Patent ID: 8149939
Filing Date: 2012-04-03
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of transmitting a digital television signal that includes, in at least selected ones of successive data fields, trellis-coded, convolutionally interleaved, time-division multiplexed segments of data descriptive of information content being transmitted, said digital television signal transmitted for reception by digital television receivers that comprise legacy digital television receivers capable of usefully recovering data only as included in (207, 187) lateral Reed-Solomon forward-error-correction codewords of a sort prescribed by a 1995 Digital Television Standard of an Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) or in 207-byte segments each of which departs from a codeword of said sort in no more than ten of its 8-bit bytes, said method comprising a step of: generating 207-byte segments of data conveying information content intended to be recovered only by digital television receivers other than said legacy digital television receivers, each of said 207-byte segments of data generated in this step departing from all (207, 187) lateral Reed-Solomon forward-error-correction codewords of said sort prescribed by the 1995 Digital Television Standard in at least eleven of its two hundred seven 8-bit bytes; generating (207, 187) lateral Reed-Solomon forward-error-correction codewords of said sort, intended to be recovered by said legacy digital television receivers; and time-division multiplexing said 207-byte segments of data, conveying information content intended to be recovered only by the digital television receivers other than said legacy digital television receivers, and said (207, 187) lateral Reed-Solomon forward-error-correction codewords of said sort intended to be recovered by said legacy digital television receivers.