TELEVISION AUDIENCE MONITORING SYSTEM AND METHOD EMPLOYING TUNER INTERFACE OF SET-TOP CONVERTER BOX

摘要

A tuner interface device and method for determining a currently tuned-to channel of a set-top converter box having an electronic tuner that is addressable over a bus within the set-top converter box. The tuner interface device includes an electrical connection to the electronic tuner and a controller. The controller monitors communications over the bus for a unique identifier of the tuner and for commands to change channels that follow the unique identifier. When the unique identifier is received and it is verified that the commands to the tuner are to change a channel, the controller generates information representative of the new tuned-to tuned channel for use by downstream components. The information representative of the tuned channel may be output as an ASCII value representative of the currently tuned-to channel. The tuner interface may be part of a viewership metering system when used in conjunction with a viewership collection meter to determine viewer habits.