Patent ID: 7039115

Claim:
A method for processing a first plurality of channels of video data at a plurality of processors, comprising the steps of: capturing a sample of data from each channel of said plurality of channels; obtaining a measure of complexity for each channel of said first plurality of channels based on the sample of data captured for that channel, wherein the measure of the complexity for each of said captured samples of data is a function of a ratio of the number of B-frames to the sum of the number of P-frames and I-frames thereof; assigning each channel to at least one of the processors for processing thereat, wherein the processors comprise respective transcoders for transcoding the channels assigned thereto; and maintaining a running balance of an accumulated complexity for each processor according to the complexity of the channel(s) assigned thereto; wherein: the channels are dynamically assigned to the processors such that channels with relatively high complexity are assigned before channels with relatively low complexity.