Abstract: Approaches for recovering from a disruption in a live input stream when performing an encoding, transcoding, or decoding operation. A higher quality input stream and a lower quality input stream are received. The two streams may be an audio or video data stream. A real-time encoding, decoding, or transcoding operation is performed using the higher quality input stream. When a disruption in the higher quality input stream occurs, the real-time encoding, decoding, or transcoding operation is performed using the lower quality input stream. A state diagram that considers how long one or more of the higher quality input stream and the lower quality input stream have been available is used in transitioning from using the lower quality input stream to the higher quality input stream in the performance of the real-time encoding, decoding, or transcoding operation.