Method of acquiring program guide information, program guide method appropriate for the same, and program guide apparatus

摘要

A method of acquiring program guide information in an image signal receiver, and program guide method and apparatus using the same, are provided. The apparatus for acquiring program guide information of accessible channels and for guiding program guide information acquired in response to a program guide command in a multichannel receiver, comprises: a tuner (50) for tuning a channel; a program guide information detector (54) for detecting program guide information introduced via the tuner (50); a memory (56) for storing the program guide information for each channel detected by the program guide information detector (54); a key input (58) for introducing a user manipulation command such as a program guide command or a channel search command; a microprocessor (60) which writes a program list based on program guide information stored in the memory (56) in response to the manipulation command input via the key input unit (58) and is programmed to search for accessible channels by controlling the tuner (50) in a background operation while a user refers to the program list; and a character signal generator (62) for generating a character signal corresponding to the program list written by the microprocessor and providing the character signal to a screen. In the program guide apparatus, information immediately required by a user is obtained first, and information of less preferential channels is obtained next, thus smoothing the interface with the user.