Patent ID: 7480333

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a first data stream comprising encoded image data; and transcoding the first data stream to generate a second data stream, the transcoding comprising: determining whether the first data stream is characterized by one of: a skipped P macroblock and a first B-macroblock that is forward predicted from image data associated with an image location of the skipped P-macroblock; and a skipped B-macroblock; responsive to the first data stream including the skipped P-macroblock and the first B-macroblock: encoding a first P-macroblock based on the image data at the image location of the skipped P-macroblock; and implementing the first P-macroblock in the second data stream in place of the skipped P-macroblock; and responsive to the first data stream including the skipped B-macroblock: encoding a second B-macroblock based on a prediction error data set to zero; and implementing the second B-macroblock in the second data stream in place of the skipped B-macroblock.