Patent ID: 8737470

Claim:
A method for controlling a decoder, comprising: receiving, at a receiver module, a signal modulated by a hierarchically coded signal having base layer data and enhancement layer data; demodulating, at a demodulator, the signal to recover the hierarchically coded signal; determining based at least in part on decoding a base layer of the hierarchically coded signal, using a signal quality module, a signal quality metric associated with the hierarchically coded signal, wherein the signal quality metric is generated during decoding of the base layer to indicate a probability of successfully decoding the enhancement layer data; and inhibiting, using the signal quality module, an enhancement layer decoder to conserve power consumption based on the signal quality metric generated during decoding of the base layer, wherein inhibiting the enhancement layer decoder inhibits decoding of received symbols of an enhancement layer of the hierarchically coded signal while a base layer decoder continues to decode received symbols of the base layer of the hierarchically coded signal.