Patent ID: 7046677
Filing Date: 2006-05-16
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A method for processing a plurality of digital streams, wherein each digital stream includes packets sequenced for continuous presentation, said method comprising: receiving packets for each of said plurality of digital streams and storing said packets in a buffer; associating each of said packets with a respective stream of said plurality of digital streams; assigning a priority to each packet, said priority being determined according to a delivery deadline for each of said packets; assigning a tag to each to each packet identifying the assigned priority for the packet and an address of the packet in the buffer; storing each tag in memory corresponding to the respective digital stream associated with each packet; continuously monitoring the tags positioned at the memory output to identify the digital stream having the highest priority; retrieving the packet identified by the tag at the output of the memory corresponding to the identified highest priority stream from the buffer according to said address; determining when a new tag is present at the output of the memory after a gap in said tags for a particular one of the digital streams; establishing the priority of the digital stream corresponding to said new tag with respect to the priority of the other digital streams; and processing the packets from the plurality of data streams in order of priority.