Delivery of interactive program guide data

Abstract

Interactive program guide (IPG) data is delivered to a receiver from which a program guide can be retrieved. The IPG data includes schedule-data for each of a plurality of time slots, description-data for each of the plurality of time slots, and non-time-sensitive foundation data. The IPG data is delivered by the steps of: (a) delivering a plurality of segments of foundation data having a predetermined closed-loop order; (b) delivering the schedule-data segments for a first time slot; (c) delivering the description-data segments for a first time slot; (d) delivering the schedule-data segments and the description-data segments for each of the remaining time slots; (e) subsequent to the delivery of the first schedule-data segment for each time slot, during a gap of sufficient duration to enable the receiver to allocate memory space for storing all of the schedule-data segments for the time slot, delivering the next non-time-sensitive foundation-data segments in the predetermined order for use by the receiver; and (f) subsequent to the delivery of the first description-data segment for each time slot, during a gap of sufficient duration to enable the receiver to allocate memory space for storing all of the description-data segments for the time slot, delivering the next non-time-sensitive foundation-data segments in the predetermined order for use by the receiver. Subsequent to step (f), the next given number of foundation-data segments in the predetermined order are delivered until all of the foundation-data segments have been delivered at least twice.