Ideas for TV Remote

There are 5 ideas I would like to see in a TV/VCR remote. Please pass them on to anyone who might be able to get them implemented.

  1. finder button. If you misplace the remote, you press a button on the console that makes the remote make a noise and flash as LED to help you find it. Ideally it should work without line of sight -- fallen under a cushion or in the fridge. What would be the cheapest technology to implement that?

  1. Late at night one by one the channels turn to informercials. It would nice if you could press a button to take a channel off the channel surfer cycle until the next 30 minute interval. You could also use it to help decide on a show, gradually whittling out channels. Then you could hop between three shows, rapidly finding the others during commercials, with no difficultly getting back to your original show.

  2. The schedule displays provided by the cable company are extremely slow. I would like to be able to scan forward and back very rapidly using the remote. Presumably this would require the cable company digitally encoding the information.

  1. I would like to sort the channels in order by "goodness". That way I can channel surf primarily in the best channels, only going to the less promising in a drought.

  2. I would like to press a button that would overlay a display that told me the name of the show, particularly the name of a movie/video I am watching, and ideally even the name of the person currently on screen. (This presumably would require encoding information in the broadcast.)
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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
Priorities: Prevent global climate destabilisation. End both wars. Prepare for
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Reply to
Roedy Green
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sonic. same as those whistle key ring finders.

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Bye.
   Jasen
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Reply to
jasen

Most could not be done in the remote.. see below.

Please pass

That requires a wireless link from the TV/STB to the remote. Not too hard if you can get manufacturers to agree on a standard - that would be the tricky part.

That would need to be a function of the EPG in the TV/STB not the remote.

That could be fixed by a cache in the TV/STB not the remote.

That could be done in the remote but would be easier in the EPG in the TV/STB.

That would need to be a function of the EPG in the TV/STB not the remote. You can get that on Sky in the UK.

Reply to
CWatters

Yes, the intelligence would be in the set. You would control it with the remote. Even channel changing is handled by the set, not the remote. The only thing the remote every does is emit a coded signal to tell the TV which button was pressed.

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Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
Priorities: Prevent global climate destabilisation. End both wars. Prepare for
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Reply to
Roedy Green

It CAN be done in the remote which makes this a great aftermarket product. Just have the remote send '12' instead of 'up' to the set.

When teh remote knows the channel it can skip it after the user presses the 'awful programming' button.

It would not be perfect (bit slower) but could work. Handy feature.

Maybe something for the dreambox hackers out there?

Thomas

Reply to
Zak

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