Data tunneling via closed captioning

摘要

An example apparatus that processes DTVCC data has a demultiplexer that extracts DTVCC data packets from an DTV signal. A parser receives the DTVCC data packets and parses the data packets by: passing normal DTVCC data to a CC decoder; detecting ancillary data in the DTVCC data packets; and separating the ancillary data from the DTVCC data for output to an ancillary data process. An example apparatus that processes DTVCC data has an ancillary data packager that packages data ancillary to DTV data for insertion into the DTVCC data packets. A DTVCC data packager receives CC data from a CC data source into DTVCC data packets and packages the ancillary data together with the DTVCC data into DTVCC data packets. A multiplexer multiplexes the DTVCC data packets from the DTVCC data packager with non-CCDTV data to produce DTV signal data. This abstract is not to be considered limiting, since other embodiments may deviate from the features described in this abstract.

主权项

1. A method of packaging ancillary data for a digital television (DTV) content provider, the method carried out by the DTV content provider, comprising:
providing a digital representation of the video content; packaging closed caption data to form a part of the video content; and where the closed caption data comprises:
a window definition that defines a hidden window, where the window definition comprises a CEA-708 compliant definewindow command having command parameters that define a window in a manner that prevents the window from being visible;a data element comprising an otherwise undefined P16 Unicode character that signifies the presence of ancillary data in the hidden window, andthe ancillary data defined to be within the hidden window; and whereby, neither the data element nor the ancillary data are displayed as closed caption data.