International Business Machines Corporation

Tien Michael Nguyen

Frank L Stein

William A Mills

Srivatsa Krishnaswamy

Tien Haphi Nguyen

An interactive video system supports functions typically expected with a VCR such as play, pause, fast forward and rewind. A set top box is coupled to a display terminal and a first interface. The set top box includes a memory for storing an operating system in set top enabling codes. A video dial tone network includes a control channel and a data channel coupled to a second interface linked to the first interface. A first gateway controls establishment of a video session between a video server and the display terminal. A second gateway establishes connection between the video server and the set top box over a data channel in response to an input from the first gateway. An application server coupled to the first gateway and the video server contains executable code for transferring video data, video and audio information from the video server to the display terminal. The application server includes a shared queue coupled to a plurality of application engines and set top boxes and includes program code for multi-tasking operation. The code operates the application engines in response to application tables to provide video transmission as a panel object indicative of the state of set top boxes in a video session.

Growing community of inventors

Columbia, MD, United States of America

Tien Michael Nguyen