Patent ID: 6064676
Filing Date: 2000-05-16
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
A method for remultiplexing transport packets, including transport packets containing compressed program data, each program for which said transport packets contain program data comprising a constant end-to-end communication delay requirement, an independent bit rate and program clock reference time stamps of an independent encoder system time clock to which decoding and presentation of said program is synchronized, said method comprising:(a) allocating to each received transport packet to be retained, an unused descriptor in one of a sequence of descriptor storage locations of which a cache has obtained control, said sequence of descriptor storage locations being part of a queue allocated to a particular input port,(b) storing each retained transport packet at a transport packet storage location, of which said cache has obtained control, and to which said allocated descriptor points, and(c) obtaining control of one or more unused descriptor storage locations of said queue following a last descriptor storage location of which said cache has already obtained control, and transport packet locations to which such descriptors in said one or more descriptor storage locations point, said queue of descriptor storage locations and transport packet storage locations being maintained in a memory that is separated from said cache by an asynchronous communication link having a varying end-to-end communication delay.