Patent ID: 8027045

Claim:
A printing system, comprising: a print engine operative to print images on a printable media; a processing system operative to process incoming print jobs to create print-ready images for the print engine; and an assessment system operatively coupled with the processing system, the assessment system operative to cause actual or modeled processing of a portion of an incoming print job to determine corresponding processing rate information, to provide an assessment, prior to providing any print-ready images to the print engine for the incoming print job, of whether the incoming print job is likely to be printed without clutching based on the processing rate information and a print rate associated with the print engine, and if the assessment indicates that the incoming print lob is unlikely to be printed without clutching, to fault the incoming print lob and inhibit provision of print-ready images to the print engine for the incoming print job, wherein the assessment system causes actual or modeled processing of a plurality of segments of the portion of the incoming print job, wherein the processing rate information comprises processing rate statistics, and wherein the assessment system determines an assessed probability of the incoming print job printing without clutching based on the processing rate statistics, wherein the assessment system selectively inhibits provision of print-ready images to the print engine for the incoming print job if the assessed probability is less than or equal to a print probability threshold, and wherein the assessment system causes creation of a complete set of print-ready images for the incoming print job and provision of the print-ready images to the print engine if the assessed probability is greater than the print probability threshold.