SYNCHRONOUS UPDATING OF DYNAMIC INTERACTIVE APPLICATIONS

摘要

An automation server (108) interfaces with broadcast scheduling systems of various types to synchronize interactive applications such as television sho ws and commercials so as to maintain the appropriate interactive application fo r whatever broadcast program is airing. This allows for television shows to ha ve an interactive application displayed while the television show in on. The automation server (108) includes multiple channel interfaces, each having a translator which translates native control signals from the scheduling syste m into a fixed set of atomic commands which represent the behavior of a broadcast program and an event manager with transmits commands to a broadcas t server (110) directly manages the interactive applications by transmitting code, data, and commands to broadcast receivers (120) that controls the execution of the interactive applications in response to the event manager's commands.