Patent ID: 8767856
Filing Date: 2014-07-01
Classification: H04L,H04N

Abstract:
1. A method for variable net bit rate digital communications comprising: generating a forward error correction (FEC) data frame from one or more interleaved Reed-Solomon (RS) packets, each RS packet encoding a plurality of data bytes; modulating a plurality of bits of the FEC data frame using a punctured trellis coder that is operated at a selected code rate, the code rate being selected based on white noise performance of a digital communications system; mapping the modulated bits to quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) symbols using a QAM constellation selected from a set of candidate QAM constellations; and providing a transmission frame comprising the QAM symbols and a indication of a transmission mode, the transmission mode identifying the selected code rate and the QAM constellation selected from the set of candidate QAM constellations, wherein a constant number of RS packets is provided in each of a plurality of transmission frames regardless of transmission mode selected for the each transmission frame.