In a video processing system including a video decoder, to handle frequent changes in the bit rate of an encoded bitstream, a video decoder can be configured to process a change in bit rates without reinitializing. The video decoder can be configured to reduce memory utilization. The video decoder can be configured both to process a change in bit rate without reinitializing while reducing memory utilization. In one implementation, the video processing system can include an interface between an application running on a host processor and the video decoder which allows the video decoder to communicate with the host application about the configuration of the video decoder.