Systems and methods of assembling an elementary stream from an encapsulated multimedia transport stream are disclosed. An exemplary method includes: receiving a command from a user mode video playback component; in response, processing layer-2 packets received through a network interface driver binding to assemble, into an MPEG elementary stream, multimedia transport packets encapsulated within; and supplying the stream to a decoder. The receiving and processing steps are performed in kernel mode. Also disclosed is an exemplary digital home communication terminal that includes a network interface, memory, and a processor. The processor executes code to: receive a command from a user mode video playback component; process layer-2 packets received through a network interface driver binding, in order to assemble into an MPEG elementary stream multimedia transport packets encapsulated within the received layer-2 packets; and supply the elementary stream to a decoder. The receive and process operations are performed in kernel mode.