Patent ID: 7801103

Claim:
A method for providing a plurality of broadcast services in which a time domain multiplex (TDM) super period has a plurality of TDM intervals, each TDM interval having streams of a plurality of time slots, each time slot being allocated to one of the plurality of broadcast services and having a plurality of TDM masks indicating whether the plurality of broadcast services are provided, the number of the TDM masks being equal to the number of the TDM intervals, the broadcast services being stored in a plurality of buffers after being interleaved and having TDM super period masks indicating validity of a plurality of bits indicating whether the same broadcast is provided, the number of the TDM super period masks being equal to the number of the plurality of TDM intervals, each of the plurality of buffers including a plurality of data areas and a parity area, and each of the plurality of buffers having data for the same broadcast service, the method comprising the steps of: if at least one of a plurality of buffers comprises data for another broadcast service, generating a mask indicating a position of the data in a corresponding buffer for the other broadcast service; and generating information comprising an indication of a presence of the generated mask.