Method and apparatus for facilitating real-time and asynchronous loading and temporally-overlapping of modular multimedia software tasks in a multimedia data processing system

A data processing system for executing multimedia applications which interface with multimedia devices that consume or produce at least one of real-time and asynchronous streamed data includes a CPU for execution of one or more multimedia applications and a DSP for processing data including streamed data. A plurality of modular multimedia software tasks may be called by the multimedia application for execution in the DSP. A plurality of data communication modules are provided for linking selected ones of the software tasks with selected others of the software tasks, and linking selected multimedia devices with selected ones of the software tasks. Each of the communications modules allows continuous, real-time and unidirectional communication of streamed data. The modularity of the processing system defines an open architecture for real-time processing which allows additional modular multimedia tasks to be added to the software tasks and selectively linked to at least one of (a) selected ones of the software tasks, and (b) selected ones of the multimedia devices. A DSP manager is resident in the CPU which dynamically monitors resource allocation to allow at least one software task to be loaded and executed while at least one other software task is being executed by the DSP without interference with execution.