PCR jitter control based on a semaphore-controlled counter

The MPEG-2 transport stream is used in many systems for transporting multiplexed audio and video in a transparent way, providing time bases for the transmitted programs. Such information, which is called PCR and is also responsible for synchronizing the receiver, may suffer from inaccuracies, due to the processing chain between transmitter and receiver. This paper introduces a new PCR correction method named as the semaphore-controlled counter, which provides a stable time reference for the decoder. The correction module architecture is presented and compared to traditional methods, presenting lower computational complexity and hardware requirements. Simulation results show that the proposed method is effective and provides small jitter levels at the output.