An internet on-demand system for television presents internet content and
traditional television programming as part of a single coherent
interface. The system includes a server and a client capable of providing
a dynamic graphical user interface. The system can display an internet
gateway interface which actively scrolls through and highlights links to
selected web pages which are organized according to templates
corresponding to their content. The web pages are presented on the
graphical user interface as channels as part of the same milieu as
channels of traditional television programming. The user can select a
channel from a rotary menu wheel or via channel-up, channel-down buttons
on the remote control device. An intelligent agent passively filters
selected web pages for a user to explore based on the user's past pattern
of usage of the client. The server queries the client regarding its
available data stream connections, including telephone modems, cable
modems, wireless telecommunications and digital satellite broadcasting,
regarding its ability to detect embedded data in TV signals, in order to
determine the most efficient delivery of different types of data through
all of the available bandwidth connections for both directions of data
flow. The efficient delivery of data allows the client to present text,
graphics, video, audio and other multimedia information from a web page
over the internet as a coordinated presentation.