Patent ID: 8335266

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a conditioned bitstream that includes a digital insertion location and primary network layer packets that contain compressed video data, the digital insertion location including a number of replaceable network layer packets, wherein the compressed video data in the primary network layer packets of the conditioned bitstream is temporally independent of the digital insertion location; receiving a second bitstream that includes replacement compressed video data to be inserted into the digital insertion location in the conditioned bitstream; determining a location of the digital insertion location in the conditioned bitstream; adjusting the bitrate of the replacement compressed video data in the second bitstream to be inserted into the digital insertion location to create adjusted replacement compressed video data, wherein the bitrate of the replacement compressed video data is adjusted such that a virtual buffer of a modeled decoder that receives an output bitstream from a channel does not experience overflow or underflow; providing timestamp information with the replacement compressed video data, wherein the timestamp information is configured to inform a decoder that receives the output bitstream when and where to position replacement video data, derived from the replacement compressed video data after decoding, relative to video data included in the compressed video data in the primary network layer packets; packetizing the adjusted replacement compressed video data and timestamp information into replacement network layer packets; combining the replacement network layer packets into the digital insertion location in the conditioned bitstream at the network packet level such that the replacement network layer packets replace the replaceable network layer packets in the conditioned bitstream, without depacketizing the compressed video data in the primary network packets and without decompressing the compressed video data in the primary network packets, to produce the output bitstream including the primary network layer packets of the conditioned bitstream and the replacement compressed video data and timestamp information of the second bitstream; and transmitting the output bitstream onto the channel.