Patent ID: 7174085

Claim:
A method of switching between a live video decoding and a recorded playback in a digital video and recording system, comprising: (a) receiving a stream of digital video data; (b) transmitting the received video data stream to a first-in first-out video decoder buffer without first looping the video data stream through a playback buffer; (c) transmitting the video data stream from the video decoder buffer to a video decoder and decoding the video data with the video decoder; (d) if a command is received that requires the video data stream to be looped through a playback buffer prior to further decoding, performing steps of: (e) transmitting the video data stream to a first-in first-out playback buffer while continuing to transmit the video data stream to the video decoder buffer; (f) storing the video data in the playback buffer; (g) halting transmission of the video data stream to the video decoder buffer when the video decoder buffer fills up; (h) marking a data element of the video data stream that was last transmitted to the video decoder buffer; (i) if a command requiring decoding of the video data stream to resume is received, performing steps of: (j) transmitting the video data stored in the video decoder buffer to the video decoder and decoding the video data with the video decoder; and (k) transmitting the video data stored in the playback buffer to the video decoder buffer starting at one of the data element marked in marking step (h) and a point immediately after the data element marked in marking step (h).