Abstract: A transport stream parser is described. In particular, the transport stream parser is incorporated in a host system such as a set top box. The transport stream parser operates on a data stream having a plurality of packets that have MPEG data. Specifically, sometime after the transport stream is received by the host system, the transport stream is directed to the transport stream parser. The transport stream parser selects TS (transport stream) packets from the transport stream by searching for a first plurality of codes in a first portion of each TS packet. Moreover, the transport stream parser scans a data payload of the selected TS packets for a second plurality of codes to determine a plurality of parsing result codes. In addition, the transport stream parser adds a parsing result word having the parsing result codes to each TS packet.