Patent ID: 7111314

Claim:
A system for providing an entertainment program over a transmission channel, comprising: a first processor for generating a data stream which includes program data representing the entertainment program, said program data including at least two different program segments; a second processor for detecting a demarcation between different program segments and for determining whether the entertainment program has interactive application data associated with the detected demarcation which is to be inserted at a location in the data stream corresponding to the detected demarcation or if there is no interactive application data associated with the detected demarcation, the interactive application data being data which is to be processed to realize at least one interactive feature at a selected point of the entertainment program, no predetermined bandwidth of the transmission channel being required for transmission of the interactive application data; and a control unit for dynamically allocating bandwidth of the transmission channel for transmission of the interactive application data when it is determined that a detected demarcation has associated interactive application data, thereby interjecting the interactive application data, into the data stream to be transmitted through the transmission channel, the transmission of the interactive application data through the transmission channel occurring prior to transmission of a portion of the program data, corresponding to a part of the entertainment program before the selected point corresponding to the interactive application data being transmitted.