Method and system for parsing section data

Abstract

A system and methods are shown for accommodating high-speed data retention. Multimedia packetized stream data packets are received through a receiving hardware system. Program Specific Information and System Information data tables describing the programs and information in the packetized stream are sent as section packets within the packetized stream. Various fields are included with the section packets describing such information as the portion of the data table represented, the type of data table represented, and the version of the table represented. A host system configures the section parser to identify and pass only the section packets with the fields it specifies. The section parser then compares the fields to the configured values and determines whether to pass the packets to the host system or to discard the packets. Accordingly, processing overhead conventionally left to the host system is performed through the section parser.

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