Efficient Channel Navigation Using Circular Buffering Algorithm in Digital TV

Despite the many advantages in digital TV, users get into difficulties when they navigate channels to find their preferred programs. This is because the number of channels is much more and the channel zapping speed is much slower in digital TV than in analog one. There have been many efforts to reduce the channel zapping delay in digital TV. However, the reduction of channel zapping delay is limited by the nature of digital TV system. In this paper, we propose alternative approaches that enable the efficient channel navigation in digital TV. The first approach is to hide a channel change delay. This approach is helpful when the user wants to navigate channels by pressing up/down buttons in a full screen mode. The second approach is to show multichannel mosaic screen. This is helpful when the user wants to navigate channels by pressing four-way buttons while watching preview videos. In this paper, we propose a circular buffering algorithm (CBA) and show that, with help of the CBA, hiding channel change delay and multi-channel mosaic screen can be feasible in the system with limited resources. Simulation results show that the proposed methods give users high satisfaction in channel navigation.