METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MULTIPLEXING AUDIO PROGRAM CHANNELS FROM ONE OR MORE RECEIVED BROADCAST STREAMS TO PROVIDE A PLAYLIST STYLE LISTENING EXPERIENCE TO USERS

摘要

A method and apparatus are provided for generating a personalized radio channel playlist by simultaneously buffering tracks from multiple received channels from one or more source streams and selectively playing back tracks from the buffered channels. Navigation tools permit users to skip buffered songs in their playlist (e.g., skip forward and backward). Users can specify favorite channels for building personal playlists, or multiple default playlist channels can be provided (e.g., by genre). Thumbs up/down buttons on the radio receiver permit entering a song or artist being played back into a favorites list that is used to search all channels for matches or a banned list used to block songs from future playlists. A matched channel carrying the favorite can be added to a playlist. Segments on the playlist can be played back in full or truncated to facilitate preview of playlist segments.

主权项

1. A method of generating a playback stream from one or more received source streams comprising:
receiving, at a receiver, at least one source stream comprising a plurality of program channels, each of the program channels comprising segments; designating a set of channels comprising selected ones of the plurality of program channels in the at least one source stream; buffering at least each of the program channels in the set of channels from the received source stream as they are received; and generating the playback stream, at the receiver, by automatically playing back a plurality of the buffered segments from each of the program channels in the designated set of channels.