Remote display of an image by transmitting compressed video frames representing background and overlay portions thereof

摘要

An interactive video system employs Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) video compression to transfer images from a remote server to a television. The images correspond to dialogue frames in a graphical user interface. During an authoring process, the dialogue frames are created by first creating a background image and then adding foreground elements, such as buttons. A set of MPEG video frames is created by encoding the resulting images according to the MPEG algorithm. The MPEG video frames are delivered to the television in sequence, where an MPEG decoder uses them to reconstruct the dialogue images that are subsequently displayed. The system also contains an object-oriented database that maintains the necessary MPEG file ordering and also carries out menu navigation commands received from the user. The object classes include NODE, BRANCH, and DISPLAY. NODE objects correspond to dialogue frames, and BRANCH objects correspond to user-selectable features such as buttons.