A system and method are described for providing drift compensation for a multimedia receiver which processes multimedia streams from a plurality of satellite transponders and/or cable/broadcast carriers. In one embodiment, the average drift amount for all multimedia signals in a first group of multimedia signals is calculated and, based on the calculation, the drift of the entire group is corrected. This drift is referred to as system drift. In addition, the difference in drift between each individual multimedia signal and the system drift amount is used to correct the individual drift for each multimedia signal.