Abstract: A system and method for the simultaneous transmission and rendition of multiple encoded digital video signal streams in an interactive television application are disclosed. Simultaneous transmission and rendition of multiple encoded digital video signal streams in an interactive television application generally comprises modifying at least one of the multiple encoded video streams broadcast from a broadcast center for repositioning the at least one of the multiple encoded video stream for display, interleaving the modified multiple encoded video streams comprising the at least one modified encoded video stream into a single composite interleaved video stream, and outputting the single composite video stream. The method may further comprise receiving the multiple encoded video streams from a broadcast center. Each of the multiple encoded video streams is preferably encoded using MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 compression technology.

Abstract: A system and method implemented in an interactive television system for scheduling delivery of modules of interactive television applications from a broadcast station to a receiving station. In one embodiment, the system calculates a start time from a predetermined end time and transmission interval for a module. In other embodiments, a transmission interval may be calculated instead of being predetermined, or all of the scheduling information may be explicitly provided to the broadcast station. The module is packetized and transmission of the packets for the module is begun at the corresponding start time. All of the packets except the last packet are transmitted within the transmission interval (i.e., between the start time and the delivery time.) The greater the transmission interval, the greater the flexibility the broadcast station has to schedule delivery of the packets and modules. The last packet is held until the scheduled delivery time and is then transmitted.