[titzer]

There is a difference between hard real time and soft real time. Hard real time systems mean that missing a single deadline may be a crash, whereas a soft real time system, missing a deadline just causes a degradation. Video is definitely soft real time.

[iexplainbtc]

Hard and soft real time depend entirely on the context. An example of hard real time is flight control. The whole sensor - actuator - decision process must happen within the given threshold.