Systems and methods for fixed delay video switching. One embodiment of the system describes a fixed delay video communication link, which includes: a real-time video encoder (RT-VE) that receives an incoming high-definition uncompressed video (HD-UV), compresses the incoming HD-UV into first or second HD compressed video, and transmits the HD compressed video over a communication link to a real-time video decoder (RT-VD). The RT-VD decompresses the HD compressed video into an outgoing HD-UV. And wherein on-the-fly switches between the first and second compression ratios, while continuing to receive the incoming HD-UV uninterruptedly, are both visually lossless and maintain the same fixed delay between corresponding pixels of the incoming HD-UV and the outgoing HD-UV.