Patent ID: 7796599

Claim:
A multiplexing apparatus for delivering an MPEG-2 transport stream (TS) packet error signal through a CableCARD interface, comprising: a TS packet reception unit for receiving TS packets; a pre-header generation unit for generating pre-headers corresponding to the received TS packets; a pre-header insertion unit for inserting the pre-headers in front of the received TS packets to generate cable MPEG packets (CMPs), the pre-headers including an indication of the MPEG-2 TS packet error signal; an output FIFO unit for storing the CMPs; a FIFO control unit for transferring the CMPs to an output signal generation unit without collision with CMPs of different channels; and the output signal generation unit for generating output signals from the CMPs of the different channels, wherein the multiplexing apparatus receives a TS packet and the MPEG-2 TS packet error signal from a demodulator, and outputs the CMPs to the CableCARD interface, the CMPs incorporating the MPEG-2 TS packet error signal into a HOST reserved field of a pre-header of the CMPs, the pre-header generation unit receives a 1-bit valid data indication signal (M_VAL) from a first dedicated bit line and the MPEG-2 TS packet error signal from a second dedicated bit line to set a packet error flag value in the pre-header, the pre-header including the packet error flag value is transmitted by the output signal generation unit on shared bit lines, none of which is dedicated to transmission of the packet error flag value.