Patent ID: 8290060

Claim:
A method for receiving digital television signals that utilize staggercast serially concatenated convolutional coding (SCCC), said SCCC generated by inner convolutional coding of outer convolutional coding of successive blocks of data, said method comprising steps of: receiving time-interleaved initial and subsequent SCCC transmissions of said staggercast SCCC, said subsequent SCCC transmission transmitting each of said successive blocks of data corresponding to respective ones of said successive blocks of data transmitted in said initial SCCC transmissions a prescribed time interval earlier; decoding the inner convolutional coding of said time-interleaved initial and subsequent transmissions of said staggercast SCCC, so as to generate respective sets of soft decisions concerning said outer convolutional coding of said initial transmission of said staggercast SCCC and concerning said outer convolutional coding of said subsequent transmission of said staggercast SCCC; differentially delaying said respective sets of soft decisions concerning the outer convolutional coding of said initial and subsequent transmissions of said staggercast SCCC so as to be concurrently available; generating synthesized sets of â€œbetterâ€ soft decisions derived from comparison of said respective sets of soft decisions concerning the outer convolutional coding of said initial and subsequent transmissions of said staggercast SCCC, as differentially delayed so as to be concurrently available; and decoding said outer convolutional coding as reproduced within said synthesized sets of â€œbetterâ€ soft decisions, thereby to recover information content from said digital television signals.