1 2431283 Title: Property Brochure
Background:
This invention relates to an Interactive DVD based Property Brochures.
Typically when someone is looking to buy or rent a house they generally acquire house brochures from estate agents These brochures contain descriptions, dimensions and pictures of the house that is on the market.
(encrally these brochures are printed or created on card or paper.
Ihis style of presentation traditionally limits the amount of photos and text that can be delivered, and this media means it is sometimes quite difficult to express more of the character and detail of the house. Typically this approach is restricted to one house per brochure that in turn means a potential house buyer must pick up a range of dilièrent brochures on various different houses in order to go through the process of finding a property.
Ihis two-dimensional media and its associated problems can mean both buyers don't get enough information and vendors don't get enough exposure of the property. The present situation can make looking for a house a time consuming and tedious task as the restrictions of the brochures do not always portray the house accurately or in enough detail.
Statement of invention:
l'o address this the present invention proposes a DVD based house brochure that delivers the property details on to the television screen. The system allows the viewer to view photographs, descriptions, illustrations and movies on the screen and navigate around the brochure using menu button links displayed on the screen. These are navigated to using the buttons on the DVD players remote control.
Other screen menu options give the option to view the properties in specific characteristic groups or price ranges.
Upon selecting a property the viewer is presented with more details of that particular property and a display of moving images, photographs and audio to allow the viewer to experience a chosen property in greater detail.
Advantages: Ihe [)VD brochures allow the viewer to gain more perspective of the property due to the ability to store and deliver ftr more photographs and information than a traditional house broacher. These images are presented on the TV screen thus they are larger and more spectacular than a paper brochure. The DVD brochure holds a collection of properties that an estate agent has to offer, as apposed to the traditional one house to one brochure offering. The l)VD brochures will preferably be accompanied by audio to enhance the presentation of the property. l'he viewer will have simple access to more of the range of houses that the agent has to offer. The properties can be viewed on a TV screen via the DVD player at the leisure of the potential client. This presentation technique has a professionally attractive quality that both vendor and viewer will find very appealing.
Introduction to illustrations: (Pages 6 & 7)
Item I is an example screen shot of the invention.
It shows one of potentially many screens of the invention.
Figure I shows the NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons that on this example allow the navigation through the brochure Figure 2 shows the initial image of the property which again is navigated to and then selected to show more information on that particular property.
ligure 3 shows the initial description to the property.
Item 2 shows another example screen shot of the invention.
Figure 4 shows the navigational buttons to allow the viewer to filter the property search to selected parameters such as "price bands".
Figure 5 shows the "Screen selection list" from which a desired screen is selected and displayed
Detailed Description.
The DVD I louse Brochure is an advanced mechanism for delivering property details to the prospective home buying/renting audience.
It incorporates similar lunctionality to that of a web page style of navigational information together with the E)Vl) presentation mechanism to deliver a high quality experience of viewing property details on your television screen.
l'he Brochure is in the physical form ofa DVD, which is played on a normal DVD player and displayed on a television screen.
Ihe [)Vl) is inserted into the DVI) player and the brochure automatically runs to display title screens on to the television screen I'hese title screens are can differ depending upon the property vendors choice.
Navigational buttons/areas are displayed on the screen and these can be selected by clicking onto them using the navigation buttons on the DVD or TV remote control.
Ihe brochure presentation contains an index of properties on multiple pages/screens (hereafter referred to as the initial menu screen(s)). It is these initial menu screens that the DVD brochure then displays to the viewer on the TV screen. The viewer can at any time select the abovedescribed onscreen Navigational buttons to browse backwards and forwards through the brochures screens l'he initial menu screens show summary details and thumbnail images of each property. These thumbnail images and details can themselves be selected (as described above) and upon selection this will lead to new screens which show detailed iniages and information about a particular property in a slide show format.. The nature of this action is best described as a "drill down" mechanism used to see more detailed information on the selected property.
i'he initial menu screen(s) contains multiple different property details and may be presented against a background image as shown in the illustration. Alternatively the initial menu screen may only show one particular set of property details depending upon the individual requirement of the property vendor.
To physically view further details and pictures of a property, a viewer chooses a particular property that is of interest, highlights it and selects it using the buttons on the DVD control. This action will then present the viewer with a slideshow style presentation of more details, information, pictures, movie images and audio (narration/music) on that particular property as appropriate.
Once the slide show of images and details has been initiated as described above it presents high quality photographs, illustrations, written descriptions and audio. The images are presented and the slide show automatically cycles through the images and details in a timely sequence. Once the cycled sequence of images has completed the presentation automatically returns the viewer to the initial menu screen from which they originally selected the property At this point the viewer can then go on to select other properties repeating the steps above.
l'hc DVD brochure can contain a considerable number of properties and these can extend to numerous initial menu screens. These are again navigated to using the NEXT and PREVIOUS style of displayed navigational buttons on the screens The text or style of the navigational buttons may vary depending upon the choice of the property vendor.
In addition to this the viewer may choose to select a specific page from the range of pages by selecting the page number from the list shown oii the screen as shown on the illustrations. This avoids the viewer having to scan through the brochure clicking the NEXT button. They will he able to jump directly to initial menu screen number 7
for example.
Versions of the brochure will also offer the viewer the option of selecting properties of specific criteria.
l'his will be done by an initial menu screen having selectable criteria ranges displayed upon them. From this screen the viewer selects the appropriate option as shown in the illustrations. Once the selection has been made the viewer is displayed with a range of properties that are of the criteria selected. The viewer can return to the original broader selection by selecting the appropriate onscreen button.
l'he brochure will offer the option of allowing the viewer to choose properties in specific price brackets and other criteria such as house type, location, number of bedrooms.
Detailed Description continued...
This lature allows prospective homebuyers/clients to be able to narrow down a wide offering of properties and choose a specific criteria based on their choice from the menu, ie properties between the prices of 100, 000 and LI 50,000. This presents the prospective home buyer with an option to choose a range of properties best suited to their requirements.
Ihis mechanism has the benefit to the estate agent by giving them the ability to offer targeted pre-detined selections of property efficiently, based on popular house buyers criteria.