SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DOWNLOADING AND RENDERING GLYPHS IN A SET TOP BOX

A system and method for receiving and rendering Unicode text in multiple languages on a set top box is disclosed. The system includes a set top box which receives an application program from a broadcast station. The set top box executes the application program. The application program includes Unicode character encoding text for display on a television coupled to the set top box. An operating environment running on the set top box includes a Unicode encoding engine which the application program invokes to display Unicode text. The encoding engine determines the language of characters in the text and invokes a rendering engine corresponding to the language of each character, thus enabling characters from different languages to be mixed in the same text string. The rendering engine has specific knowledge of the language, such as rendering direction and context. One or more glyph sets may be plugged in to the set top box to support different languages and fonts according the locale in which the set top box will be used. The rendering engine renders the characters using the glyphs in the glyph sets. Furthermore, glyphs not present in the set top box may be downloaded to the set top box along with the application program and rendered by a rendering engine. A set top box and method for efficiently storing and quickly retrieving the large number of Japanese Unicode characters using a hash table and hashing method in the set top box is also disclosed.