Patent ID: 7260158

Claim:
A digital broadcast receiver for receiving a digital broadcast that provides a broadcast service consisting of a combination of a plurality of types of signal information, wherein different hierarchical level layers of modulation schemes depending on the types of signal information are applied to said broadcast service, said receiver comprising: signal demodulating means for processing a received signal to demodulate a digital signal having a predetermined length of packet as a unit; code synthesizing means for synthesizing a level layer identification code for each packet of the digital signal demodulated by said signal demodulating means, said level layer identification code identifying the level layer of each signal information in said broadcast service corresponding to that packet, and for adding the synthesized level layer identification code to that packet; and separating means for deriving a packet adapted to the level layer of each signal information in the received broadcast service, in accordance with the synthesized level layer identification code added to the packet by said code synthesizing means, and executing a separation process to output a reproduction signal without changing any packet having a specific level layer to a null packet.