METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MPEG ENCODING

MPEG compression for video/audio data is completed in real- or better than real-time by using computer processors in thousands of television receiver set-top boxes interconnected to a cable television network. The set-top boxes form a massively parallel, distributed computer network. MPEG compression for video/audio services is completed by partitioning the processing of video/audio frames into subtasks, and distributing these subtasks to set-top boxes which are not being used for subscriber services. After compression, the compressed video/audio frames are collected from the set-top boxes and are reconstructed into a compressed video/audio stream in the proper temporal order.