Patent ID: 8068541

Claim:
A data processing system comprising: a first buffer for temporarily maintaining a portion of a plurality of compressed data streams, each portion comprising one or more units of an encoded media signal; and a switch for providing selective connectivity between the buffer and one or more processors configured to change a property of the data stream, wherein the ratio of processors available to compressed data streams is determined based on network environment conditions, the switch configured to direct one or more units from the buffer to the one or more processors at a time when at least one of the one or more processors is able to process additional data, wherein the one or more processors process a single unit of the one or more units of the encoded media signal, prior to processing another unit of a different channel of the encoded media signal, wherein when there are two or more units ready to be processed at the same time, a system overload is indicated and the one or more processors begin skipping at least one of the two or more units ready to be processed.