Packetized Elementary Stream Headers

Depending on the Stream ID, a Packetized Elementary Stream (PES) header may contain various components.

The header

byte 0byte 1byte 2byte 3byte 4byte 5
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001
Start code
Stream ID PES packet length
Stream ID's which pertain to DVD
Stream IDStream typeextension present?
1011 1101
0xBD
Private stream 1 (non MPEG audio, subpictures)Yes
1011 1110
0xBE
Padding streamNo
1011 1111
0xBF
Private stream 2 (navigation data)No
110x xxxx
0xC0 - 0xDF
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 audio stream number x xxxx
note: DVD allows only 8 audio streams
Yes
1110 xxxx
0xE0 - 0xEF
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video stream number xxxx
note: DVD allows only 1 video stream
Yes

The extension

byte 6
byte 7
byte 8
76543210 76543210 76543210
10 PES scrambling control PES priority data alignment indicator copyright original or copy PTS DTS flags ESCR flag ES rate flag DSM trick mode flag additional copy info flag PES CRC flag PES extension flag PES header data length
The bit fields of the basic extension:

PES scrambling control -- 00 = not scrambled, others are user defined.

PES priority -- provides 2 priority levels, 0 and 1.

data alignment indicator -- if set to 1 indicates that the PES packet header is immediately followed by the video start code or audio syncword.

copyright -- 1 = packet contains copyrighted material.

original or copy -- 1 = original, 0 = copy.

PTS DTS flags -- Presentation Time Stamp / Decode Time Stamp. 00 = no PTS or DTS data present, 01 is forbidden.
if set to 10 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210 76543210 76543210 76543210
0010
PTS 32..30
1
PTS 29..15
1
PTS 14..00
1
PTS DTS flags -- if set to 11 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210 76543210 76543210 76543210
0011
PTS 32..30
1
PTS 29..15
1
PTS 14..00
1
0001
DTS 32..30
1
DTS 29..15
1
DTS 14..00
1
presentation and decoder time stamps use the 90KHz clock (SCR / 300)

ESCR -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210 76543210 76543210 76543210 76543210
00
ESCR base 32..30
1
ESCR base 29..15
1
ESCR base 14..00
1
ESCR ext
1
This is the Elementary Stream Clock Reference, used if the stream and system levels are not synchronized (i.e. ESCR differs from SCR in the PACK header).

ES rate -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210 76543210
1
ES rate
1
The rate at which data is delivered for this stream, in units of 50 bytes/second.

DSM trick mode - not used by DVD

additional copy info -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210
1
additional copy info

PES CRC flag -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210
previous PES packet CRC
The polynomial used is X16 + X12 + X5 + 1

PES extension flag -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210
PES private data flag
pack header field flag
program packet sequence counter flag
P-STD buffer flag
111
PES extension flag 2
The bit fields of the first extension:

PES private data flag -- if set to 1 16 bytes of user defined data is appended to the header data field.

pack header field flag -- if set to 1 the 8-bit pack field length value is appended to the header data field.

program packet sequence counter flag -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210
1
packet sequence counter
1
MPEG1_MPEG2 identifier
original stuffing length

P-STD buffer flag -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210
01
P-STD buffer scale
0 = 128 bytes
1 = 1024 bytes
P-STD buffer size

PES extension flag 2 -- if set to 1 the following data is appended to the header data field:
76543210 76543210
1
PES extension field length
reserved
Which is then followed by the indicated number of bytes.

The rest of the packet

Following all the extension data are optional stuffing bytes (0xFF), which are included in the header data length, and then the payload.
In the case of private streams the first byte of the payload is the sub-stream number.

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