System and method to control distribute processing and memory resources among applications in a television terminal

A method for operating a television signal converter device, comprising:

• receiving a transmission signal from a transmission signal source;
• providing an application launcher for managing system resources and to control execution of a plurality of applications;
• configuring each of the plurality of applications to have one of two execution states, a first state being a focused execution state allowing access to all the system resources and a second state being a defocused execution state allowing access to only resources not required by an application having the focused execution state;
• providing the plurality of applications with programmed launch requirements wherein at least one of the plurality of applications is programmed with launch requirements to relinquish the focused execution state automatically based on a priority of the application and at least one of the plurality of applications is programmed with the launch requirements to retain the focused execution state until receiving a command from a user that causes a defocus instruction from the application launcher that is not based on the priority of the application;
• registering the plurality of applications with the application launcher to provide the application launcher identification of each of the plurality of applications and the launch requirements of each of the plurality of applications;
• maintaining an input queue at the application launcher for receiving and storing input requests;
• analyzing the input requests to determine whether the application in the focused execution state requires defocusing and the application in the defocused execution state requires a change to the focused execution state;
• determining whether the application in the focused execution state that requires defocusing is programmed with the launch requirements to relinquish the focused execution state automatically based on the priority of the application or to retain the focused execution state until receiving the command from the user that causes the defocus instruction from the application launcher that is not based on the priority of the application;
• and
• communicating with the plurality of applications to transfer execution states between the plurality of applications, wherein communicating with the plurality of applications to transfer execution states between the plurality of applications includes providing a registration message to the input queue at the application launcher, the registration message including an identification of the input queue for the application, an identification of the application, an identification of the priority associated with the application, and information about how applications are to receive focus, the information about how applications are to receive focus includes a PUSH/POP parameter that the application uses to retrieve an application id for a previous application such that the application identifies the previous application to return focus if the application terminates on its own.