Enhanced television recorder and player

Abstract

An enhanced television recorder and player includes a trigger inserter unit that inserts triggers into vertical blanking intervals of audio/video signals. The triggers point to resources that are stored in a storage medium or are available from a network, where the triggers, audio/video signals, and resources together can comprise a Transport Type B transmission. The audio/video signals having triggers in the vertical blanking intervals are stored in the storage medium, and during playback by a stream simulator unit, simulate a Transport Type A transmission, transformed from the Transport Type B transmission. Requested resources may be retrieved from the storage medium or from the network by a proxy unit of the receiver unit.

1 . An article of manufacture, comprising: 
 a machine-accessible medium having associated data, wherein the data, when accessed, results in a machine performing operations comprising: 
 receiving a Transport Type B stream, the Transport Type B stream having a trigger stream and an audiovisual stream, the trigger stream having trigger data corresponding to resource data, the audiovisual stream being received on at least two vertical blanking interval (VBI) lines including a VBI line  21 , the audiovisual stream having audiovisual data;  
 inserting the trigger data into the VBI line  21  of the Transport Type B stream along with the audiovisual stream;  
 storing the trigger data and audiovisual stream in a storage medium; and  
 based on the trigger data, retrieving corresponding resource data from the storage medium.  
   
   
   
       2 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the machine-accessible medium further includes data, when accessed, that results in the machine performing operations comprising: 
 checking a trigger stream for the trigger data;    receiving a resource stream having resource data and storing the resource data in the storage medium;    inserting the trigger data from the trigger stream into a Transport Type B video stream; and    detecting the trigger data in the Transport Type B video stream and retrieving the corresponding resource data from the storage medium or from an external source, if the corresponding resource data is not stored in the storage medium.    
   
   
       3 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the machine-accessible medium further includes data, when accessed, that results in the machine performing operations comprising: 
 receiving a resource stream having resource data corresponding to trigger data; and    storing the resource data in the storage medium.    
   
   
       4 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the machine-accessible medium further includes data, when accessed, that results in the machine performing operations comprising: 
 reading the trigger data and Transport Type B stream from the storage medium; and    formatting the trigger data and Transport Type B stream into a simulated Transport Type A stream.    
   
   
       5 . The article of manufacture of  claim 1 , wherein the machine-accessible medium further includes data, when accessed, that results in the machine performing operations comprising: 
 detecting a request for resource data;    checking the storage medium for the requested resource data and retrieving the requested resource data if it is present in the storage medium; and    retrieving the requested resource data from a network if the requested resource data is not present in the storage medium.    
   
   
       6 . The article of manufacture of  claim 5 , wherein the machine-accessible medium further includes data, when accessed, that results in the machine performing operations comprising storing the requested resource data retrieved from the network in the storage medium.  
   
   
       7 . An article of manufacture, comprising: 
 a machine-accessible medium having associated data, wherein the data, when accessed, results in a machine performing operations comprising: 
 receiving a Transport Type B having a trigger stream, a video stream, and a resource stream;  
 combining trigger data from the trigger stream with the video stream to obtain a simulated Transport Type A stream;  
 storing resource data from the resource stream in a storage medium; detecting trigger data in the resulting stream; and  
 responsively retrieving resource data associated with the detected trigger data from the storage medium if the resource data is stored in the storage medium.  
   
   
   
       8 . The article of manufacture of  claim 7 , wherein the machine-accessible medium further includes data, when accessed, that results in the machine performing operations comprising, if the resource data is not stored in the storage medium, retrieving the resource data from an external network.  
   
   
       9 . The article of manufacture of  claim 8 , wherein the machine-accessible medium further includes data, when accessed, that results in the machine performing operations comprising: 
 intercepting a request to retrieve the resource data from an external network; and    retrieving the requested resource data from the storage medium instead, if the requested resource data is stored in the storage medium.