Data transmission schemes for DVD-like interactive TV

Current interactive services for digital TV are limited. They basically display a Web page alongside the TV program, which enhances the viewer's experience by providing extra information about the TV program. We define new interactive services for digital TV, which provide DVD-like interactivity to TV viewers. These services enable viewers to control the content and final presentation of a TV program. Some of the attractive applications of our services include parental management, multilingual audio, multiangle video, video in video, etc. The challenge in implementing these services is in transmitting an extra audio or video stream (called incidental) along with the main streams of the TV program. In the first part of this paper, we present a framework for adding the incidental streams to the original transmission stream without increasing the required bandwidth, degrading the picture quality of the main streams, or violating the compatibility of the transmitted stream with standard TV receivers. In the second part of this paper, we explore the two basic mechanisms of the presented framework: traffic characterization and admission control. We present methods for implementing these mechanisms. Using our methods, one can determine whether a TV transmission network has the capability of sending an incidental stream or not. Simulations were conducted to test the validity of our method. The results verify that our method successfully transmits the incidental streams without any discrepancy and without affecting the quality of the main streams