METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DYNAMIC BANDWIDTH ALLOCATION IN A PACKET STREAM ENCODER

摘要

A transport stream encoder comprises a plurality of component signal sources (5). One of the component signals sources is a source (7) of an opportunistic data component signal carrying a block of data having a predetermined size to be transferred within a predetermined period of time. A packet generator (10) is coupled to the plurality of component signal sources, and produces a composite packet stream, partitioned into successive groups containing a plurality of packet slots. A memory (20) stores a plurality of priority lists respectively associated with the plurality of packet slots. Each priority list contains a plurality of entries, and each entry contains data representing a respective one of the plurality of component signal sources. A scheduler (30) is responsive to the entries in the plurality of priority lists and conditions the packet generator to generate a packet for each one of the packet slots. The generated packet contains data from a component signal source selected from among the component signal sources having representative data in the entries in the priority list associated with that packet slot. A processor (50) modifies the entries in the plurality of priority lists in such a manner as to ensure that a packet containing data from the opportunistic data component signal source is generated with sufficient time regularity to guarantee that the block of data is transferred within the predetermined time period.