scope:

This Recommendation is focused on the user requirements for new multiplexing techniques that resort to statistical multiplexing in order to improve the efficiency of the utilization of a constant bitrate digital transmission channel used to carry television and/or sound programme signals. It also provides a brief outline of statistical multiplexing techniques.

These techniques measure the quasi-instantaneous bit rate requirements of each programme component in the multiplex to be transmitted, and they allocate the total bit rate available in the channel to the various components of the multiplex in a dynamic way.

This approach allows to exploit the overall statistical redundancy of the information in the multiplex and its result is a benefit to all channels carried in it, since it amounts to a higher average allocation of bit rate to each multiplex component than would be possible to allocate, if each component were treated separately.