EPG aligning events by time on cylinder

摘要

An apparatus 100 and method is provided for generating an EPG. The apparatus 100 is configured to output data to generate an EPG in which upcoming programs are shown as tiles with a uniform size, regardless of the duration of the program. A tile representing a program which has already partially been shown is shown as spanning a reference indicator. The apparatus 100 may output data to automatically update the EPG when a new time is selected by a user. The automatic updating of the EPG may involve scrolling the tiles of the EPG past the reference indicator which represents a reference time. The rate of scroll of the tiles may be in inverse proportion to the duration of the program being shown on that program.

主权项

1. An apparatus for generating an electronic program guide (EPG), the apparatus comprising:
a display generating circuit configured to output data to generate an EPG having an upcoming schedule display region which includes a plurality of channels and, for each channel of the plurality of channels, the upcoming schedule display region includes a started program that is scheduled to begin broadcast at or before a first time and scheduled programs that are scheduled to not begin broadcast by the first time, all said started programs and said scheduled programs represented by equally sized tiles in the EPG; and a calculating circuit configured to calculate a non-elapsed portion of time of each started program that has not completely elapsed at said first time, each started program being a program that is shown at said first time on any of the plurality of channels, wherein the display generating circuit is further configured to output data to:
generate a reference indicator in the EPG at a position that corresponds to the first time, the reference indicator being a line that forms a boundary of the upcoming schedule display region of the EPG;display the tiles representing started programs at positions in the EPG such that, for each said tile that respectively represents each started program, each tile is divided into a non-elapsed portion and an elapsed portion by the reference indicator with only the non-elapsed portion of each tile displayed in the upcoming schedule display region, and a ratio between an area of the non-elapsed portion of each tile and a total area of each tile is equal to a ratio between the non-elapsed portion of time of each started program that has not completely elapsed at said first time, corresponding to the reference indicator, and a total time for each started program; andmap each tile of the plurality of channels onto a surface of a respective cylinder of a plurality of cylinders, each cylinder representing a different channel displayed in the EPG, each tile of a same channel is mapped onto a same cylinder and tiles of different channels are mapped onto different cylinders, and the plurality of cylinders are axially aligned and axially offset from each other such that the EPG includes a compound cylinder showing program information from the plurality of channels.