Compressed video seamless switching using variable splicing parameters

We propose a new approach for creating splice points in compressed video streams. The resulting streams can be switched seamlessly, and therefore no decoder underflow or overflow events occur. The proposed variable splicing parameters (VSP) method eliminates major encoder buffer constraints and related video encoding issues associated with the standard approach for creating seamless splice points. These advantages are achieved at the expense of a minor increase in the splicing operation complexity. When using VSP splice points, the splicer has to wait a specific period of time (equal to the difference between the out point and in point decoding delays) before switching into the new stream (i.e. the stream with the in point)