Abstract: Systems and techniques for receiving a satellite signal wherein the signal is demodulated and iterative decoded. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract which will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or the meaning of the claims.

Abstract: Improved carrier recovery and symbol timing systems and methods suitable for use in connection with a dual-mode QAM/VSB receiver system is disclosed. Carrier and symbol timing acquisition and tracking loops are phase/frequency locked to an inserted pilot signal provided in an input VSB spectrum at a given frequency. An input spectrum is centered about baseband and the pilot is extracted by an equivalent filter which functions as a bandpass filter having pass bands centered about the pilot frequency. Since the pilot signal's frequency is given, its position in the frequency domain for any sampling frequency, is deterministic. The receiver's sampling frequency is provided such that the relationship is expressed as fC=fS4. When tracked by a phase-lock loop, the pilot signal will appear at the correct location in the spectrum if the sampling frequency fS is correct, and will be shifted in one direction or the other if the sampling frequency fS is too high or too low.

Abstract: A method for synchronizing receivers that receive turbo encoded signals to a received signal. Turbo encoding may enable signals to be decoded at a much lower signal to noise ratio than previously practical. A traditional method of synchronizing a receiver to an incoming signal is to use a slicer to determine a received symbol and then to compare the determined symbol to the incoming waveform, in order to adjust the phase of the slicer with respect to the incoming signal. At signal low levels, at which turbo encoded signals may be decoded, this slicing method may be prone to errors that may disrupt the synchronization of the receiver to the incoming signal. By replacing the slicer by a Viterbi decoder with zero traceback (i.e. one which does not consider future values of the signal only past values) a prediction as to what the incoming signal is can be made.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for determining the stopping point of an iterative decoding process. In one embodiment the estimated values of an iteration of an iterative decoder are provided to a signature circuit. If the signature does not differ from the previous signature developed from a prior iteration, or the signature developed from an iteration prior to the previous iteration, the decoding stops. The variance may also be tested and compared to a threshold as a criteria to stop the iterative decoding.

Abstract: An electronic, programmable filter is disclosed which selectively removes interference, noise or distortion components from a frequency band without perturbing any of the other signals of the band. An input frequency band such as a television channel spectrum is initially demodulated to baseband and applied to the input of the filter. The baseband spectrum is combined in a complex mixer with a synthesized frequency signal that shifts the spectrum a characteristic amount, in the frequency domain, so as to position an interference component in the region about DC. Once shifted, the frequency components about DC are removed by DC canceler circuit and the resulting spectrum is mixed with a subsequent synthesized frequency signal which shifts the spectrum back to its original representation and baseband. The frequency signals are developed by a programmable frequency synthesizer which a user may program with an intelligence signal that defines the frequency location of an interference signal within the spectrum.

Abstract: An electronic, programmable filter is disclosed which selectively removes interference, noise or distortion components from a frequency band without perturbing any of the other signals of the band. An input frequency band such as a television channel spectrum is initially demodulated to baseband and applied to the input of the filter. The baseband spectrum is combined in a complex mixer with a synthesized frequency signal that shifts the spectrum a characteristic amount, in the frequency domain, so as to position an interference component in the region about DC. Once shifted, the frequency components about DC are removed by DC canceler circuit and the resulting spectrum is mixed with a subsequent synthesized frequency signal which shifts the spectrum back to its original representation and baseband. The frequency signals are developed by a programmable frequency synthesizer which a user may program with an intelligence signal that defines the frequency location of an interference signal within the spectrum.

Abstract: Improved carrier recovery and symbol timing systems and methods suitable for use in connection with a dual-mode QAM/VSB receiver system is disclosed. Carrier and symbol timing acquisition and tracking loops are phase/frequency locked to an inserted pilot signal provided in an input VSB spectrum at a given frequency. An input spectrum is centered about baseband and the pilot is extracted by an equivalent filter which functions as a bandpass filter having pass bands centered about the pilot frequency. Since the pilot signal's frequency is given, its position in the frequency domain for any sampling frequency, is deterministic. The receiver's sampling frequency is provided such that the relationship is expressed as fc=fS/4. When tracked by a phase-lock loop, the pilot signal will appear at the correct location in the spectrum if the sampling frequency fS is correct, and will be shifted in one direction or the other if the sampling frequency fS is too high or too low.

Abstract: An electronic, programmable filter is disclosed which selectively removes interference, noise or distortion components from a frequency band without perturbing any of the other signals of the band. An input frequency band such as a television channel spectrum is initially demodulated to baseband and applied to the input of the filter. The baseband spectrum is combined in a complex mixer with a synthesized frequency signal that shifts the spectrum a characteristic amount, in the frequency domain, so as to position an interference component in the region about DC. Once shifted, the frequency components about DC are removed by DC canceler circuit and the resulting spectrum is mixed with a subsequent synthesized frequency signal which shifts the spectrum back to its original representation and baseband. The frequency signals are developed by a programmable frequency synthesizer which a user may program with an intelligence signal that defines the frequency location of an interference signal within the spectrum.

Abstract: A variable rate modulator for selectively encoding a variable rate data stream according to one of a plurality of modulation formats. A timing and control circuit locks the variable rate data to a master clock, an encoder selectively encodes the data according to one of a plurality of modulation formats, and a polyphase filter performs pulse shaping and interpolation functions using only shift and add functions to produce a DAC-ready output signal.

Abstract: A television receiver for processing both analog television signals and digital television signals. Specifically, the television receiver contains a RF/IF front end, an analog-to-digital converter that samples a near baseband signal using a "free running" sample rate, and a combined demodulator that demodulates the digitized analog television signals or the sampled digital television signals. The combined demodulator recovers both pilot and pix carriers as well as provide a passband adaptive equalizer that removes ghosts from analog television signals and intersymbol interference from digital television signals.

Abstract: A receiver for demodulating multiple digital modulation formats including vestigial sideband (VSB), quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and offset QAM (OQAM). The receiver includes a timing recovery circuit that produces accurate timing information for each modulation format and a signal processor for adaptive equalization and quantization of each modulation format. The adaptive equalizer is a passband equalizer that performs blind equalization using a feed forward equalizer and a decision feedback equalizer.

Abstract: A dual chrominance signal processor is disclosed which may be used in a combination television and video cassette recorder system, for example. Such a chrominance signal processor includes first and second modulated chrominance signal sources, and first and second demodulating carrier signal sources, corresponding to the first and second modulated chrominance signal sources, respectively. A demodulator is responsive to a chrominance signal and a demodulating carrier signal, for demodulating the chrominance signal. A signal selector is coupled between the signal sources and the demodulator, and selectively couples one of the first and second chrominance signal sources, and the corresponding one of the first and second demodulating carrier signal sources, to the demodulator in response to a selection signal.

Abstract: A numerical voltage controlled oscillator comprising an integrator for generating an estimated sine waveform and an estimated cosine waveform from a variable control signal; a normalizer, connected to the integrator, for generating a normalization factor from the estimated sine waveform and the estimated cosine waveform; and a multiplier, connected to the normalizer, for multiplying the normalization factor with the estimated sine waveform and the estimated cosine waveform. The multiplication of the estimated sine waveform and the normalization factor produces the sine waveform and the multiplication of the estimated cosine waveform and the normalization factor produces the cosine waveform. The frequency and phase of the sine and cosine waveforms vary with changes in amplitude of the variable control signal.

Abstract: A digital information receiver having a single oscillator providing a clock signal to the receiver circuitry. The receiver contains, in addition to the oscillator, an input signal processor, a symbol timing loop, a demodulator, a transport decoder, a transport timing loop, one or more applications decoders and a presentation device. The input signal processor digitizes an input signal and resamples the input signal using an interpolator such that the input signal is optimally sampled. The resampling is controlled by a symbol timing loop. In a first embodiment, the transport timing loop controls the frequency of the oscillator using transmitter timing information contained in the received signal. In a second embodiment, the oscillator is a free running oscillator and the transport timing loop controls a numerically controlled counter that, in turn, controls presentation timing of the information carried by the information in the input signal.

Abstract: A video tape includes a plurality of parallel slant tracks formed therein. Each track includes a plurality of successively recorded sync blocks. In each sync block, a respective portion of a first digital signal recorded therein represents a predetermined portion of an input image with relatively low resolution, and a respective portion of a second digital signal recorded therein represents substantially the same predetermined portion of the input image with relatively high resolution. Successive sync blocks include consecutive portions of the first digital signal, which portions correspond to spatially adjacent portions of the input image. Preferably, each sync block includes a fixed number of bits of the first digital signal, which is decodable without reference to any image coded signal from other sync blocks.

Abstract: A digital signal proces sing system for receiving and processing a high definition television signal, eg., in a Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) format, includes a filter for rejecting interferer signals such as a narrowband continuous wave NTSC co-channel interferer. In an illustrated embodiment the rejection filter is a digital FIR filter (18) located after a (de)rotator (16) in a carrier recovery network (16, 20, 24, 26, 28). The filter exhibits a zero throughput delay bandpass response with attenuation notches for rejecting NTSC co-channel picture and chrominance baseband carrier frequencies.

Abstract: Television images to be digitally recorded are divided into blocks and the discrete cosine transform DCT of each block is taken. The DC coefficient of each DCT block is scalar-quantized, and its AC coefficients are classified-vector-quantized (CVQ). The square of the value that part or all the AC coefficients among horizontal AC coefficients including a first AC coefficient and vertical AC coefficients including a second AC coefficient, according to the zigzag scanning sequence of DCT block, are subtracted from a representative value of a preset reference class. Using a multilevel compression method, lowest level codes are vector-partitioned by P-units at equal intervals with respect to each classified DCT block, and code books of representative vectors corresponding to the partitioned vectors are provided.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for compression encoding successive input images into a plurality of sync blocks which are sequentially recorded on a record carrier, comprises digitally processing each of the input images in accordance with a first image compression encoding technique so as to provide a first digital signal representative of a low resolution version of each of the input images. The input images are also digitally processed in accordance with a second image compression encoding technique which is different from the first image compression encoding technique so as to provide a second digital signal representative of a higher resolution version of each of the input images. Consecutive portions of both of the first and second digital signals are combined into sequential sync blocks which are then sequentially recorded on a record carrier.

Abstract: An image carrier for storing video information including a plurality of slant tracks recorded thereon, wherein each of the tracks is characterized as including a predetermined number of sync blocks defining a predetermined track length, wherein each of the sync blocks is divided into first and second portions storing respective first and second digital signals coded therein. The first digital signal permits reconstruction of an input image during a trickplay mode of operation while the second digital signal permits reconstruction of an input image with a comparable resolution during a normal play mode of operation. On the average, the first digital signal of each sync block represents a complete scan line of the input image.