To assure compatibility with the largest population of television distribution networks and heterogeneous set-top box hardware and software, ActiveVideo is based on a fundamental building block of digital television — MPEG video compression. The streams are transmitted and decoded like any other MPEG program, but the ActiveVideo advantage lies in how the streams are created.

ActiveVideo streams can include banners, tickers, video windows, buttons, and any other type of interactive element. This building block approach allows application designers to combine visual elements and navigation into MPEG streams in the same manner they would design a user interface for a Web browser. While ActiveVideo programming may look like traditional interactive applications at first glance, the graphic below illustrates how a complex full screen image (in this case HD) is actually composed of multiple stitchable MPEG elements.
 
 

 
 
ActiveVideo Editor
The ActiveVideo Editor (AVE™) helps designers create “scenes” which are interactive layouts including audio, video, animations, links, application logic and execution controls. Visual elements are encapsulated within ActiveVideo so designers need not worry about the specifics of each interactive television platform. Programmers can define rules to specify how assets may be used and can communicate with external application servers using XML over HTTP queries. This allows ActiveVideo programming to request dynamic assets such as targeted advertisements from optimization servers.

The graphical layout tools combine ActiveVideo Objects in the same way that Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe DreamWeaver combine Web assets into HTML pages or Flash applications.