Patent ID: 7274742

Claim:
A method of modeling the relationship between a systems layer bit rate and an elementary stream layer bit rate in a systems layer signal, the systems layer bit rate being the bit rate of certain systems layer segments transmitted serially in the systems layer signal, each systems layer segment comprising a segment of elementary stream information, and a segment of information specific to the system layer but not any elementary stream, the elementary stream layer bit rate being the bit rate of elementary stream segments of certain one or more elementary streams, the method comprising the steps of: (a) measuring a first value representing the actual systems layer bit rate and a second value representing the actual elementary stream layer bit rate during a given time interval, (b) using the first and second measured values to estimate a finite vector of parameters, (c) dynamically adapting a model that relates a third value representing the systems layer bit rate to a fourth value representing the elementary stream layer bit rate, wherein the model comprises the estimated vector of parameters and a function, wherein the function can be applied to the estimated vector of parameters and one of the third or fourth values to derive the other of the third and fourth values, (d) using one of the third value or the fourth value to control the systems layer bit rate, the elementary stream layer bit rate, or both, during a time interval following the given time interval, so as to generate a rate-adjusted output systems layer signal containing the elementary stream data, where the elementary stream data of the output systems layer signal has a bit rate that matches the one or both of the third value or the fourth value used to control the systems layer bit rate, and (e) repeating steps (a)-(d).