초록 ▼

A cable television control apparatus includes a television channel access controller connected at a node of a cable television network between the network and at least one subscriber household. All available cable television channels, including premium channels, can be transmitted by the headend wit

A cable television control apparatus includes a television channel access controller connected at a node of a cable television network between the network and at least one subscriber household. All available cable television channels, including premium channels, can be transmitted by the headend without scrambling. Each access controller receives channel selection signals, such as television tuner local oscillator signals, from within subscriber households. The controller detects the channel selection signal and identifies selected channels. A channel filtering system is tuned in accordance with the detected selection signal to pass only selected channels to subscribers while blocking all other channels.

대표청구항 ▼

[ The invention claimed is:] [39.] A method of controlling access to cable television channels comprising:transmitting available television channels over a cable network to cable network nodes external to subscriber households;identifying selected channels to be forwarded to subscribers; andat the n

[ The invention claimed is:] [39.] A method of controlling access to cable television channels comprising:transmitting available television channels over a cable network to cable network nodes external to subscriber households;identifying selected channels to be forwarded to subscribers; andat the nodes, filtering the available channels to pass the selected channels to the subscribers, by shifting the available channels to higher frequencies, passing the selected channels through tunable bandpass filters and shifting the selected channels back to their original frequencies.