Patent ID: 8320451

Claim:
An apparatus for processing a video stream signal that represents a succession of frames, the video stream signal comprising a plurality of dependent frames that each provide for prediction of visual content using selectable ones of a preceding and following anchor frame that precede and follow the plurality of frames in a temporal display sequence of the stream respectively, the apparatus comprising: an input for receiving the video stream signal; a processing circuit configured to generate a processed version of the video stream signal wherein a bit-rate alteration is performed starting from one of the dependent frames before an end of said plurality of dependent frames, the processing circuit being configured to execute said alteration by substituting a standard prediction from the following anchor frame at least for data in the video stream signal that encodes a region in said one of the dependent frames, and the processing circuit being configured to accompany said alteration by a switch to a mode in which the processing circuit substitutes a standard prediction from the following anchor frame in all following dependent frames that follow said one of the dependent frames until the following anchor frame, for data in the video stream signal that encodes the region in said following dependent frames; a transmission interface for transmitting the processed version of the video stream signal; wherein the transmission interface is configured to supply the processing circuit with information whether a bandwidth for transmission of the video stream signal has become too low for the video stream signal when not altered; wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify an upcoming frame that is next to be transmitted upon said determination has become too low, to determine whether the upcoming frame is a temporally first frame in said plurality of dependent frames, to process the upcoming frame as said one of the dependent frames only provided that the upcoming frame is not the temporally first frame and to substitute a standard prediction from the preceding anchor frame in the upcoming frame from said when the upcoming frame is the temporally first frame.