A description is given of the packetized data stream characteristics of variable-rate video coding in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network. Variable-rate video coding characteristics are presented using motion-compensated adaptive intra-interframe prediction and entropy coding. The peak/mean entropy ratio, i.e., the burstiness of the TV conference video signals, ranges from 3 to 4. A method is proposed to transmit the packets of the three outputs of the variable-rate video coder: prediction errors, motion vector information, and quantizer selection information. The packet generation interval distribution characteristics of the prediction errors and motion vector information are clarified. It is shown that the generation interval distribution of prediction errors and motion vector information are not characterized by a simple Erland distribution, but by a combination of different distributions.>