Apparatus and methods for system multiplexing and program element identification is disclosed. A multiplexer generates a sequence of transport packets and associated program element information tables (PEIT). The header of a transport packet carrying the PEIT includes a unique PEIT indicator. A de-multiplexer first locates the PEIT by the unique PEIT indicator in the transport packet header. The de-multiplexer utilizes the corresponding program element identifier (PEID) of the program specific information (PSI) to search for the required transport packet that contains the PSI. The de-multiplexer then locates and extracts the needed elementary streams by searching for the associated PEID in the PEIT. The elementary streams are then sent to decoders for further processing.