Patent ID: 7748019

Claim:
A local network in a vehicle with several subscribers distributed over the vehicle, which form data sources and data sinks and which are connected with one another by a data line to transmit audio, video and control data, such that the audio, video, and control data are transmitted in a format which prescribes a clocked sequence of individual bit groups of the same length, in which certain bit positions are provided respectively for the audio, video, and control data, and the bit positions for the audio or video data respectively are collected together in several connected component bit groups, and the data assigned to these component bit groups are assigned by transmitted control signals to a certain data source or data sink, at least one data source being present for audio and video data and at least one data sink being present for the audio and video data transmitted over the data line, where the at least one data source comprises: a data source for compressed audio and video digital data, where the bit positions for the audio or video data are collected together in several connected component bit groups, the data source including a demultiplexer to separate the compressed audio and compressed video data contained in one compressed signal; a bit stream decoder that decodes the separated audio data to provide decompressed audio data; an audio buffer for intermediately storing the decompressed audio data and providing buffered decompressed audio data; a bit rate converter to selectively recode the compressed video data in response to a bit rate control signal to provide recoded video data; a video buffer for intermediately storing the recoded video data; a bus interface that inserts the decompressed audio data and the buffered recoded video data into the corresponding component bit groups, and receives a data sink video characteristic signal and provides a received data sink video characteristics signal; and a control unit that is connected to the audio buffer and the video buffer, and which specifies and controls the adjustable intermediate storage time of the audio and video buffers, and in response to the received data sink, characteristics signal provides the bit rate control signal.