Methods and apparatus for the editing and insertion of data into an encoded bitstream

A video processing circuit for inserting data into a first transport multiplex including a plurality of individual streams of compressed data, at least one of the individual streams including digital video data, the video processing circuit comprising:

• a demultiplexer for extracting from the first transport multiplex at least one of the individual streams of compressed data included therein;
• a first data reduction circuit coupled to the demultiplexer for performing a data reduction operation on the extracted one of the individual streams of compressed data;
• and
• a multiplexer coupled to the data reduction circuit and the demultiplexer for generating a second transport multiplex including the data to be inserted.

A processing circuit for inserting data into a first multiplexed data stream formed from a plurality of individual encoded data streams, the processing circuit comprising:

• a demultiplexer circuit for extracting from the first multiplexed data stream one of the plurality of individual data streams including clusters of data packets;
• a packet cluster selection circuit for receiving the extracted one of the plurality of individual data streams and for selecting clusters of data packets upon which data reduction is to be performed;
• a cluster data reducer circuit coupled to the packet cluster selection circuit for eliminating at least one data packet from each selected cluster of data packets;
• and
• a packet replacer circuit coupled to the cluster data reducer circuit for replacing the at least one data packet eliminated from each selected cluster of data packets with a data packet including at least a portion of the data to be inserted.

A method of processing a first multiplexed data stream formed from a plurality of individual encoded data streams, the method comprising the steps of:

• receiving the first multiplexed data stream;
• demultiplexing the first multiplexed data stream to extract one of the plurality of individual encoded data streams;
• performing a data reduction operation on the extracted one of the individual encoded data streams to generate a first reduced content data stream;
• and
• forming a second multiplexed data stream by inserting the additional data into the first reduced content data stream.