Patent ID: 8582641

Claim:
A control unit for use in satellite distribution apparatus, said control unit comprising: means for allowing a plurality of received digital broadcast signals to be selected at an RF input; means for allowing the bandwidth of said selected signals to be compressed and rearranged for transmission onto a single cable outlet; and signal symbol stacking means to receive symbols associated with said selected signals from a signal demodulator; at least one filter, a digital to analogue converter (DAC) and a modulator through which new symbols output from the signal symbol stacking means pass to an RF output such that the RF output bandwidth is reduced by a factor of m compared with the RF input, where m is the number of symbols within the stack generated by the signal symbol stacking means; wherein the signal symbol stacking means rearranges the compressed signal by remapping said signal symbols; and wherein the new symbol is a weighted summation of “m” symbols.