Readjustment of bit rates when switching between compressed video streams

摘要

A method and apparatus for the readjustment of bit rates when switching between compressed video streams, with or without video effects, uses bit rate adjustment to avoid overflow or underflow in buffer capacity at the splice point between the compressed video streams. A target bit rate for each compressed video stream is adjusted depending on the image complexity and buffer fullness near the splice point. The compressed video streams are decompressed and then requantized using a new quantization factor based upon the target bit rate to constrain the bit rates of the compressed video streams without a full decode and encode generation. <IMAGE>