ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007 specifies the system layer of the coding. It was developed principally to support the combination of the video and audio coding methods defined in ISO/IEC 13818-2 and ISO/IEC 13818-3. The system layer supports six basic functions:the synchronization of multiple compressed streams on decoding;the interleaving of multiple compressed streams into a single stream;the initialization of buffering for decoding start up;continuous buffer management;time identification;multiplexing and signalling of various components in a system stream.An ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007 multiplexed bit stream is either a Transport Stream or a Program Stream. Both streams are constructed from PES packets and packets containing other necessary information. Both stream types support multiplexing of video and audio compressed streams from one program with a common time base.The Transport Stream additionally supports the multiplexing of video and audio compressed streams from multiple programs with independent time bases. For almost error-free environments the Program Stream is generally more appropriate, supporting software processing of program information. The Transport Stream is more suitable for use in environments where errors are likely.An ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007 multiplexed bit stream, whether a Transport Stream or a Program Stream, is constructed in two layers: the outermost layer is the system layer, and the innermost is the compression layer. The system layer provides the functions necessary for using one or more compressed data streams in a system. The video and audio parts of ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007 define the compression coding layer for audio and video data. Coding of other types of data is not defined by ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007, but is supported by the system layer provided that the other types of data adhere to the constraints defined in 2.7.