System and method for adaptively allocating resources in a transcoder

An adaptive transcoder, comprising:

• a shared memory containing a plurality of decoder buffers configured to store a plurality of incoming data packets, a plurality of decoder instances configured to control a decoding process to generate a plurality of image raw data based on the plurality of incoming data packets, and a plurality of encoder instances configured to control an encoding process to generate a plurality of outgoing packets based on the image raw data;
• and
• a data processing element containing a plurality of processing cores and a core controller;
• wherein each of the plurality of decoder instances is paired with one of the plurality of encoder instances,
• wherein each of the decoder buffers is associated with one of the decoder instances,
• wherein each respective decoder buffer includes a respective monitoring element for monitoring a status of each the respective decoder buffer, and providing buffer data corresponding to the status of the respective decoder buffer, the buffer data comprises:
• a warning indicator indicating whether the respective decoder buffer has reached a first threshold of stored packets;
• an alert indicator indicating whether the respective decoder buffer has reached a second threshold of stored packets, the second threshold being greater than the first threshold;
• and
• a critical alert indicator indicating whether the respective decoder buffer has reached a third threshold of stored packets, the third threshold being greater than the second threshold;
• wherein each of the plurality of the encoder instances are associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of processing cores, and
• wherein the core controller uses the buffer data to associate each of the plurality of decoder instances with a selected one of the plurality of processing cores.