A method and apparatus to compress a DVB-ASI bit stream including accepting the stream containing packets of compressed media, sync words, and stuffing words, identifying starts of packets, identifying and discarding stuffing words; and adding information to form a compressed stream, added information sufficient to reconstruct a reconstructed stream from the compressed stream, with the relative locations of starts of packets in the reconstructed bit stream matching the relative locations of starts of corresponding packets in the accepted stream. Also a method recover the timing of MPEG packets including accepting a serial bit stream containing packets of compressed media streams, and ascertaining if the stream includes information indicating that the bit stream has a DVB-ASI form with stuffing words discarded and with indicating information added.