Latency reduction in providing interactive program guide

摘要

Techniques presented reduce latencies or delays in the delivery of an interactive program guide. In accordance with a first technique, a method for providing an interactive program guide comprises: providing a plurality of transport streams; providing a group of interactive guide pages within each said transport stream, where the group of interactive guide pages comprise related pages. In accordance with a second technique, a method for providing an interactive program guide comprises: forming a first transport stream including video packets with a first set of packet identifiers; and forming a second transport stream including video packets with a second set of packet identifiers, where the first set of packet identifiers and the second set of packet identifiers include a common packet identifier. In accordance with a third technique, a method for providing an interactive program guide comprises: providing an interactive guide page which may be navigated by a viewer; providing a threshold within the interactive guide page; and if the threshold is crossed during navigation of the page by the viewer, then requesting a next interactive guide page.