METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING A TRANSMISSION BIT RATE IN A STATISTICAL MULTIPLEXER

摘要

A statistical multiplexer for coding and multiplexing multiple channels of digital television data, or multiple panels of HDTV digital television data. A bit rate need parameter is determined (102, 104, 106) for each encoder (112, 114, 116) in a stat mux group, and an encoding bit rate is allocated to each channel based on its need parameter. A transmission bit rate is allocated to each channel as a time-lagged version of its need parameter to minimize a rate mismatch between the output and the input of a decoder buffer (184). A packet processor (250, 350) checks for impending decoder buffer overflow or underflow events to set minimum and maximum limits on the transmission bit rate. Moreover, these limits are set based on whether a new transmission bit rate can be implemented before the decoding time stamp (DTS) of the current or next frame.