A Framework for Adaptive PCR Jitter Correction in MPEG-2 TS Processors

Currently, the MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) is widely used in many transmission systems, like digital terrestrial television and internet protocol television networks. It is capable of carrying interleaved audio, video, system information, timing and generic data, in an unified transport framework. Regarding receiver synchronization, it employs the Program Clock Refer- ence (PCR), which is a snapshot of the transmitter 27 MHz clock and is used to adapt the local one. However, the PCR may present inaccuracies on its time base information, due to reprocessing or network variable delay. This paper introduces a methodology for adaptive PCR correction, which has the potential to reduce the output jitter due to stream modifications performed by the TS processor, depending on the characteristics of the input TS. Simulation results show that the proposed method is effective and outperforms traditional schemes presented in the literature, by keeping the output jitter level as close as possible to the one at the input.