MPEG-2 transport stream decoder having decoupled hardware architecture

An MPEG-2 decoder for demultiplexing and interpreting an MPEG-2 transport stream, the MPEG-2 transport stream containing a plurality of programs that are divided into a plurality of transport packets, each of the plurality of transport packets comprising a header and a payload, the payload carrying portions of an audio, video, or private data elementary stream, and the header carrying information about the contents of the payload, the MPEG-2 decoder comprising:

• (a) an interface for receiving said MPEG-2 transport stream;
• (b) a decoupled architecture with at least two processors, including at least a host processor and an additional processor, the host processor generating an interface with a user and allowing the user to select a desired program carried within the MPEG-2 transport stream for display to the user and the additional processor being coupled to the host processor and being coupled to the interface for demultiplexing the transport stream into audio, video, and private data elementary streams in accordance with the contents of the transport packet headers, wherein the additional processor is capable of processing back-to-back program association tables and program map tables, and wherein the additional processor recovering program specific information from the transport stream, and prior to presenting the program specific information to the host processor interpreting the program specific information to display to a user a default program from the transport stream absent selection of a desired program by the user.