Abstract: A digital television system receives transmitted television information in the form of a stream digital packets representing video and audio information in compressed form. A packet transport unit routes the digital packets to respective digital video and audio signal processing sections according to header information contained in the packets. The digital processing sections decode and decompress the respective packets to form sequences of digital words which are subsequently converted to analog form. Apparatus for providing audible messages, such as operating instructions and status information, in tone or voice form includes a memory for storing digital representations of the audible messages in the same compressed form which the transmitted audio packets have, and a controller for selectively directing the digital representations to the packet transport unit when it is desired to provide the audible messages.