Delay balanced video encoder system

Abstract

A process and apparatus for encoding are provided, wherein fields of a digital signal are processed to detect repeat fields. Adjacent pairs of the non-repeated fields are organized into frames. A determination is made whether to encode each of the frames as an intraframe, a predicted frame or a bidirectionally predicted frame. The frames are encoded in a specific, predefined order relative to the order of capture of the frames and the type of frame. After each bidirectionally predicted frame that immediately precedes one of the detected repeat fields, encoding of a frame is delayed for one field time. Encoding is paused after encoding each reference frame that is the very next reference frame to be encoded after a second reference frame, which second reference frame immediately precedes one of the detected repeat fields. A process and apparatus for statistically multiplexing multiple encoded digital video signals are also provided. Statistics are gathered for one or more of the encoded digital video signals and bit rates are allocated for transmitting one or more of the digital video signals as encoded. One of the digital video signals is encoded to produce a certain number of bits for each encoded picture in accordance with a decoder buffer model having a predefined size and filling at a certain bit rate, which is updated with the bit rate allocated to the one digital video signal. The update is delayed by a number of field display times depending on the number of times encoding pauses, and a presumed number of times decoding pauses, as a result of the detected repeat fields.