Patent ID: 7490343

Claim:
A method for keeping track of program indexes in an interactive delivery system, comprising: maintaining track of which of a plurality of interactive program guide (IPG) pages are currently being received at a terminal from a headend by using a program map table (PMT), a program association table (PAT) and a roster comprising a plurality of roster elements, each roster element associated with a corresponding IPG page currently provided to the terminal, each roster element comprising a first field containing a packet identifier (PID) for the corresponding IPG page and one or more additional fields containing additional PIDs for respective regions of the IPG page; receiving a request from a viewer at the terminal for a selected IPG page; determining whether the selected IPG page is currently being received at the terminal from the headend by consulting the roster; and if the selected IPG page is currently being received, then using the roster to determine the PIDs for the respective regions of the selected IPG page, processing these PIDs to recover the selected IPG page, and presenting the selected IPG page to the viewer, without requesting transmission of the selected IPG page from the headend.