Patent ID: 7849476

Claim:
A system for automatically switching to an interactive application during a commercial break in video programming comprising: an interactive application module for executing an interactive application program and generating output data; a video program module that generates a video program signal; an input module for entering user input commands into the interactive application module; a break detection module to detect a commercial break in the video program signal and generate a break beginning signal; a display module having a primary display area for receiving the video program signal and the interactive application output data and displaying a primary display image corresponding to either the video program signal or the interactive application output data; and a switching module that switches the primary display image to the interactive application output data upon receiving the break beginning signal so that upon detecting the beginning of a commercial break, the interactive application output data is automatically presented in the primary display area, wherein upon the activation of a second interactive application, said system automatically saves a user's progress in the operation of said interactive program in a memory as to allow the user to use said second interactive application, and restoring said user's progress of said interactive program by accessing said memory to retrieve information corresponding to said user's progress automatically switching back to the display of said video program at the end of said commercial break unless said user enables an override command at the time of said switching operation as to continue the operation of said interactive application until said interactive application is terminated at the time said interactive application is terminated, said system automatically saves said user's progress in the operation of said interactive application as to resume the display of said video program in said primary display area, and received information corresponding to said video program is stored where the video program stored corresponds from the period when said interactive application and said second interactive application is being used after said override command is performed until said interactive applications is terminated, and playing back said stored information in said primary area, when said interactive applications are terminated, as to drop at least one frame of video from said stored information until said video program can be presented in real time only when the operation of said interactive application lasts longer than the period of time corresponding to said beginning of said commercial break and the end of said commercial break.