Field Of Invention
The instant invention relates to a method and system for uploading and downloading data. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and a method for uploading and downloading of configured data using infrared as well as UART as a medium of communication.
Background of the Invention
Computers, CD players, TVs etc. are configured by the user in accordance to his choice. The electronic devices here act as receivers, which are installed or updated by the user. The configuration data includes color settings, picture settings, channels, volume, brightness or any other field of menu. The configuration of a data varies from person to person and his liking. In cases where there are number of systems to be configured in the same manner, it becomes an arduous task to configure each system independently. For e.g. in case of hotels or hospitals with number of TVs, conventionally each TV is configured independently. This is very time consuming and to some extent power consuming also.
Conventional methods thus provide configuration of a single receiver at a time or in other words each receiver has to be configured separately, even if same setting is required in each receiver.
A device and method or storing operational data of an electronic system and transferring the said data to a plurality of external devices are disclosed in Patent Abstracts of Japan, Patent Application JP-A-10340123. This method is very useful for installing large number of identical devices, such as radio and television receivers in for e.g. in hotels or hospitals.
Hitherto, this operation was done for only one receiver and the other data is then downloaded to a remote control unit. The downloaded configured data is stored in the remote control unit. The stored configured data is then "uploaded" from the said remote control unit to other television receivers. Uploading the stored configuration data configures other television receivers same as the configuration of the manually configured television receiver.
US patent no. 6778225 to David discloses a method and an arrangement for installing and updating a large number of television receivers in e.g. hotels or airports. As shown in Figure 1, one of the receivers (1) is manually programmed. The data is then downloaded from the television receiver into a remote control unit (3) by modulating a conventional status LED (17) of the television receiver.
In accordance with this patent, the status LED (17) is used, which is of a type that emits visible light as well as infrared light. The modulated infrared light beam (172) is detected by an infrared detector (34) of the remote control device (3) and stored (35) therein. The data stored in the remote control unit is subsequently uploaded to other television receivers using the conventional channels such as LED and IR receiver (33,15). Here one-way communication is serial and the other way it is IR communication. However, this patent does not disclose or describe the concept of downloading user settings to a remote control unit from a television using a UART.
International Patent Application No. WO-97/36421 discloses a similar method. The data is uploaded and downloaded using a special handheld storage device which is plugged into the television's SCART plug.
US patent no. 6292283 discloses an audio/video device which includes an infrared transceiver for transmitting and receiving configuration data and method for configuring the same. In this patent, the data is downloaded using an IR device and not a UART device.
US Patent No. 5046093 disclose a CATV subscriber apparatus with intelligent remote control. In this data, is downloaded using IR device. This invention is useful only when some services are subscribed and the premium services are provided to the subscriber at an extra cost on the basis of type of service being opted or number of services being used.
The conventional methods either need to add extra hardware or up-gradation of hardware for downloading/uploading of configured data. Also the conventional methods and devices are not economical and require more power.
Summary and object of the invention:
The object of the present invention is to obviate the above drawbacks and provide a system and method for uploading and downloading of user defined setting in an electronic device with existing hardware in that device.
It is another object of the invention to provide a low-power consumption two-way communication system with one way being wired and the other being IR based for an electronic device for uploading and downloading user-defined configuration.
It is yet another object of the invention to allow configuration of many electronic devices in short span of time, as each electronic device is not configured separately.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a method for using the same IR port for remote control as well as downloading of the user defined setting.
To achieve the aforementioned objects, the present invention provides a method for transferring data stored in a first electronic device to one or more external electronic devices comprising the steps of:
connecting the Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter
(UART) of the first electronic device to the UART of the
communication device and downloading the data;
storing the data from said the first electronic device to the storage
means of the communication device;
uploading the data through a IR transmitter to a IR receiver of
one or more external electronic device.
The data is a user configured data. The transmitter and receiver is an IR transmitter or IR receiver respectively. The first external device is connected to the UART of the communication device through a cable
The present invention also provides a communication device used for transferring data downloaded from first electronic device to one or more external electronic devices comprising:
UART means for receiving user configured data from a first
electronic device;
storage means for storing the said user configured data;
control means coupled bidirectionally to the storage means and
the UART and
transmitting means coupled to the control means for transmitting
user configured data to one or more external electronic devices.
The UART means is wired to the UART port of the first external device. The control means is unidirectionally coupled to the transmitter such that the controls flow from the control means to the transmitting means.
The present invention further provides for a system for downloading and uploading of data comprising:
a first electronic device including a UART;
a plurality of external electronic devices, each said external device including a receiver for receiving the user configured data of the first electronic device and
a communication device coupled to said first electronic device for downloading data including
• UART means for receiving user configured data from a first electronic device;
• storage means for storing the said user configured data;
• control means coupled bidirectionally to the said storage means and the UART and
• transmitting means coupled to the control means for transmitting user configured data to one or more external electronic devices.
Brief description of the drawings:
While the specification concludes with the claims, it is believed that the invention be better understood from the following descriptions which are taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like designations are used to designate substantially identical elements.
Figure 1 illustrates a system for installing or updating a large number of electronics devices according to the prior art.
Figure 2 illustrates one-way communication between the communication device and the first external device in which data is to be uploaded.
Figure 3 illustrates a basic block diagram of communication device and the external device in accordance to the present invention.
Figure 4 illustrates a flow chart showing half duplex communication when user configured data is transferred from the communication device to an external device.
Figure 5 illustrates flow chart for downloading data from the first electronic device and uploading the said data in atleast one external device.
Detailed description of the drawings:
The term communication device wherever used in the description is interchangeable with smart loader.
Figure 1 illustrates a system for installing or updating a large number of electronics devices according to the prior art.
Figure 2 shows a television receiver (104) as an embodiment, which receives data from smart loader (102). It shows one-way communication between the smart loader and television receiver. The smart loader (102) consists of an IR port (101). Data to be uploaded in the television receivers is transmitted through the IR port (101) of the smart loader and is received by the receiver of TV (104).
Figure 3 is a basic block diagram of smart loader (102) and any external electronic device (104). It also shows control flow between various components of smart loader (102), various components of external device (217) and also between components of smart loader (102) and first electronic device (217). Microcontroller (201) of the smart loader (102) is connected bidirectionally to the Memory (202) and UART (204) i.e. controls can flow bidirectionally. Infrared Transmitter (203) is connected to the microcontroller unidirectionally such that control can flow from the microcontroller to the Infrared Transmitter (203).
The first electronic device (217) comprises a memory (218) for storing the user-defined settings. The UART (212) and said memory (218) are connected
bidirectionally to a microcontroller (213). The infrared receiver (211) is connected unidirectionally. The first electronic device further comprises a video (214), an audio (215) and a RF tuner (216).
The UART (204) of the smart loader is connected through a cable (200) to the UART (212) of the external device (217), in order to transfer the user-defined data from the first electronic device (217) to the Smart Loader (102).
Fig. 4 is a flow chart illustrating half duplex communication during an Infrared operation when the smart loader is not wired to the external device TV1 and data is uploaded from the said communication device (102) to an external device (TV2, TV3 etc.). In step (400) it is checked whether Infrared transmitter is operational or not. If Infrared transmitter is operational, than said stored user configured data is transmitted to an external device, else the communication device performs normal operation in step (402). Here the normal operations may be any of the operations being performed by conventional remote controller. However, remote control is used as an embodiment here and normal operation should not be restricted to the functionalities of remote controller only. The external device receives the transmitted user configured data in step (401) and calculates the checksum in step (403). If the calculated check sum is correct in step (404) than the said received user configured data is stored in the memory in step (405) and is displayed on screen in step (408). If the calculated checksum is wrong than error is displayed on screen in step (406).
As shown in Figure 5 the configured data is downloaded from the TV1 to the smart loader (102) through the UART (204) of the smart loader, which is connected through a cable (200) to the UART (212). The said user-configured
data is then uploaded to other televisions TV2, TV3 using the IR port (101) of the smart loader (102). TVl, TV2, TV3 receive said data through their respective IR receivers. The transmission of said user configured data to other televisions hereby illustrates half duplex communication.
All documents cited in the description are incorporated herein by reference The present invention is not to be limited in scope by the specific embodiments and examples which are intended as illustrations of a number of aspects of the invention and any embodiments which are functionally equivalent are within the scope of this invention. Those skilled in the art will know, or be able to ascertain using no more than routine experimentation, many equivalents to the specific embodiments of the invention described herein. These and all other equivalents are intended to be encompassed by the following claims.

We claim:
1. A method for transferring data stored in a first electronic device to one or more external electronic devices comprising the steps of:
connecting the Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter
(UART) of the first electronic device to the UART of the
communication device and downloading the data;
storing the data from said the first electronic device to the storage
means of the communication device;
uploading the data through a IR transmitter to a IR receiver of
one or more external electronic device.
2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said data is a user configured data.
3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the transmitter is an IR transmitter.
4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the receiver is an IR receiver
5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the first external device is connected to the UART of the communication device.
6 A communication device used for transferring data downloaded from first electronic device to one or more external electronic devices comprising:
- UART means for receiving user configured data from a first electronic device;
- storage means for storing the said user configured data;
- control means coupled bidirectionally to the storage means and the UART and
- transmitting means coupled to the control means for transmitting user configured data to one or more external electronic devices.

7 A device as claimed in claim 6 wherein UART means is wired to the UART port of the first external device.
8 A device as claimed in claim 5 wherein said transmitting means is an IR transmitter
9 A device as claimed in claim 5 wherein the said control means is uni-directionally coupled to the transmitter such that the controls flow from the control means to the transmitting means.
10. A system for downloading and uploading of data comprising:
a first electronic device including a UART;
a plurality of external electronic devices, each said external device including a receiver for receiving the user configured data of the first electronic device and
a communication device coupled to said first electronic device for downloading data including
• UART means for receiving user configured data from a first electronic device;
• storage means for storing the said user configured data;
• control means coupled bidirectionally to the said storage means and the UART and
• transmitting means coupled to the control means for transmitting user configured data to one or more external electronic devices.
11. A system as claimed in claim 10 wherein the first electronic device can be an external electronic device.
12. A system to configure many electronic devices in IR range of the device.