Patent ID: 7085324

Claim:
A VSB transmitter for use with an MPEG data signal and a supplemental data signal, the VSB transmitter comprising: a VSB supplemental data processor configured to preprocess the supplemental data signal, the VSB supplemental data processor comprising: a forward error correction coder that codes the supplemental data signal; a data expander for expanding each individual byte of the coded supplemental data signal into two bytes of data in succession to generate an expanded supplemental data signal; a header inserter for inserting a header to the expanded supplemental data signal; and a multiplexer for multiplexing the MPEG data signal and the supplemental data signal having the header inserted thereto in at least one of a predetermined multiplexing ratio and unit, wherein the multiplexing unit is a segment, and the multiplexing ratio varies with amounts of MPEG data packets representing the MPEG data signal and supplemental data packets representing the supplemental data signal; and a VSB transmission system connected to the VSB supplemental data processor for Trellis-coding the multiplexed data signal, and for modulating the Trellis-coded mulitiplexed data signal to form at least one data field comprising a plurality of segments that includes at least one segment formed from the supplemental data signal and at least one segment formed from the MPEG data signal.