date:
`PCT Pub. No.: W087/06416
`
`PCT Pub. Date: Oct. 22, 1987
`
`Foreign Application Priority Data
`[30]
`Apr. 18, 1986 [GB] United Kingdom ............... .. 8609524
`
`[58]
`
`Int. Cl.4 ...................... H04N 5/782; H04N 7/087
`[51]
`[52] U.S. CL ........................ .. 340/825.72; 340/825.69;
`358/194.1; 358/86
`Field of Search .................... .. 340/825.72, 825.69,
`340/825.22; 379/102; 358/194.1, 86, 336
`References Cited
`U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
`
`[5 6]
`
`4,706,121 1 1/1987 Young ............................ 340/825.22
`4,728,949 3/1988 Platte et al.
`.
`340/825.69
`4,743,968
`5/1988 Mogi
`358/194.1
`4,758,501
`5/1988 Long ................................ 358/194.1
`
`COMPONENTS
`
`CONTROL
`UNIT
`
`OFF-AIR
`REMOTE
`CONTROL
`UNIT
`
`Unified Patents Exhibit 1008, p. 1
`
`

`
`US; Patent
`
`Dec. 5, 1989
`
`Sheet 1 of 2
`
`4,885,579
`
`AL - CONTROL
`
`COMPONENTS
`
`UNIT
`
`ELECTRONIC
`
`CIRCUIT
`
`OFF-AIR
`REMOTE
`CONTROL
`UNIT
`
`Unified Patents Exhibit 1008, p. 2
`
`

`
`US. Patent
`
`Dec. 5, 1989
`
`Sheet 2 of 2
`
`4,885,579
`
`‘.—___—_—_.._.
`3/
`
`BUFFER
`
`DATA CHANNEL
`
`GROUP
`
`CR1 FC
`
`\.5’“
`1111 ADDRESS
`
`I'F AND
`VIDEO
`DEMODULATOR
`
`INFRA-RED
`ENCODER
`
`"
`
`USER DATA BYTES
`
`SHDRTENED
`PACKET
`
`'
`
`CRC
`
`Unified Patents Exhibit 1008, p. 3
`
`

`
`1
`
`4,885,579
`
`DEVICE FOR THE REMOTE CONTROL OF A
`VIDEORECORDER OR A VIDEORECEIVER
`
`BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
`
`The present invention relates to television receivers
`and video recorders, commonly known as video tape
`recorders (VTR) or video cassette recorders (VCR).
`The essential components of a video recorder are the
`electromechanical components including the tape drive
`mechanism. control relays and electromagnets, mag-
`netic heads and head scanning mechanism. Secondly
`there are the electronic circuits for processing the video
`signals being recorded or played back. Thirdly there is
`the control unit which controls the electromechanical
`components and the electronic circuit. The control unit
`may be very simple or provided with many facilities for
`scheduled recording, various modes of replay and so
`on. In any event, some means of providing control
`inputs have to be provided and, at the simplest, these
`may consist solely of front panel controls. However, it
`is well known to provide domestic video recorders with
`remote control units which either plug into the recoder
`or t_ransn_iit infrared or ultrasonic control signals to a
`sensor on the recorder.
`Television receivers are also well known with remote
`control units as well as front panel controls.
`In the professional field it is known to control record-
`ers by transmitting control signals along with the
`wanted information signal. The recorder responds ap-
`propriately to the received control signals. See for ex-
`ample GB 2126002.
`SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
`
`The object of the present invention is to make it possi-
`ble to add such facilities to domestic receivers and video
`recorders, in particular as an add on facility for existing
`receivers and recorders.
`Video recorders are known from EP 0 133985 and
`EP 0 122626 which have two remote control units. The
`first unit comprises a bar code reader responsive to
`television program schedule data input by the user to
`enter such data in a program memory. The second unit
`receives control signals accompanying the broadcast
`signal and compares these with the data in the program
`memory to determine the times at which the video
`recorder is switched on and off. The first unit simply
`automates the programming of the video recorder.
`The present
`invention provides a video recorder
`including electromechanical components, an electronic
`circuit and a control unit therefor, a remote contfol unit
`responsive to user input signals to provide control sig-
`nals to the control unit and a second remote control unit
`responsive to received control signals accompanying a
`received television signal, to decode the received con-
`trol signals and provide to the control unit control sig-
`nals which match those provided by the first mentioned
`_ remote control unit.
`.The present invention also provides a television re-
`ceiving apparatus including an electronic circuit and a
`control unit therefor, a remote control unit responsive
`to user input signals to provide control signals to the
`control unit and a second remote control unit respon-
`sive to received control signals accompanying a re-
`ceived television signal, to decode the received control
`signals and provide to the control unit control signals
`
`2
`which match those provided by the first mentioned
`remote control unit.
`In the present invention, the two remote control units
`can act independently as parallel, alternative means of
`control. Therefore the second unit can be provided as
`an add-on facility to an existing video recorder or re-
`ceiver.
`
`BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
`An embodiment of the invention will now be de-
`scribed, by way of example, with reference to the ac-
`companying drawings, in which:
`FIG. 1 shows the main components of a video re-
`corder,
`FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the physical set-up,
`FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an off-air remote con-
`troller, and
`FIG. 4 shows a known control signal format.
`DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED
`EMBODIMENTS
`
`The video recorder 20 shown in FIG. 1 comprises the
`electromechanical components 10, the electronic cir-
`cuits 11 and a main control unit 12. The input to and
`output from the electronic circuits are symbolised by an
`aerial 14 and a connection 19 to a television set 15. The
`control unit 12 is provided with conventional front
`panel controls 13.
`The recorder is also provided with a conventional
`user remote control unit 16 a first remote control unit)
`which piclm up signals directed on to an infrared sensor
`17 by a hand held unit 24 (FIG. 2) with buttons for
`effecting channel selection, record, playback and so on.
`The video recorder 20 as so far described represents
`conventional practice. The recorder according to the
`present invention is provided with an off-air remote
`control unit 18 (a second remote control unit) which
`can provide exactly the same output signals to the main
`control unit 12 as are conventionally provided by the
`user remote control unit 16. The off-air remote control
`unit 18 derives its input via the electronic circuit 11-
`' from the received television signal which is accompa-
`nied by data signals, for example signals conforming to
`the German VPS standards. Such VPS codes are some-
`times transmitted in Germany with the broadcast signal
`to control the operation of recorders remotely. In FIG.
`1 the off-air unit 18 is shown feeding directly into the
`main control unit 12. However, in the preferred prac-
`tice of the invention, the off-air unit is not built into the
`video recorder itself but is constructed as a separate
`controller 30 (FIG. 2) which passes the control com-
`mands to the recorder using the input sensor 17 on the
`recorder 20 provided for the hand-held remote control
`unit 24. This has the advantage that no modification
`whatsoever to the recorder is required. If the recorder
`uses a hand-held unit connected by wire, the controller
`is plugged in in place of the hand-held unit. This has the
`disadvantage that the hand-held unit cannot be used
`when the controller is connected. This problem could
`be overcome by providing the controller with a plug
`incorporating a socket for the hand-held unit.
`In the case of infra-red or ultrasonic remote control
`systems, thecontroller radiates control signals to the
`senser 17, just like the hand-held unit, which can still be
`used in the normal.
`p
`The arrangement of a receiving installation using
`such a broadcast controller is shown in FIG. 2. In this
`case, the aerial 14 and the television receiver 15 are
`
`Unified Patents Exhibit 1008, p. 4
`
`

`
`3
`connected to the recorder 20 in the conventional man-
`ner except that the aerial signal is ‘looped through’ the
`separate off-air controller 30 forming the second remote
`control unit. The television receiver 15, the recorder 20
`and the hand-held remote control unit 24 can all be used
`in the normal way except when the off-air controller 30
`responds to codes in the transmitted signal. The control-
`ler 30 could be made to respond to signals in the VPS
`format, but the transmission efficiency and convenience
`can be improved by using teletext data signals for the
`control codes.
`The main units of the off-air controller 30 are shown
`in FIG. 3. Signals from the aerial 14 are buffered 31 to
`provide a ‘loop-through’ output 32 to the recorder 20
`and to feed tuner and demodulator stages 33, 34 similar
`to those of a conventional television receiver. Teletext
`data signals corresponding to the available remote con-
`trol functions are then extracted from the vertical
`blanking intervals of the signal by the data decoder 36
`and re-encoded to produce infra-red (or ultrasonic)
`signals with the same coding format as those produced
`by the hand-held controller 24.
`The structure of a suitable teletext data signal (known
`as Datacast) is shown in FIG. 4. This consists of a two-
`level signal starting with Clock Run-In (CR1) and
`Framing Code (FC) data in the normal teletext format.
`Background detail for this system can be found in “BBC
`Datacast—-The Transmission System” from the IERE
`Conference on Electronic Delivery of Data and Soft-
`ware, Sept. 1986: IERE Conference Publication No. 69,
`pp. 93-98.
`The provision of a separate off-air remote control
`unit 18 makes it possible for the conventional, domestic
`video recorder to make use of the data signals because
`the unit 30 effectively decodes these signals and con-
`verts them to control signals simulating those from the
`user remote control unit 24. It accordingly becomes
`possible to switch the recorder on to record by remote
`control over the air, to select the channel being re-
`corded, to terminate recording at the end of a program
`and so on.
`The hand-held remote control unit 24 is usually dedi-
`cated to a particular application, that is to say it would
`emit only one set of control codes matching those for a
`corresponding video recoder (or television receiver).
`However the additional unit 30 could be capable of
`providing any one of a number of different sets of con-
`trol signals and have a selector device for strapping the
`unit to provide the required set for a given application.
`Implementation could largely be in software terms with
`appropriate codes set up in ROM. Selection could be
`effected by plugging in different ROMS.
`I claim:
`1. A video recorder including electromechanical
`components, an electronic circuit and a main control
`unit therefor, a first remote control unit responsive to
`user input signals to provide control signals to the main
`control unit and a second remote control unit respon-
`
`45
`
`4,885,579
`
`4
`sive to received control signals accompanying a re-
`ceived television signal, to decode the received control
`signals and provide to the main control unit control
`signals which simulate those provided by the first re-
`mote control unit, whereby said first and second remote
`control units can act independently as parallel, alterna-
`tive means of control.
`2. A video recorder according to claim 1, comprising
`an input device for receiving the control signals from
`the first remote control unit, and wherein the control
`signals provided by the second remote control unit are
`fed to the said input device.
`3. A video recorder according to claim 2, wherein the
`second remote control unit comprises a decoder for
`decoding the received control signals and an encoder
`for re-encoding the decoded signals as the control sig-
`nals which match these provided by the lirst remote
`control unit.
`4. A video recorder according to claim 3, wherein the
`encoder is an infra-red or ultrasonic encoder for radiat-
`ing control signals to a sensor forming the said input
`device of the video recorder.
`5. A video recorder according to any of claims 1 to 4,
`wherein the second remote control unit is capable of
`providing any one of a number of different sets of con-
`trol signals and comprises a selector device for selecting
`one such set.
`6. A video recorder according to claim 5, wherein the
`selector device comprises an interchangeable read-only
`memory device.
`7. A controller for use with a video recorder having
`an input device for receiving control signals from a
`hand-held remote control unit, comprising an aerial
`input, means for receiving and demodulating broadcast
`television signals, a decoder for decoding control sig-
`nals in the demodulated signals, and an encoder for
`re-encoding the decoded signals in a form for control-
`ling the video recorder by way of the said input device.
`8. A controller according to claim 7, comprising a
`buffer amplifier and an output for looping out the signal
`on the aerial input to the video recorder.
`9. A controller according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the
`encoder is an infra-red or ultrasonic encoder for radiat-
`ing control signals to a sensor forming the said input
`device of the recorder.
`10. A television receiving apparatus including an
`electronic circuit and a main control unit therefor, a
`first remote control unit responsive to user input signals
`to provide control signals to the main control unit and
`a second remote control unit responsive to received
`control signals accompanying a received television sig-
`nal, to decode the received control signals and provide
`to the main control unit control signals which simulate
`those provided by the first mentioned remote control
`unit, whereby said first and second remote control units
`can act independently as parallel, alternative means of
`control.
`It
`*
`*
`*
`It
`
`Unified Patents Exhibit 1008, p. 5