A device for transmitting digital packetized video and audio data is disclosed. The transmitter includes a video encoder, a prioritizer, and a packetizer. The video encoder receives video signals and encodes the video signals into a digital video data stream including codewords. The video encoder also generates motion vectors and fully intra-coded video frames for use by a video tape recorder during trick play operation. The prioritizer is coupled to the video encoder. The prioritizer receives the digital video data stream and prioritizes the video data according to a preselected prioritization scheme optimized for identifying data useful to video tape recorder trick play operation. The preselected prioritization scheme assigns the video codewords in the video data stream to a priority level according to the utility of each video codeword for video tape recorder recording and playback operation and outputs both the video codewords and a priority level signal. The video codewords and the priority level signal are supplied to a transport packetizer which packetizes the video codewords and associates a header with each packet. The headers contain information identifying the assigned priority level of the codewords in each packet. This makes it possible for a video tape recorder receiving the video packets to determine the utility of the codewords in a given packet from the priority level information in the packet headers.