System for generating, distributing and receiving an interactive user interface
AssigneeSedna Patent Services, LLC
InventorsDonald F. Gordon, Edward A. Ludvig, Nathan W. Osborn, Jeremy S. Edmonds, Sadik Bayrakeri
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Abstract
Method and apparatus for generating, transmitting and receiving a user interface for an interactive information distribution system. The user interface is generated in a head end of the system as a digital bitstream and transmitted to subscriber equipment for display. Operation of the user interface is facilitated by functions on both a local level within the subscriber equipment and on a system level within the head end. One embodiment of the user interface is an interactive program guide.
Claims15
A method of generating an interactive user interface comprising:
- generating, within a head end of an information distribution system, a plurality of bitstreams representing video imagery associated with respective portions of an encoded user interface, each of said bitstreams including a respective user interface page comprising a common moving image region and a respective graphical region, said respective graphical regions comprising video imagery associated with user selectable objects;
- and
- broadcasting said encoded user interface;
- said user interface being adapted for use by a subscriber selectively decoding and presenting said common video and respective graphical region for each of at least one of said plurality of bitstreams.
A method of using an interactive user interface comprising:
- receiving a transport stream that contains a plurality of bitstreams representing a respective plurality of encoded user interface pages, each page comprising a common moving image video region and a respective graphical region;
- extracting from said transport stream a first selected bitstream;
- decoding and presenting said selected bitstream to produce a corresponding first user interface page;
- selecting, in said first user interface page, an object that identifies a second bitstream;
- and
- decoding said second selected bitstream without resetting a buffer in a decoder.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.