Importance

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Abstract

A system is disclosed for monitoring and accumulating data indicative of viewer authorized pay per view TV programs at each of a plurality of remote terminals, wherein each remote terminal is coupled illustratively by non-dedicated telephone lines to a host computer at a central station. The remote terminal includes viewer actuable means for authorizing the viewing of a pay per TV program, a memory, means responsive to the authorizing of a program for storing data indicative of the authorized program into the memory, and means responsive to the authorizing of the pay per view TV program for transmitting over the telephone lines to the host computer a report message including the program data. Security features are adopted for the remote terminal of this invention to prevent the viewer interference with the monitoring and/or reporting of the report message to the host computer as by removing energization from the remote terminal and/or disconnecting the telephone lines from the remote terminal. Further, the viewer is given a preview of an authorized pay per view program, whereby the viewer will be billed for that program only if the viewer views the authorized program for a time greater than a preview period. In order to prevent a viewer from taking advantage of this monitoring and reporting system, the time of each authorizing and deauthorizing is noted and stored in memory, whereby each viewing segment between successive authorizings and deauthorizings may be calculated and stored in a total viewing time memory. Each viewer is also given a credit limit illustratively as the number of pay per view TV programs that will be authorized before further authorizing is defeated and it is necessary to update that credit limit. The remote terminal at call-in time transmits a report message to the host computer, which checks the viewer's credit and, if satisfactory, transmits or downloads a new credit limit to the remote terminal, thus permitting further authorizing of pay per view programs.

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First Claim