[54] VIDEO ON DEMAND WITH MEMORY ACCESSING AND OR LIKE FUNCTIONS
[75] Inventors: Donald F. Hooper, Shrewsbury;
Matthew S. Goldman, Marlborough;
Peter C. Bixby, Westborough; Suban
Krishnamoorthy, Shrewsbury, all of
Mass.
[73] Assignee: Digital Equipment Corporation,
Maynard, Mass.
[21] Appl. No.: 88,504
[22] Filed: Jul. 7,1993
[51] Int. CI.6 H04N7/16
[52] U.S. CI 348/7; 348/12;
455/4.2
[58] Field of Search 358/86, 84; 455/2, 4.2,
455/5.1, 6.1, 4.1; H04N 7/173, 7/16; 395/425;
348/7, 6, 12, 13
[56] References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
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OTHER PUBLICATIONS
"IBM, AT&T Emerge Early Rivals For Video on Demand" by Stuart Zipper, Jun. 7, 1993, p. 1 5th paragraph.
Primary Examiner—James J. Groody
Assistant Examiner—Chris Grant
Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Dirk Brinkman; Ronald C.
Hudgens; Arthur W. Fisher
[57] ABSTRACT
In a system for interactively viewing videos, a selected video is transmitted as a plurality of frames of digitized video data for playback on a viewing device. The system receives the transmitted video data and includes a memory buffer for storing a segment of a selected one of the videos. The segment includes a predetermined number of frames representing a predetermined time interval of the selected video. In addition, the memory buffer including a write pointer and a read pointer. Software controlled servers are provided for witting and reading video data of the selected video to and from the memory buffer, independently, at locations indicated by the write and read pointers to transfer the selected video to the viewing device. By using a remote controller the viewer can position the read and write pointers to view any portion of the selected video interactively.
10 Claims, 10 Drawing Sheets
