Automatic channel sampling picture-in-picture circuit

An automatic channel sampler system, including a television signal tuner, displays an array of inset pictures on a display screen each time the receiver is turned on. Each inset picture is a still video picture (i.e., freeze-frame) selected by tuning each of the channels in a scan list of channels. Automatic channel sampling is initiated in response to the development of operating power, and is performed while the picture tube is dark during the time in which the picture tube is warming up. A separate user-enterable scan list may be provided for either the automatic channel sampling function, a manually initiated channel sampling function, or both. The separate scan list may be programmed to contain only those channels which the viewer regularly watches, and would have the triple advantages of excluding the sampling of channels carrying programming which is not of interest to the viewer, presenting the sampled images in whatever order is desired by the user, and shortening the time necessary to complete the channel sampling function by eliminating the sampling of the undesired channels.