Pay per view television signaling method

摘要

A method of operating a pay per view television system in which the television signal includes a program tag and an IPPV tag identifying memory locations in subscriber authorization memories. A subscriber can self-authorize his terminal decoder to unscramble a pay per view program with a password that inputs a "1" to the memory location identified by the IPPV tag. The program tag is changed to indicate the memory location identified by the IPPV tag, thus enabling subscribers who bought the program to unscramble the signal. The head-end periodically polls each subscriber terminal to determine the status of the second memory location and to reset it to "0" after the pay per view event.