Abstract: A World Wide Web browser software is implemented in a processing system housed in a set-top box connected to a television and communicating over a wide-area network with one or more servers. The browser software allows a user to navigate using a remote control through World-Wide Web pages in which a number of hypertext anchors are displayed on the television. User inputs are entered from a remote input device using an infrared (IR) link. The processing system includes a read-only memory (ROM) and a flash memory. The mask ROM and the flash memory are assigned adjacent memory spaces in the memory map of the processing system. Browser software and configuration data are stored in the flash memory. Other software and configuration data are stored in a mask ROM. The browser is upgraded or reconfigured by downloading to the box replacement software or data transmitted from a server over the network and then writing the replacement software or data into the flash memory.

Abstract: Web browser software implemented in a set-top box as part of a client system communicating over the Internet with one or more servers allows a user to adjust the picture quality of a monitor through World-Wide Web pages displayed on the monitor. The web browser software provides picture adjustment screens which contain instructions on how to adjust the monitor controls to optimize the picture quality. The picture adjustment screens also contain test patterns which provide reference and visual feedback of the monitor adjustment. The user adjusts the picture quality of the monitor using the monitor display controls and the test patterns provided on the picture adjustment screens. Picture adjustment screens are provided for display characteristics such as picture brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, and hue.

Abstract: A method and computer program product for automatically regenerating information at a client system without user intervention in the event of power disruption or disruption in communication between the client system and a server. A first communication session is established between the client system and the server. The status of the power connection of the client system is monitored as well as monitoring the status of the communication link between the client system and the server. If there is no disruption in the power connection or communication link at the client system, the server automatically downloads data blocks from the server for storage at the client system.

Abstract: Web browser software implemented in a set-top box as part of a client system communicating over the Internet with one or more servers allows a user to adjust the position of a screen image displayed on a monitor through World-Wide Web pages displayed on the monitor. The web browser software provides a center adjustment screen which contains control buttons allowing the centering of the screen image on the display, and instructions on how to center the screen image using the control buttons. The user centers the active area of the screen image displayed on the display monitor using the control buttons on the center adjustment screen. The offset values corresponding to the user input of the position controls are stored in memory so that the center position of the screen image is set for the particular display device.

Abstract: A World Wide Web browser software is implemented in a processing system housed in a set-top box connected to a television and communicating over a wide-area network with one or more servers. The browser software allows a user to navigate using a remote control through World-Wide Web pages in which a number of hypertext anchors are displayed on the television. User inputs are entered from a remote input device using an infrared (IR) link. The processing system includes a read-only memory (ROM) and a flash memory. The mask ROM and the flash memory are assigned adjacent memory spaces in the memory map of the processing system. Browser software and configuration data are stored in the flash memory. Other software and configuration data are stored in a mask ROM. The browser is upgraded or reconfigured by downloading to the box replacement software or data transmitted from a server over the network and then writing the replacement software or data into the flash memory.

Abstract: A method of providing a document to a client coupled to a server is provided. The server provides a number of Internet services to the client, including functioning as a caching proxy on behalf of the client for purposes of accessing the World Wide Web. The proxying server includes a persistent document database, which stores various attributes of all documents previously retrieved in response to a request from a client. When a Web document is retrieved from a remote server in response to a request from the client, the database is consulted and the stored information relating to the requested document is used by the server in transcoding the document. The document is transcoded for various purposes, including to circumvent bugs or quirks found in the document, to size the document for display on a television set, to improve transmission efficiency of the document, and to reduce latency. The transcoder makes use of the document database to perform these functions.

Abstract: A method for filtering data to be compressed by frame differencing is disclosed. In applications where large amounts of data must be either stored or transmitted, such as, for example, digital image data, various techniques are used to compress the data. One such technique is frame differencing wherein after a reference frame or key is encoded, only the differences between each frame and the immediately preceding frame in the sequence are encoded. The present invention operates as a pre-process or in conjunction with such a technique by determining which of the changed data points can be disregarded without significantly affecting, for example, the stored image, thereby reducing the amount of data which must be stored or transmitted. The determination is made in the present invention by comparing the pattern of changed data points in the vicinity of the data point under consideration with a set of pre-determined patterns.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for reducing flicker of a display image defined in HTML format for display on a television monitor. One embodiment of the present invention incorporates a tag that may be attached to an image to be displayed on a television monitor. This is done so by a particular tag that designates a file name which includes object of image data stored in a file. The tag identifies an image as either having a frequency profile that will result in interlace flicker or as having a frequency profile that will not result in interlace flicker. When a World Wide Web (WWW) browser employing this embodiment encounters such a tag, it will apply flicker reduction filtering to the image when the tag identifies the image as having a frequency profile that results in interlace flicker. Otherwise, the browser displays the image as is.

Abstract: A method for filtering data to be compressed by frame differencing is disclosed. In applications where large amounts of data must be either stored or transmitted, such as, for example, digital image data, various techniques are used to compress the data. One such technique is frame differencing wherein after a reference frame or key is encoded, only the differences between each frame and the immediately preceding frame in the sequence are encoded. The present invention operates as a pre-process or in conjunction with such a technique by determining which of the changed data points can be disregarded without significantly affecting, for example, the stored image, thereby reducing the amount of data which must be stored or transmitted. The determination is made in the present invention by comparing the pattern of changed data points in the vicinity of the data point under consideration with a set of pre-determined patterns.

Abstract: The invention provides a method and apparatus for game development. On a first display, a branched time line structure including decision nodes is developed. On a second display, video images are viewed. According to the present invention, portions of the video images are correlated with portions of the branched time line structure so that upon simulated play, a game developer can move along the branched time line structure, taking alternate time paths when reaching decision nodes.

Abstract: A graphics system for use with a computer in a gray-scale mode. The graphics system utilizes a lookup table having index values to be stored in a frame buffer. The lookup table is addressed by converting color information such as RGB color information, to a luminance value, which is then used to access the table. The index values may be used to index a second lookup table for providing luminance information. The present invention further discloses methods of insuring index values provided by the lookup table closely approximate the desired luminance value within the available gray-scale space. Further, the present invention provides methods for performing arithmetic transfer operations on gray-scales represented by indices in the frame buffer.

Abstract: This invention provides a method for compositing a source image and a destination image using a mask image to produce a result image in a digital image processing system. The method is, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, using the mask image to select between the source and destination images: where a black color value for a mask pixel selects the color value of the corresponding pixel of the source image; and a white color value for a mask pixel selects the color value of the corresponding pixel of the destination image; and where an intermediate color value for a mask pixel selects a weighted average between source and destination pixel color values. The calculations of the weighted average color value are done in color space, such as on a color component by color component basis. The result image can be displayed or stored for further use. This method can be described in boolean expression according to the formula:result=((1-mask)*source)+(mask*destination).

Abstract: An apparatus and method useful for the efficient display of images on a computer display screen a display area description language is provided for describing and manipulating portions of a raster display screen. The area description language is comprised of a set of instructions and masks that define the areas and manipulations for a particular display. The area description language is used to define the location, dimension and contents of areas within a logical display grid. Each area description command is comprised of three components. First, each command has an associated scan count. The scan count defines which scan line or lines will be operated upon by the command. Secondly, each command has at least one instruction. The command instruction is used to define the location and the dimension of the area being defined by the command. The third component that may or may not exist in each command is a mask.

Abstract: A method for determining if uncompressed color video data was previously compressed and decompressed. Each block of color video data is examined to determine if the block was previously compressed with a predetermined compression algorithm that for example, selected fewer colors than were present in the original data. If it is determined that such compression has previously occurred, on recompression, a different algorithm is used to prevent introduction of color distortions.