A method of preparing data streams to facilitate seamless switching between such streams by a switching device to produce an output data stream without any switching artifacts. Bi-directional switching between any plurality of data streams is supported. The data streams are divided into segments, wherein the segments include synchronized starting points and end points. The data rate is increased before an end point of a segment, to create switch gaps between the segments. Increasing the data rate can include increasing a bandwidth of the plurality of data streams, for example by multiplexing, or compressing the data.The present invention can be used, for example, with MPEG or AC-3 encoded audio and MPEG encoded video segments that are multiplexed into MPEG-2 transport streams.Also included are specific methods for preparing MPEG video streams and multiplexing MPEG video with MPEG or AC-3 audio streams to allow a receiver to create seamless transitions between individually encoded segments.