ACQUISITION OF DESIRED DATA FROM A PACKETIZED DATA STREAM AND SYNCHRONIZATION THERETO

摘要

A video decompression processor is provided which acquires video data for a desired service from a packetized data stream. The data stream includes transport packets carrying different components of the desired service. Each component is identified by a unique packet identifier (PID). One of the components includes a program clock reference (PCR) providing timing information for the desired service. The PIDs of the transport packets are monitored to recover video packets. Header information from the recovered packets is processed to recover packetized elementary stream (PES) packets having a PES header and picture information. Time stamp information obtained from the PES header is appended to the picture information for storage in a video memory. Picture information can subsequently be read from the memory and decoded using the appended time stamp information without having to reaccess the PES header. Various schemes for detecting, masking and recovering from transmission errors are disclosed.