Patent ID: 6904095

Claim:
An encoder for encoding digital signal transmitted as MPEG-2 transport stream (TS) packets over the Serial Data Transport Interface (SDTI), the encoder comprising: a clock; and a first means for deriving timing information relating to the digital signal from the clock, wherein the digital signal comprises: data blocks, each data block including a header containing data relating to the block and a plurality of slots, each slot having a slot header relating to the slot and a data packet, a plurality of data packets containing at least a first part and subsequent parts of the digital signal, a first slot including said first part of the digital signal and a reference time defining a time of production of the first part, and each subsequent slot containing a subsequent part of the digital signal and timing information defining a time of production of said subsequent part relative to the reference time; said first means deriving from the clock, the reference time defining the time of production of said first part and said timing information defining the times of production of the subsequent parts, wherein said first means is configured to provide the timing information of each data packet relative to other data packets in said plurality of data packets, and wherein a slot coarse count and a slot sub count in said plurality of slots transmitted over the MPEG-2 TS are used to generate the reference time.