Using IVDS and VBI for interactive television

The system architecture for the IVDS/VBI interactive system consists of a set top box, a base receiver station (BRS), a data server and a VBI server. The Set top strips data from the incoming television signal and processes it accordingly. The set top supports all the functionality of a cable converter unit in addition to VGA computer graphics and composite video capabilities. The interactive data service display uses standard hypertext marking language (HTML) display definitions. This is the same capability used in defining Internet Web pages. These HTML files are displayed and interacted through a "browser" which translates the HTML files into visual displays and translates mouse activity into system events to be acted upon. The browser is similar to many of the existing World Wide Web browsers that are publicly available.