Dynamic rate control can be implemented in a television-based
entertainment environment when forwarding coded data. Real-time
information flows are encoded, transcoded, compressed, etc. into data
streams that may be forwarded to other components within an apparatus or
to other apparatuses across a network. In a described implementation, a
bitcount accumulation of a data stream is monitored in multiple
overlapping windows. The data stream is compared to a data limit in each
window of the multiple overlapping windows to determine whether an
expected bitcount accumulation has been exceeded. The data stream is
modified responsive to the comparison(s). For example, if the bitcount
accumulations in each window exceed the expected bit accumulations at the
corresponding relative positions of each window, then the bit rate of the
data stream can be modified by reducing bit rate consumption.