An entertainment system has a personal computer as the heart of the system with
a large screen VGA quality monitor as the display of choice. The system has digital
satellite broadcast reception, decompression and display capability with multiple
radio frequency remote control devices which transmit self identifying signals
and have power adjustment capabilities. These capabilities are used to provide
context sensitive groups of keys which may be defined to affect only selected applications
running in a windowing environment. In addition, the remote control devices combine
television and VCR controls with standard personal computer keyboard controls.
A keyboard remote also integrates a touchpad which is food contamination resistant
and may also be used for user verification. Included in the system is the ability
to recognize verbal communications in video signals and maintain a database of
such text which is searchable to help identify desired programming in real time.
