Aliasing and routing of plural mpeg data streams

Abstract

Aliasing and routing of plural MPEG data streams are disclosed. Disclosed apparatus embodiments include, e.g., a router or a cross-point switch that can route data packets from any source location(s) to any destination location(s). Such locations may be on multiple targets on a single processing board or may be on multiple boards in a chassis with a backplane linking the boards together. The disclosed aliasing and routing is achieved by processing MPEG data streams with associated PIDs so they can be transported between communicatively linked locations. This is achieved by generating a PID alias table with plural PID aliases for each input data stream; by removing at least one PID from each input data stream to thereby produce filtered data streams; by determining target destination(s) for each of the filtered data streams; and by buffering the filtered data streams so the filtered data streams can then be read and transported to respective target destination(s).