Patent ID: 7543326

Claim:
A method for providing real-time rate control, comprising: tracking a current bitcount in a time window of a plurality of time windows; noting a current time in the time window; generating a window level modifier based on the current time and the current bitcount in the time window; determining a new window level control parameter for the time window based on the window level modifier; repeating the actions of tracking, noting, generating, and determining for each other time window of the plurality of time windows to produce a plurality of new window level control parameters, wherein each time window of the plurality of time windows overlaps at least one other time window of the plurality of time windows; combining each new window level control parameters at a window level control parameter combiner, the window level control parameter combiner adapted to combine the new window level control parameter for each respective time window of the plurality of time windows to produce a combined window level control parameter, wherein the window level control parameter combiner is further adapted to combine the new window level control parameters for each respective time window of the plurality of time windows using an average of the new window level control parameters for each respective time window of the plurality of time windows; and calculating a top level control parameter based on the new window level control parameter and the plurality of new window level control parameters.