MULTISTANDARD VIDEO DECODER AND DECOMPOSITION SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING ENCODED BIT STREAMS INCLUDING START CODES AND METHODS RELATING THERETO

摘要

A pipeline video decoder and decompression system handles aplurality of separately encoded bit streams arranged as a single serial bitstream of digital bits and having separately encoded pairs of control codesand corresponding data carried in the serial bit stream. The pipeline systememploys a plurality of interconnected stages to decode and decompress thesingle bit stream, including a start code detector. When in a search mode,the start code detector searches for a specific start code corresponding toone of multiple compression standards. The start code detector respondingto the single serial bit stream generates control tokens and data tokens. Arespective one of the tokens includes a plurality of data words. Each dataword has an extension bit which indicates a presence of additional wordstherein. The data words are thereby unlimited in number. A token decodecircuit positioned in certain of the stages recognizes certain of the tokensascontrol tokens pertinent to that stage and passes unrecognized controltokens to a succeeding stage. A reconfigurable decode and parserprocessing means positioned in certain of the stages is responsive to arecognized control token and reconfigures a particular stage to handle anidentified data token. Methods relating to the decoder and decompressionsystem include processing steps relating thereto.