It is anticipated that video-on-demand and video as a component of multimedia services will be popular services provided by cable television and telephone companies. The proposed wide area network protocol for these services is the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) based broadband integrated services digital network (BISDN). In order to provide research useful for this video networking effort, this paper details two protocols for packaging and reassembling Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) formatted video into and out of ATM cells. These protocol are then compared and contrasted in terms of: minimal generation of overhead; minimal system delay per cell; and best error recovery/concealment facilitation in the event of cell loss.