A METHOD OF AUTOMATIC SELECTION OF VIDEO CHANNELS

摘要

A method of selecting, at a video receiver location, a desired video program channel from a number of program channels (10) transmitting video programs, by: automatically generating, for each program channel, indexing data (115) of at least one predetermined attribute based on the video program content of the respective channel; specifying at least one attribute corresponding to a desired program content, such as a program title or the occurrence of any event within a program; and identifying, from the indexing data, any program channel having a match with respect to the attribute specified. Preferably, the indexing data (115) is generated at a remote location, is encoded and transmitted in a separate indexing channel for all the program channels, and is received and decoded at the receiver location, the attribute corresponding to a desired program being specified at the receiver location.