Transferring a digital video stream through a series of hardware modules

Abstract

A video routing system including a plurality of video routers VR(), VR(), . . . , VR(N−1) coupled in a linear series. Each video router in the linear series may successively operate on a digital video stream. Each video router provides a synchronous clock along with its output video stream so a link interface buffer in the next video router can capture values from the output video stream in response to the synchronous clock. A common clock signal is distributed to each of the video routers. Each video router buffers the common clock signal to generate an output clock. The output clock is used as a read clock to read data out of the corresponding link interface buffer. The output clock is also used to generate the synchronous clock that is transmitted downstream.