Importance

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Abstract

A method and system are disclosed for capturing and processing visually perceptible data, such as address or telephone numbers, within a broadcast video signal. Optically recognizable text, numbers, or visual barcodes representative of text or numbers are transmitted within various frames of broadcast video signals. The broadcast video signal is then received and selected video frames are captured, digitized and stored as Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) in response to a user initiated command. Barcode readers or optical character recognition processes are then utilized to extract textual or numeric data from the captured video frames and that data is stored for future utilization. In one depicted embodiment a user defined template may be utilized to assist the optical character recognition process. Thereafter, an associated communication device, such as a modem, is utilized to automatically 'dial' a captured telephone number by generating a series of DTMF tones associated with the captured telephone number, automatically establishing communication between the data processing system and an external location.

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First Claim