Patent ID: 7251281

Claim:
A method for mitigating service outages in a digital broadcast system comprising the steps of: receiving a first broadcast channel comprising program content from a source data stream, data symbols in said source data stream being arranged in said first broadcast channel in accordance with a first interleaving pattern; receiving a second broadcast channel, said second broadcast channel comprising substantially the same program content as said first broadcast channel and being transmitted at substantially the same time as said first broadcast channel, said data symbols being arranged in said second broadcast channel in accordance with a second interleaving pattern, said first interleaving pattern and said second interleaving pattern being operable, respectively, to delay transmission of selected data bytes in said first broadcast channel and said second broadcast channel with respect to corresponding bytes in said second broadcast channel and said first broadcast channel by a period of time that is selected to reduce service outages; and de-interleaving said data symbols in said first broadcast channel and said second broadcast channel using at least one data storage device that is adapted to delay said selected data symbols therein by a period of time corresponding to the transmission delays imposed on said data symbols in said first broadcast channel and said second broadcast channel by said first interleaving pattern and said second interleaving pattern, respectively.