Patent ID: 8532188

Claim:
A method for generating a transport data stream of successive first data frames including image data of a plurality of programs comprising: generating one or more data streams, each data stream corresponding to a respective program and comprised of successive second data frames with a group of picture (GOP) structure for each program, each second data frame containing image data of an image of a digitally recorded image sequence belonging to a respective program, by one of a plurality of source encoders; determining a transmission start and a transmission period of each first data frame of the transport data stream; determining a transmission time of each second data frame of each data stream by allocating a respective second data frame to one of the first data frames of the transport data stream, by a respective one of the source encoders; replacing second data frames realized as at least one of P-frames and B-frames and to be transmitted in their entirety at the start of first data frames by second data frames realized as I-frames in each data stream by the respective source encoder; and packing each first data frame of the transport data stream with second data frames of the one or more data streams having a transmission time corresponding to the transmission start and the transmission period of the respective first data frame, by a multiplexer.