ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Modern telemetry systems require flexible bit rate telemetry encoders in order to optimize mission formats for varying data rate requirements and/or signal to noise conditions given a fixed transmitter power. Implementing a variable bit rate telemetry encoder requires consideration of several possible architectural topologies that place different system requirements on data acquisition modules within the encoder in order to maintain adequate signal fidelity of sensor information. This paper focuses on the requirements, design considerations and tradeoffs associated with differing architectural topologies for implementing a variable bit rate encoder and the resulting implications on the encoder systems data acquisition units.