Transport demultiplexor with bit maskable filter

A transport demultiplexor for receiving a transport stream, the transport demultiplexor comprising:

• a) a packet buffer;
• b) front end logic, the front end logic selectively receiving a MPEG-2 transport stream and an alternative transport stream, the alternative transport stream comprising non-MPEG-2 data, the front end logic comprising:
• I) a bypassable synchronizer, the bypassable synchronizer receiving and synchronizing the MPEG-2 transport stream;
• ii) a bypassable packet parser, the bypassable packet parser selectively receiving the MPEG-2 transport stream, wherein the packet parser retrieves identification information from transport stream packets, and wherein the packet parser retrieves identification information from the MPEG-2 transport stream and appends packet identification from the retrieved identification information to the MPEG-2 transport packets, the appended packet identification used identify the MPEG-2 transport stream packets as video packets, audio packets or system data packets, wherein the bypassable synchronizer and the bypassable packet parser deliver the alternative transport stream to the packet buffer without synchronizing and filtering, respectively, the non-MPEG-2 data of the alternative transport stream, and wherein the bypassable packet parser comprises a packet identifier (PID) filter;
• c) a video unloader, the video unloader receiving selected MPEG-2 video packets from the packet buffer;
• d) an audio unloader, the audio unloader receiving selected MPEG-2 audio packets from the packet buffer;
• e) a data unloader, the data unloader receiving MPEG-2 system data packets and other transport stream data packets, the data unloader delivering the MPEG-2 system data packets and other transport stream data packets to system memory as system memory data for processing;
• and
• f) a string comparator, the string comparator including:
• I) a compare register, the compare register storing at least one compare value filter;
• ii) a masking register, the masking register designating at least a portion of the compare value filter;
• iii) an address register;
• and
• wherein the string comparator compares system memory data from the data unloader to the designated at least a portion of the compare value filter and stores a destination address of the system memory data at the address register when the compared system memory data matches the designated at least a portion of the compare value filter, and
• wherein non-MPEG-2 data outputted by the data unloader is transmitted concurrently in real time to the system memory and to the string comparator.