CODED SIGNAL SEPARATING AND MERGING APPARATUS, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT

Herein disclosed a bit stream separating apparatus for inputting and transcoding an original MPEG-2 bit stream, and separating the transcoded MPEG-2 bit stream to generate a transcoded MPEG-2 bit stream and a differential bit stream, which is a differential bit stream between the original MPEG-2 bit stream and the transcoded MPEG-2 bit stream, and a bit stream merging apparatus for inputting and merging the transcoded MPEG-2 bit stream and the differential bit stream to reconstruct the original MPEG-2 bit stream. The bit stream separating apparatus makes it possible for the bit stream merging apparatus to reconstruct the original, high quality, MPEG-2 bit stream from the transcoded MPEG-2 bit stream already received and the differential bit stream, thereby eliminating the effort and time to send the original MPEG-2 bit stream again.