A device and method for utilizing a single clock signal (300) to generate a digital data stream signal for transmission in a compressed domain transmission system. The device includes a plurality of packetized elementary stream encoders (100) electronically coupled to a transport stream encoder (200) electronically coupled to an output interface (600) to generate the digital stream signal. The method uses the single clock reference signal (300) to operate each of the packetized elementary stream encoders (100) to generate a plurality of packetized elementary signals, operate the transport stream encoder (200) to form a transport stream signal from the plurality of packetized elementary stream signals, operate the output interface (600) to output the digital stream signal in a predetermined manner.